Bird viruses

[(John Leonard)]

Trouble with viruses as agents of biological control is that they are never
100% efficient; they are often 99%, but then what you are doing is selecting
the 1% of the population with a natural resistance to the disease, which can
then breed up again afterwards. With small populations you could 'send the
marines in' afterwards to 'mop up pockets of resistance', but with a
widespread pest like rabbits there would be no chance of that, even if the
virus is much more effective than calici (spelling?) has been.

Also the chance of getting a family-specific virus in birds would be rather
small I should think.

John Leonard



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John Leonard (Dr),
PO Box 243,
Woden, ACT 2606

"that knowledge which is not a stranger in something
strange to it"     Plotinus 



http://www.spirit.net.au/~jleonard
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