Organizers of the Royal Highland Show in the UK have decided to cancel the show due to spreading fears over bird flu.
Organizers of the Royal Highland Show in the UK have decided to cancel the show due to spreading fears over bird flu. Managers of the event at Ingliston Showground feel that the risk of all birds gathered in open place is too high and hence decided to cancel the show.
"We always have display birds for the first two days of the show, then competition birds on the Saturday and Sunday," said Kate Stephen, the show's livestock and competitions manager. "We're talking about pedigree chooks - Scottish Dumpies, Old English game hens and all sorts of geese and ducks. We just felt we had to make a decision because we would normally be inviting entries from people round about now." The show features 500 of the country's rarest birds. But last week's dead swan with the H5N1 virus bird flu has scared people in the country. "If the H5N1 situation escalated, we didn't believe we could take it upon ourselves to put at risk the poultry farmers and egg producers a short distance away from the show at Ingliston," Stephen added.
