Thursday, February 5, 2009

Watch those peanuts!


Tufted Titmouse
Originally uploaded by Laura Erickson
This week the Cornell Lab of Ornithology put together a blog post, Health Update: Peanuts, Salmonella, and Backyard Birds, to let people know about the dangers of peanuts during this salmonella outbreak. Of course, they don't have all the answers as far as suet cakes with peanut products go--food sold for us wild birds isn't covered by US laws regulating food products sold for human, pet, or livestock consumption. And hard as it is for me to admit this, a lot of my friends are functionally illiterate, and haven't read any of the news about the whole issue, so our only hope is that the people who put out food for us are darned careful. If you can believe this, some people who are in the bird-feeding business actually think salmonella can't hurt us! If ignorance is bliss, people must be the happiest species on earth.

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