Dangers of the bird flu and badminton

Goose Feathers Used for Badminton Birdies Sends Fear About Bird Flu

You might wonder what in the world is going on with the bird flu scare.

Over the past few months, the bird flu uproar seems to have vanished from the mainstream media radar. But in recent weeks outbreaks of the flu among birds in Laos and Indonesia have been reported, sending a chilling wave of fear through the badminton community.

That’s right: the badminton community.

When someone breaks out the family badminton set during a weekend get together, chances are the shuttlecock (also known as a birdie) is made of plastic. But if you’re a serious badminton aficionado, you would no more use a plastic birdie than you would use a basketball.

Why? Because a first-class shuttlecock – a true birdie – is made of goose feathers. But not just any goose feathers: it’s made of goose feathers plucked from geese in northern China. According to the UK newspaper The Guardian, each birdie requires 16 hand-selected feathers, and the required size and shape of the feathers is so specific that a single goose may yield as few as two feathers.

So while you and I may not be feeling the effects of the bird flu, badminton players are paying about 25 percent more for their goose feather shuttlecocks, setting off what The Guardian calls “panic buying” among the badminton crowd.

Torsten Berg, the “official bird flu spokesman” for the International Badminton Federation, put the dilemma into perspective with this comment in the Los Angeles Times: “I believe the problem is potentially considerable.”

For months now, health officials have been warning us about the grave dangers of the bird flu. But as bad as they’ve made it out to be, who could have ever imagined it would come to this!

Sources:
“Bird Flu Sends Badminton Players into a Flap” Sam Jones, The Guardian, 8/1/06, sport.guardian.co.uk