http://www.capitalpress.com/Washington/20150129/bird-flu-strikes-game-bird-farm-in-washington

by Don Jenkins

Capital Press

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A 5,000-bird game flock in Okanogan County has been infected with highly pathogenic bird flu, according to the Washington State Department of Agriculture.

It’s the largest avian influenza outbreak to date in Washington, where three non-commercial flocks in other parts of the state had previously been infected, apparently by migrating birds. Wild birds and a captive falcon that died after eating wild duck also tested positive for bird flu.

“There’s no real way to predict where it might crop up,” WSDA spokesman Hector Casto said.

The owner of the flock in Riverside, near Omak, reported this past weekend to the WSDA that about 40 pheasants and 12 turkeys had died.

The Washington State University laboratory in Puyallup confirmed the birds had been sicked by highly pathogenic bird flu, as opposed to a less contagious and less lethal low pathogenic strain.

Samples have been sent to a U.S. Department of Agriculture in Ames, Iowa, to pinpoint the strain. So far, three different highly pathogenic bird flu strains have been found in Washington since mid-December.

Castro said the flock has been quarantined and will be destroyed. WSDA plans to establish a larger quarantine zone around the game farm to restrict the movement of birds and poultry products. The WSDA has not released the name of the flock’s owners.

Castro said the flock tested negative for bird flu in November, but that was before bird flu first appeared in the region. Bird flu was confirmed Dec. 1 in a British Columbia, Canada, poultry farm near the Washington border. Between Dec. 1-19, 11 B.C. commercial poultry operations and an 85-bird backyard flock fell victim to the virus.

Highly pathogenic bird flu was confirmed last week in a 145,000-bird Foster Farms turkey farm in Stanislaus County, Calif., the first U.S. commercial operation to be infected.

Backyard flocks also have been infected in Oregon and Idaho.

The Oregon Department of Agriculture on Wednesday lifted a quarantine in place since mid-December around the premises where a backyard flock in Winston in Douglas County was infected in mid-December.

WSDA last week lifted a quarantine in Benton and Franklin counties around where two backyard flocks were exposed to the virus in early January.

A quarantine remains in place where a non-commercial flock in Clallam County was infected.

WSDA and USDA officials have take samples from birds at 32 places inside the quarantine zone, and all tested negative for bird flu, Castro said.