BANGKOK, Nov. 4 (Xinhuanet) -- The Thai government killed 147 tigers during last month´s operation to wipe out the bird flu virus, the Thai News Agency reported Thursday.

    According to the report, the tigers were killed at the Sri Racha Tiger Zoo where several tigers died from bird flu after being fed raw chicken.

    The government also killed more than 1.5 million chickens in the operation, the report said.

    The destroyed fowls were mainly from farms and villages in the country´s central and lower northern regions, where most of the bird flu cases both in poultry and human have been found since thevirus re-emerged in July, the news agency quoted a report of the National Center Fighting Bird Flu as saying.

    The report cited the lack of awareness and protective equipmentamong rural villagers and insufficient numbers of monitoring officials as main obstacles to effectively preventing the spread of the disease.

    The center suggested that the government pay more attention to enhancing villagers´ awareness of the disease and speed up compensation payment to farmers whose fowls had been culled to stop spread of the disease.
news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-11/04/content_2177115.htm