March 10: The district authorities of Nadia and Birbhum today said their tests had shown that chickens had died of wild cat attacks and worms over the past few days and not bird flu.

Three hundred birds had died in two days in a farm in Nadia’s Ranaghat block II, apparently after being attacked by wild cats, locally known as bham. Tests showed their necks had been wrenched.

Struck by the flu scare, farm owner Susanta Rakshit, however, buried his remaining 300 birds alive.

District magistrate .S. Meena said he was “surprised” by the post-mortem report.

Rakshit admitted that there were holes in the tiled roof of his farm through which wild cats may have entered. “Seeing so many dead chickens, villagers panicked and asked me to kill all my birds. So I buried them along with the dead,” said the resident of Gangnapur, 70km from Calcutta.

In Dubrajpur, Birbhum, worms are believed to have killed at least 500 birds in five days. District animal resource deputy director Narayan Das Bhowmik said: “We found worms in the samples of dead chickens. So, we realised it was not bird flu.”

Fresh chicken deaths were reported from Bhatar in Burdwan today. Over 6,000 chickens have died there since March 1.