You may have read or seen recent news reports of the discovery of a wild greylag goose with Avian Flu at Martin Mere. The strain of Avian Influenza involved has never been transferred to humans anywhere in the world. No birds in the collection area have been affected and the goose is the only bird that we have found to have the disease among the 60,000 birds that have used the nature reserve this winter.

We are largely operating as normal at the Wetland Centre, open every day and looking forward to our puddle jumping championships over half term.

We are, however, taking a couple of precautions against the possibility of inadvertently spreading the disease amongst bird populations:

On entry and exit to the centre, we are asking visitors to step on disinfectant mats. This will stop the possibility of anybody bringing the disease into the site but will also stop them leaving the site and spreading the disease elsewhere, in the event that there is another infected bird at Martin Mere.

We have also temporarily stopped our visitors from hand-feeding the birds in the wildfowl collection. This is because we want to try to stop as many wild birds from mixing with the collection birds. Our staff will continue to feed the birds at set times, which makes it easier to control, and therefore limit, the interaction of the collection birds with wild birds.

We also continue to monitor both the collection birds and the wild birds on the reserve on a daily basis.