By Mitchell Willetts January 12, 2025 1:23 PM| 1 Wildlife experts are capturing predators from Canada to release them in Colorado. Lance Anderson via Unsplash Wildlife experts are in the process of capturing gray wolves from Canada in order to release them in Colorado, effectively doubling the state’s small, recently reintroduced population. Until recently, gray wolves were virtually extinct in Colorado, but state officials are going to great lengths to change that. TOP VIDEOS As many as 15 gray wolves will soon be released, all of them captured in British Columbia, Canada, Colorado Parks and Wildlife announced in a Jan. 11 news release. They will be put in crates, loaded into an aircraft and flown, then released in western Colorado, officials said. The move comes after the state in 2023 reintroduced gray wolves, which were exterminated from Colorado in the 1940s through hunting, trapping and poisoning because the wolves had been targeting cattle and livestock. The controversial effort to bring gray wolves back has had mixed success. Of the first 10 wolves brought in from Oregon, dubbed the Copper Creek pack, just six remain in the wild, with one having been recaptured and three killed, Coloradoan.com reported. The pack has also preyed on livestock which, while not unexpected, prompted wildlife officials to relocate some of the wolves, McClatchy News reported. Gray wolves are native to Colorado but were extirpated from the state in large part due to intentional hunting and trapping efforts. Michael LaRosa via Unsplash Releasing the Canadian gray wolves will more than double the animal’s population in the state — and officials are just getting started. “CPW plans to release 10-15 gray wolves on the West Slope per year, for a total of 3 – 5 years, as outlined in the Colorado Wolf Restoration and Management Plan,” Colorado Parks and Wildlife said. Officials said the wolves being captured in Canada don’t have a history of going after livestock. “Gray wolves from this area of B.C. do not overlap with areas where livestock are present, so there are no concerns about reintroducing wolves that are from packs that are involved in situations of repeated livestock depredations.” Loss of livestock is a primary reason gray wolves were wiped out from Colorado in the 40s, and it’s a real concern once again. As of August 2024, the Copper Creek pack had preyed on more than 24 livestock animals and three dogs, McClatchy reported, adding that the owners of those animals were reimbursed in cases where they filed claims. The risks posed by reintroducing the wolves are small compared to potential benefits to the ecosystem, advocates say. “You’d think the sky was falling, but the fact is, it’s not. The fact is, wolves are being wolves. Most of the wolves that were reintroduced haven’t gotten into problems with livestock,” Rob Edward, president of the Rocky Mountain Wolf Project told KCNC.

Read more at: https://www.sacbee.com/news/nation-world/national/article298418708.html#storylink=cpy

Universal Ostrich looking at options after federal agency ordered cull amid ongoing avian flu outbreak

Akshay Kulkarni · CBC News · Posted: Jan 12, 2025 2:48 PM PST | Last Updated: 3 hours ago

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An ostrich farm in B.C.’s West Kootenay has been ordered to cull its entire herd of 400 birds after the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) confirmed the presence of avian flu there. 

Universal Ostrich has been told to get rid of its birds by Feb. 1, according to Katie Pasitney, whose mother and mother’s business partner have operated the Edgewood, B.C., farm for over 35 years.

In the CFIA’s letter to the farm, shared with CBC News, the agency says it issued the cull order on Dec. 31 following an avian flu detection earlier that month. CFIA says it follows the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) in classifying the ostriches as “poultry.”

The order comes as highly pathogenic avian flu (the H5N1 variant) continues to spread in Canada, impacting more than 15 million domestic birds, an unknown number of wild birds, and even some dairy cattle and people.

But Pasitney says the ostriches present little risk to the wider population, as flightless birds that aren’t being sold for meat, and that the farm has implemented strict quarantine protocols since the disease was detected in early December.

“There’s gonna be a huge impact to mental health here, as well as to the world, honestly,” she told CBC News through tears.

“If you kill 400, it’s a mass massacre of animals and it’d be heartbreaking to see this happen.”

WATCH | Pasitney speaks with CBC News as 2021 wildfires threaten her farm: 

Edgewood, B.C., residents hunker down with 500 ostriches amid wildfire threat

3 years ago

Duration5:58A family in Edgewood, B.C., says they’ll stay put as fires burn around them because it’s not fair to abandon the 500 ostriches on their farm.

Pasitney’s mother’s farm and her ostriches survived wildfires in 2021. She says the decades-old birds have become like family.

The B.C. woman says not all of the birds have fallen sick, and some of the herd have resisted infection completely since it was first detected. She estimates around nine per cent of the 400-plus birds have died.

In a statement, the CFIA says it’s the first time they’ve detected avian flu in Canadian ostriches since they began responding to the highly pathogenic flu outbreak in December 2021.

Obligation to follow treaties

J. Scott Weese, a professor at the Ontario Veterinary College, told CBC News in an email that a decision to cull animals at a farm is a cost-benefit decision, where the costs and benefits can’t be quantified easily.

“In general, culling makes more sense when there’s widespread infection, risk to people around the animals, limited other exposure risk, where disease is more severe and where there’s less value — economic, conservation, human-animal bond — of the animals,” he said.

But Weese added that H5N1 is now well established in Canada, and there may be less justification for culling from the standpoint of controlling disease.

WATCH | Poultry farms face avian flu threat: 

Avian flu threatening B.C. poultry farms

10 days ago

Duration5:37Close to 80 poultry farms in B.C. have experienced avian flu outbreaks since the middle of October, according to the B.C. Poultry Association.

Jean-Pierre Vaillancourt, a professor at the University of Montreal’s veterinary school, says Canada has signed a treaty with the WOAH, which means it has agreed on certain specific measures when it comes to controlling avian flu, like culls.

“Whether you’re in Europe or in Canada and [the] United States, it will be essentially the same reaction,” he said. “We try to extinguish the fire — so essentially the virus can’t feed and replicate if it has other birds around.”

Vaillancourt added that ostriches are no less susceptible to avian flu than other birds, especially over the past few years with the highly pathogenic variety, and could potentially carry the disease even if they aren’t symptomatic.

But Pasitney says the CFIA is losing an opportunity to study the genes of the birds who have resisted the flu, something the farm has been doing in its own time.

“We have 35-year-old birds here with genetics and DNA we’ll never get back,” she said. “So it’d be nice if we can all band together and [get] all the support we can get to make a policy change.”

In the CFIA’s letter to the farm, it says its assessment of the herd didn’t meet the bar to be considered a breed with “rare and valuable poultry genetics.”

“Robust processes must be in place (ex. genomic testing) to actively select and breed for specific desirable traits, with subsequent evidence that this genetic value is critical to the Canadian poultry industry,” the letter reads.

Still, Pasitney says she’s looking at her options to preserve the herd, and is asking the CFIA to extend the cull deadline beyond Feb. 1.

The penalty for disobeying the CFIA’s cull order is unclear. CBC News has reached out to the agency to find out more.

Clarifications

• This story has been clarified to reflect that Katie Pasitney’s mother and her mother’s business partner are the primary operators of Universal Ostrich.Jan 13, 2025 8:56 AM PST

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This photo provided by Joseph Journell of San Bernardino, Calif. shows two of his cats, Alexander, background, and Tuxsie, right, who died from bird flu after they drank raw cow’s milk. Cleo, center, did not drink the milk and remained healthy. (Joseph Journell via AP)Read More

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This photo provided by Joseph Journell of San Bernardino, Calif. shows two of his cats drinking raw cow’s milk in November 2024 before the milk was recalled in December 2024 for containing H5N1 bird flu virus. Big Boy, left, was hospitalized, but survived. Alexander, right, died. (Joseph Journell via AP)Read More

https://apnews.com/article/raw-milk-california-cats-bird-flu-c3f6201216efb2a7e98ca143329a631a

By  JONEL ALECCIAUpdated 5:06 AM PST, January 12, 2025Share

A California man whose two cats died after drinking raw milk recalled for bird flu risk says he meant to keep his beloved pets healthy, but his efforts tragically backfired.

“It’s horrible when you realize that you’re the one that actually gave them the milk that killed them,” said Joseph Journell, 56, of San Bernardino.

Journell lost his 14-year-old tabby, Alexander, and Tuxsie, a 4-year-old tuxedo cat, in late November. A third cat, 4-year-old Big Boy, was hospitalized for a week before tests showed the animal was infected with the H5N1 bird flu virus.

The cats drank unpasteurized milk from lots recalled by Raw Farm, of Fresno, whose dairy products were pulled from California store shelves in December after health officials found the virus in milk for sale, he said. The animals’ deaths were confirmed by state and county health officials. The cats were kept indoors, with no access to potentially infected birds, and ate conventional, not raw, pet food, the owner said.

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Journell said he had been drinking Raw Farm milk himself for several months because he heard it had “better immunity and healing properties” than pasteurized milk. He thought it might be able to help Alexander, who had been losing weight.

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“I was trying to make him healthier and make him live longer,” Journell said.

Instead, Alexander died on Thanksgiving Day. Tuxsie followed two days later.

Big Boy was hospitalized and treated with antiviral medications, Journell said. The veterinary team collected urine samples from the cat, which were confirmed positive for H5N1 at labs run by the U.S. Agriculture Department and Cornell University, records show.

Big Boy returned home blind and without the use of his back legs, though he is recovering, Journell said. A fourth cat, Cleo, didn’t drink the milk and remained healthy.

Journell has demanded that Raw Farm owner Mark McAfee compensate him for the more than $12,000 he spent treating the cats, according Seattle food safety lawyer Ilana Korchia, who is representing him.

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In an interview, McAfee disputed that the virus was capable of sickening the animals days after it was bottled and sold, citing preliminary research.

But Richard Webby, an influenza expert at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, said flu virus survival likely varies widely in different lots of milk. Experts with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention previously confirmed that cats that drank raw milk from infected cows developed neurological disease and died.

“I think the poor cats are the best indicator!” Webby wrote in an email.

Nearly a dozen cats in California have died since early December after consuming raw milk or raw pet food contaminated with bird flu, health officials have said.

The infections have followed a massive outbreak of the bird flu virus in dairy cows, which has affected in more than 900 U.S. dairy herds in 16 states. About 80% of those herds are in California.

Federal and state health officials have warned people not to drink raw milk because of the potential for infection with bird flu and a host of other germs. Officials also have cautioned pet owners to avoid feeding unpasteurized milk and raw meat diets to their animals.

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“Cats should not be fed any products from affected farms if those products have not been thoroughly cooked or pasteurized to kill the virus,” the FDA warned last month.

After the cats got sick, Journell said he fell ill himself and sought care at a Kaiser Permanente hospital in Fontana, Calif. He said he wasn’t checked for bird flu, despite his known exposure to the virus, because medical staff didn’t have tests available to detect it.

A Kaiser spokesperson declined to comment on Journell’s case specifically, but said the hospital system is following CDC guidelines for screening for bird flu.

Journell has recovered physically but said he’s still suffering from the “mental anguish” of losing his pets. Despite the ordeal, he said he still thinks raw milk offers some health benefits.

Nevertheless, he won’t be drinking it any time soon.

“Not right now,” he said. “And not in the foreseeable future.”