tomtidgewell1 day ago

https://eminetracanada.com/newfoundland-puffin-rescue-patrol-pauses-as-bird-flu-kills-thousands-of-seabirds/604272/

st. JOHN’S, NL – An annual initiative to rescue missing baby puffins on Newfoundland was temporarily put on hold after hundreds of dead seabirds washed up on beaches around the island.

Suzanne Dooley, conservation director for a local chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, said the organization’s decision to suspend its puffin and petrel patrols this year was, in some ways, an easy one. He said it was difficult in another way.

Dooley said it was easy because the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian flu was making its way through the state’s wild seabird populations and suspending the program would protect volunteers.

But the patrol is difficult because it means so much to the residents of NL’s Witless Bay, which sits across from a ecological reserve that’s home to more than 260,000 pairs of orange-billed birds. she said.

The state’s chief veterinarian, Beverly Dowe…