Poisoning, not bird flu as suspected, has been identified as the cause of a mass bird death in early February in the territory of Taizhou City, east China's Jiangsu Province, the State Forestry Administration (SFA) said Friday.

On Feb. 5, villagers from the Chengnan Village and Xinmin Village of Taizhou saw flocks of bramble finches, a migratory bird commonly seen in the reed marshes along the Yangtze River in February and March, suddenly drop like rain from the sky and more than 3,000 died within an hour.

Samples of the dead birds were immediately sent for bird flu testing to the provincial headquarters in charge of preventing and controlling major animal epidemics.

The local government disinfected the courtyards, poultry cages and streets of the two villages to prevent a possible bird flu outbreak.

The local health and disease prevention department made a record and follow-up observation of those villagers who had contacted or mistakenly eaten dead birds.

The SFA also sent a joint team consisting of bird, epidemic and virus experts to the site to investigate the cause.

The local police found out that before the mass bird death incident, Dai Guiping, a villager from Xinmin Village, had asked for half a kilogram of poisoned bait from Chen Guangyou, who had apiece of contracted land in the village, and threw the bait into her own contracted plow land. Dai then picked about three kilograms of dead birds and ate them up.

Dai was later detained by the police, and Chen Guangyou is still at large. It is not yet known what poison has caused the birds' death.

So far, bird flu has been found in 16 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities across China, and 49 outbreaks had been confirmed. The quarantine on areas hit by the H5N1 strain of bird flu in at least six provinces has been lifted.

(Xinhua News Agency February 28, 2004)