US embassy cable - 05YEREVAN1905

Disclaimer: This site has been first put up 15 years ago. Since then I would probably do a couple things differently, but because I've noticed this site had been linked from news outlets, PhD theses and peer rewieved papers and because I really hate the concept of "digital dark age" I've decided to put it back up. There's no chance it can produce any harm now.

MASS BIRD DEATHS REPORTED IN NORTHERN IRAN

Identifier: 05YEREVAN1905
Wikileaks: View 05YEREVAN1905 at Wikileaks.org
Origin: Embassy Yerevan
Created: 2005-10-26 11:54:00
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
Tags: TBIO KSCA ECON PREL SOCI IR AM EARG WHO
Redacted: This cable was not redacted by Wikileaks.
This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

UNCLAS YEREVAN 001905 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: TBIO, KSCA, ECON, PREL, SOCI, IR, AM, EARG, WHO 
SUBJECT: MASS BIRD DEATHS REPORTED IN NORTHERN IRAN 
 
REF: YEREVAN 1856 
 
Sensitive but unclassified.  Please protect accordingly. 
 
(SBU)  On October 26, a local Armenian newspaper, citing the 
Iranian Students' News Agency, reported that 5,000 migratory 
birds died near the Armenian-Iranian border in the Atrpatakan 
province of Iran.  The Iranian name for this area is West 
Azerbaijan.  According to the press coverage, birds in the 
Atrpatakan region are dying at a rate of 70 per day.  On 
October 12, the World Organization for Animal Health (French 
acronym OIE) reported that approximately 3,673 birds had died 
in West Azerbaijan.  It is not clear whether the Armenian 
press coverage refers to the original OIE-reported deaths or 
a second wave of bird deaths.  According to an October 26 
article on the Tehran Times website, Tehran-based World 
Health Organization Representative Dr. Mobasher Riyadh Sheikh 
said there have been no observed cases of bird flu in Iran. 
He also said the dead birds from the West Azerbaijan province 
tested negative for the H5N1 virus. 
EVANS 

Latest source of this page is cablebrowser-2, released 2011-10-04