Cornwall wildlife sanctuary Paradise Park on high alert after bird flu outbreak nearby

Paradise Park, in Hayle, is on high alert after a bird flu outbreak at a nearby village, as ITV News' Grace Pascoe reports

A popular tourist attraction in Cornwall home to around 1,300 exotic and rare birds is on high alert after an outbreak of bird flu was confirmed in a nearby village.

Keepers at Paradise Park, in Hayle, have introduced a range of strict bio-security measures to protect its collection of exotic and rare birds, many of which are part of vital conservation programmes worldwide.

It comes after the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 was found on a poultry farm near Rosudgeon last week.

All poultry at the infected farm have had to be culled, and staff at Paradise Park are worried its birds could face a similar fate should bird flu be detected on its site.

Nick Reynolds, director at Paradise Park, said: "We've got approximately 1300 birds here, so the impact is that we've got to increase our biosecurity measures hugely.

"We're cleaning footpaths, and we've also got a protocol for all the staff, for example washing down with disinfectant, washing each other down, wearing wet weather gear all the time."

"We're really quite worried about the impact of the outbreak," he added.

Paradise Park lies within the 10km surveillance zone around the farm with confirmed cases of bird flu.

Consequently, biosecurity measures have been implemented, with staff not allowed to move birds off-site or receive new birds onto the site. Planned conservation breeding programmes have also been put on hold.  

David Woolcock, a curator at Paradise Park, said some areas are closed off to visitors and keepers have moved a group of flamingos into a new polytunnel enclosure to protect them against infection.

"Flamingos are particularly susceptible to bird flu as they spend a lot of time in and around water, and it's water birds which are the main carriers of avian influenza," he explained.

"By bringing them into a new polytunnel enclosure, they have no direct contact with the water birds from the estuary, so it means that they'll be safe and secure for the duration of the avian influenza outbreak."

Mr Woolcock also thanked the keepers and staff who have worked "extremely hard behind the scenes and on days off to get the vital additional biosecurity measures in place."

He added: "We have split the park into 53 separate individual units — all of which have their own cleaning utensils and their own footbaths — and we have designated staff to different units within the park.

"We want to make sure if we were unlucky enough to have an outbreak of bird flu here at the park, we can then contain it in a very small zone and the rest of the park will hopefully be safe."