MOSCOW, Feb. 23 (Xinhuanet) -- Mass poultry deaths were reported on a chicken farm in the southern Russian area of Krasnodar on Thursday, one day after bird flu was detected in three places in the neighboring region of Stavropol.

    The deaths of fowl occurred on a large farm with 300,000 chickens. All the 90,000 chickens which shared the coop with the dead birds will be culled to fend off possible outbreaks of the disease, said officials with the emergency department of the Krasnodar region.

    Some experts suspected that the poultry deaths were not caused by bird flu but Newcastle disease, a rare illness among birds that is not dangerous to humans.

    The disease may also be the poultry killer on a chicken farm in Russia's southern republic of Dagestan, the experts added. They were investigating the two cases and will publish the results at the weekend.

    In neighboring Georgia, bird deaths were also reported on Wednesday in Batumi, capital of the country's western republic of Adzharia.

    Fishers have found dozens of dead wild ducks near the Caspian Sea over the past two weeks, which was suspected to be signs of bird flu outbreaks. Enditem