The animals have lungs similar to humans

Bird flu is spreading through a Utah mink farm | The Week US

By Devika Rao, The Week US

Published 14 hours ago

Share

Share this article

Join the conversation

Follow us

Add us as a preferred source on GoogleNewsletter

Subscribe to our newsletter

A virulent avian flu strain has made its way to a Utah mink farm, which could potentially open the door for the virus to spread to — and between — humans. Many are concerned about the federal government’s lack of action in preventing the spread.

Bird to mink to human

This strain of bird flu is “so virulent that if a single chicken tests positive, the U.S. government requires farmers to kill the whole flock to protect other farms as well as public health,” said ProPublica. The virus, though, has spread uncontrolled through the mink farm for more than two months, and there are “no federal rules for how to deal with sick mink.” In “other countries where such outbreaks have occurred, the government has ordered farms to kill their mink,” said The Guardian. No similar plans exist in Utah for now.

The outbreak is particularly concerning as “mink have lungs and airways that on a cellular level are remarkably similar to those of people,” said ProPublica. In the past, the animals have contracted Covid-19 and spread it to humans. Bird flu could emulate the same trajectory.

ByAydian Ahmad

FOX 13 Seattle

WDFW confirms presence of bird flu in Monroe, WA | FOX 13 Seattle

News

Published November 10, 2026 10:53 AM PST

▶

Bird flu confirmed in Monroe, WA

The City of Monroe is urging the public to stay away from wild birds after wildlife officials confirmed the presence of bird flu.

The Brief

• • Bird flu has been confirmed in wild birds at Lake Tye Park in Monroe following an investigation by wildlife officials.
  • The city urges the public not to touch sick or dead birds and to report any sightings immediately to officials.
  • Health officials warn that while pasteurized dairy remains safe, contact with infected wildlife or raw dairy products poses transmission risks.

MONROE, Wash. – The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has confirmed the presence of bird flu in birds at Lake Tye Park in Monroe, the city said on Monday.

RMD Rules With Roth ConversionSee how Roth conversions and RMDs fit into a broader plan for $1M+ portfolios.Fisher Investments|

Sponsored

Bird flu confirmed in Monroe, Washington

The backstory:

On Nov. 3, FOX 13 reported that wildlife officials detected bird flu in western Washington. Earlier that week, officials also detected the disease in central Washington, which led to someone dying after they were exposed to infected cattle at a dairy facility.

Then, officials located several birds that were either dead or showing symptoms of bird flu in Monroe, prompting WDFW officials to investigate the matter.

On Monday, the presence of bird flu was confirmed, and the city urges the community to continue to report sick, injured or dead birds to WDFW or to the Monore Parks Department.

If the animal is found on private property, the Washington State Department of Health has instructions for how to dispose of it, which can be found here.

What is bird flu?

Dig deeper:

Also known as Avian Influenza, bird flu typically spreads through the saliva, mucus or feces of an infected bird or another animal that hunts like an eagle, hawk, fox, or even wild and domestic cats, which can become infected by making contact or eating an infected animal.

Human infection usually happens after close and prolonged contact with an infected animal and its environment.

“Birds, animals, and humans can become infected if the virus enters their mouth, nose, or eyes,” WSDOH says. The agency adds that infected cows are able to get rid of the virus through their milk, which makes raw milk and other raw dairy products unsafe to consume.

“Milk and other dairy products that are pasteurized are safe to consume,” the agency notes.

What they’re saying:

The city of Monroe also provided the following reminder to prevent bird flu infection:

• Do not handle wild birds that are obviously sick or found dead.

• If you come in contact with a sick bird, please take special precautions to ensure that shoes, and clothes are cleaned and disinfected to prevent the spread of diseases.

What to do if you feed birds or hunt waterfowl

What you can do:

The WDFW posted a list of precautions to take for those who feed birds or hunt waterfowl:

• Wear disposable gloves when cleaning harvested birds.
• Do not harvest or handle wild birds that are obviously sick or found dead.
• Do not eat, drink, or smoke while cleaning game.
• Wash hands with soap and water or alcohol-based hand sanitizer immediately after handling game or cleaning bird feeders.
• Wash tools and work surfaces used to clean game birds with soap and water, then disinfect with a 10% solution of household bleach.
• Clean bird feeders and bird baths the same way often.
• Cook game birds thoroughly to an internal temperature of 155 to 165 degrees Fahrenheit to kill disease organisms and parasites. Freezing does not kill the HPAI virus.
• Do not allow pets to scavenge on dead or sick wildlife.

The WDFW is encouraging anyone who encounters a sick or a dead bird to report it, and avoid touching or moving it.

The Source: Information for this story came from the Washington State Department of Health, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the City of Monroe. Previous reporting by FOX 13 Seattle was also used.

22 hours ago

Sophia Peters

Choptank River Park temporarily closes for beaver trapping – 47abc

Image Courtesy of Salisbury Zoo

GREENSBORO, Md. – The Town of Greensboro has announced that Choptank River Park will be temporarily closed amid beaver trapping efforts in the area.

In a post to social media, town officials said the trapping was being conducted after beavers caused damage to several trees along the river. As a result, Choptank River Park, including the boat ramp, will be closed daily from dusk til dawn while trapping operations are underway.

“For the safety of your pets, do not allow them to roam near the riverbank or any traps,” the announcement read. “This closure is necessary for public safety, the safety of pets, and to allow trapping efforts to be successful without disturbance.”

The park and boat ramp will reopen for normal use once trapping operations are completed.

H5N1, otherwise known as Bird Flu, has spread across the world in 30 years, but it may be entering a deadly new era.By Darren OrfPublished: Nov 10, 2026 9:00 AM ESTSave ArticleShare ArticleListen (5 min)

Uma Shankar sharma//Getty Images

Gear-obsessed editors choose every product we review. We may earn commission if you buy from a link. Why Trust Us?

3 min read

Earlier this week, a resident in Yakima County in Washington State died from bird flu, a highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus. Known in more scientific circles as the H5N1, the virus isn’t nearly as threatening to humans as the Covid-19 coronavirus (whose first victims were similarly located in Washington State back in February 2020). But some experts are growing increasingly concerned that this influenza, which for decades has decimated avian populations (and in more recent years, severely impacted the dairy industry), could develop into something more sinister.

The first known case of H5N1 first appeared in 1996 in flocks of domestic waterfowl in southern China. By its nature as an HPAI virus, H5N1 is tailored to latch on to avian cells rather than mammalian cells, including a human’s. However, things have slowly been changing over the decades, and H5N1 mutations have made the virus much more adept at attacking mammals.

The newest threat originated during the depths of the Covid-19 pandemic as H5N1 wreaked havoc on seabirds in Europe. The virus eventually found its way to the U.S. in 2022, and hundreds of millions of birds, both wild and domestic, died as a result. A 2024 study by UC Davis reported that the virus reached the very tip of South America, infecting and killing thousands of elephant seals and leaving their bodies strewn along Argentinian beaches.

Watch: Noah’s Ark Search Took Strange Turn | Episode 70

Related Story

• Scientists Discovered How to Wipe Out Tuberculosis

Of course, elephant seals are famously not birds, and during that same time, bovine populations in the U.S. started exhibiting signs of H5N1 infections, driven by polymerase mutations that allowed for better replication in bovine cells. Concerningly, a 2024 study demonstrated that just a single mutation to the bovine influenza H5N1, specifically the hemagglutinin (the surface protein that drives attachment), could switch the virus’s specificity to target humans.

Intermediate species can help the virus make the jump to humans (one theory suggests that this is how Covid-19 spread from bats to humans), and last month ProPublica reported that a recent outbreak of H5N1 at a mink farm in Utah is particularly distressing. Unlike those of cows or elephant seals, mink lungs and airways closely resemble ours at a cellular level, raising fears that the virus could adapt to infect humans more easily. When H5N1 impacted mink and fox farms in Finland and Spain, officials moved to cull the infected populations, killing tens of thousands of animals in the process. But ProPublica says state and federal officials in the U.S. have instead done little to curtail the spread.

“Every other country that I’m aware of that has had H5N1 in fur farms, depopulation has happened pretty quickly,” avian influenza researcher Tom Peacock told ProPublica. “The fact that the first instinct wasn’t just to depopulate and figure stuff out later is very concerning to me.”

Related Story

• Airplane Wastewater Could Help Fight Superbugs

If the worst comes to pass, the Trump Administration has gone out of its way so that the country—and the rest of the world—will be vulnerable to the virus. In May 2025, Robert F. Kennedy, the U.S. Secretary of Health of Human Service and well-known vaccine skeptic, cancelled a $700 million contract with Moderna to develop an mRNA vaccine for H5N1.

The tragic death earlier this month came from the H5N1 B.13 genotype variant seen in cows, and a CDC spokesperson speaking with Associated Press said that the virus contained no changes that would make it more contagious—but the threat very much remains.

“A bad scenario would be that someone working with cattle brought the ‘regular’ human flu in, got [H5N1] on top of that, and that develops into a mix that can spread but to which people have less immunity,” public health virologist Marion Koopmans told The Telegraph. “The chances of such an event are very low, but it is a concern shared among virologists.”

It took a full week to catch this feisty trash panda.

Margherita Bassi

Published Nov 7, 2026 10:06 AM EST

Raccoon with an arrow stuck in her face rescued in Massachusetts | Popular Science

Add Popular Science(opens in a new tab)More information

about:blank

Earlier this week, wildlife veterinarian Dr. Priya Patel and her colleagues at the Cape Wildlife Center in Barnstable, Massachusetts had to deal with something they had never seen before: a raccoon with an arrow sticking out of its face.

But the saga really began several days before then, when an individual in Plymouth, Massachusetts called the Cape Wildlife Center to let them know that they had spotted the injured raccoon. The wildlife center team told the caller to contact the local animal control to apprehend the raccoon, who had no intention of making it easy.

It took animal control around one week to catch the trash panda. Patel, who is also the medical director of the wildlife center, tells Popular Science that she was a “very feisty raccoon,” even while inside of her cage. “So we decided to sedate her right away in the cage so that there was less stress for her, and then we were safe getting her out.”

Once the snoozing raccoon had been removed from the cage, the team realized that whatever was sticking out of her face was also sticking out the back of her head. Patel and her colleagues quickly took X-ray images, which revealed the obvious shape of an arrow—possibly a mini crossbow arrow. In her misfortune, the feisty raccoon was actually incredibly lucky. The arrow hadn’t touched her eye or sinus cavity, nor had it fractured her skull.

“We were able to quickly assess that there was no major structural damage to her, and then we were able to remove it,” Patel explains. “And so we cleaned the wound and put some antibiotic ointment on it and started her on antibiotics and paint meds. She just got really lucky, and we were just grateful to Plymouth animal control for not giving up on trying to catch her.”

The raccoon is doing well, and will stay at the wildlife center until the wound heals properly and she completes a course of antibiotics. The team then expects to return her to the wild.

In Massachusetts, it is legal to hunt raccoons. In 2026, the raccoon and opossum hunting season was from January 1 to January 31, and from October 2026 through the end of the year.