Bird flu has already spread to wild birds, chickens and mammals, including a polar bear and an alpaca. The more widespread it becomes, the more officials worry it could spread among people.

Dinah Voyles Pulver

USA TODAY

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/06/16/bird-flu-spreading-concerns-grow/74090745007/

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More than three years into a worldwide outbreak of bird flu, the virus continues to expand in the U.S., with growing impacts to food production and animals. Over 80 million chickens, thousands of wild birds and dozens of mammal species, including a polar bear, have been infected. 

Now it’s running rampant among dairy cows, turning up in 94 herds across 12 states since March. The latest animal to test positive was an alpaca on an Idaho farm.

“It’s gigantic, the scope and scale of the presence of the disease,” said Julianna Lenoch, national coordinator for the Department of Agriculture’s wildlife disease program.

This scale ‒ and related concerns ‒ are reflected in the price of eggs, renewed warnings to cook ground beef and eggs thoroughly, and in extraordinary measures dairy and poultry farmers are being asked to take to prevent its spread. 

As the outbreak lingers and expands, it’s prompting growing concerns about the risks to humans and the influence of warmer temperatures and more extreme weather events in making this and future pandemics worse.

How widespread is this bird flu outbreak?

The highly contagious H5N1 virus has spread to six continents since the first detections in Europe and Asia in 2020. It has been reported across North and Central America and most of South America and has been found on every continent except Australia. It also turned up in Antarctica last fall raising alarm about potential consequences for some of the world’s most beloved birds: penguins.

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Timeline:From chickens to foxes, here’s how bird flu is spreading across the US

The U.S. has experienced avian influenza outbreaks in the past, but this one is lasting longer and is more widespread. Domestic poultry flocks, either in commercial operations or backyard flocks and farms, have been infected in every state except Louisiana and Hawaii, including more than 5.9 million birds just since May 1.

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Since 2022, infections have been reported in 14 million turkeys and 80 million chickens, including 71 million egg layers. Farmers must kill chickens and turkeys when a poultry flock tests positive, and experts say the slaughter to prevent human infection has helped drive up the cost of eggs.

Infected mammals have been found in 31 states, with the greatest number of infections found in foxes, mice, striped skunks, mountain lions, cats and harbor seals.

Research studies find the prolonged presence and spread of the virus increases the risk of genetic mutations that could allow it to pass more easily from animals to people and among people. 

“The longer we have virus out there, the more possibility there is for changes,” said Lenoch, who oversees the federal program responsible for tracking the virus in wild birds. 

Can humans get bird flu? 

Yes, but the risk in the U.S. is still very low, federal officials reiterated in a Thursday briefing. They say the public should be “alert but not alarmed.” 

Since it arrived during the winter of 2021-2022, four people have tested positive in the U.S. All were exposed to the virus on farms. In the first case, in 2022, the worker was helping to cull infected poultry on a farm. All three patients this year had exposure to dairy cows. Two only reported conjunctivitis, or pink eye, while the third also experienced upper respiratory symptoms. No one in the U.S. has died from the virus, according to federal officials, but deaths have been reported internationally.

So far, for the general public, everything but raw milk is considered safe, federal officials say, as long as you’re cooking ground beef and eggs all the way through. Cooking takes care of any remnants of the virus that could be in egg yolks or in ground beef after once-infected dairy cows are shipped to market to be butchered. 

In milk, pasteurization kills the active virus so it can’t be transmitted, federal research shows. However, harmless traces of the virus remain, and are found in an estimated 20% of the nation’s milk supply. 

The Food and Drug Administration said it does not know if the virus can be transmitted in raw milk, but has asked states that allow the sale of raw milk to restrict it as a precautionary measure.

“The fact that it’s in 20% of our milk supply should be disturbing to everyone because that means it’s gone around already,” said Xavier Becerra, U.S. Health and Humans Services secretary, during a speech to the Western Governors Association last week. “If it starts to jump, that’s when we really have to worry.”

Why are officials concerned about human exposure to bird flu?

The great concern among federal agencies and researchers is that the virus will evolve and become more contagious among humans. For now, it’s hard for humans to contract the virus and it hasn’t been passed from person to person.

Without stringent measures to avoid repeated viral transmission between wild and domestic animals, experts say the risks to people could grow. 

The Department of Agriculture and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are urging farmers to step up efforts to prevent the spread by cleaning and disinfecting equipment, especially when the same equipment is used to handle manure and feed and to better protect farm employees.

Preventing farm to farm spread is “really critical,” agency officials said Thursday. 

How is this outbreak of avian flu different from previous ones? 

The outbreak is “unique in global expansion” and in the number of bird and mammal species that it’s infecting, concluded a study published earlier this year by Tufts University researchers Jonathan Runstadler and Wendy Puryear.  “Though the risk to humans remains low, this unexpected outbreak well illustrates the continued need for vigilance and further study,” the study stated.

Avian influenza is spread globally among birds, particularly migratory waterfowl such as ducks. They’re natural reservoirs and migrate over long distances, traversing hemispheres in some cases. As they travel, infected birds shed the virus in mucus, saliva, and feces.

In previous outbreaks, wild birds would often get exposed and just carry the virus around with no symptoms, Lenoch said. With the current strain that has evolved, wild birds have been getting sick and dying in large groups. 

The virus raises many concerns, not only because of its impacts on human health and agriculture, but also because it’s killing wildlife, such as seabirds, raptors and marine mammals, said Diann Prosser, a research wildlife biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Eastern Ecological Science Center.

The spillover into dairy cows is rare and officials aren’t certain how it started. One study released by federal officials this week said it likely started with wild birds infecting a cow in the Texas Panhandle. Cows from that herd, which weren’t showing any symptoms at the time, the report stated, were shipped to Michigan, where the virus quickly spread to other states. Investigations continue.

Typically, outbreaks eventually burn themselves out as wild birds build immunity and stop spreading the virus. That’s expected to occur this time, as well, but it’s taking longer than usual.

How is bird flu spreading?

Scientists don’t fully understand all the methods of transmission, but most involve bird poop. 

Wild waterfowl are the main carriers, said Maurice Pitesky, an associate professor in cooperative extension, poultry health and food safety epidemiology at the University of California Davis.

The first four U.S. birds discovered with it were wild ducks taken by hunters in the Carolinas. Lenoch said the nation’s duck hunters, who have their own suggested safety guidelines, have been invaluable at working with officials to get wild waterfowl tested.

Pitesky listed these examples of ways the bird flu virus may be transmitted:

• Virus spreads from wild bird poop in farm ponds or inside buildings.
• It can become aerosolized and passed in the air.
• A group of free-roaming cats died after contracting the virus from drinking rawmilk and showing neurological symptoms.
• Animals eat infected birds.
• Farm employees can track in shavings or dirt that may carry the virus from wetlands and farm fields. 
• Farm tractors and other equipment can carry infected materials between farms.

A visual guide:The bird flu outbreak

Could climate change play a role in this bird flu outbreak?

A key difference between this outbreak and previous ones is an increase in global average temperatures, especially since this outbreak started. Last year was the hottest year on record, and this year appears to be charting a similar course. 

The potential for warmer temperatures to alter the transmission of viruses and contribute to global pandemics has long been a concern to scientists studying potential links between climate change and the spread of viral outbreaks and pandemics. 

Prosser was a co-author on a study last fall that pointed out changing climate patterns and extreme weather events closely parallel this “unprecedented global spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza.”

There’s no single answer to the link between climate change and the bird flu outbreak in the U.S. and further studies are needed, she said. On one hand, flu particles could degrade more quickly in warmer conditions which would decrease its ability to spread. However if heat waves cause changes in food resources or immune stress in humans or animals, the virus might be able to spread more easily, she said.

Is shrinking space for birds playing a role?

The warming climate isn’t the only thing altering the environment, Pitesky said. Human encroachment on agriculture and wild landscapes may be an even bigger potential factor.

Farms now increasingly are found near wild areas, especially wetlands, as agricultural areas expand and droughts dry up existing wetlands.

“We’re producing more poultry than ever before and the more poultry we’ve produced, the less room for wild waterfowl, and less habitat for animals to roost and feed,” Pitesky said. If these wild areas overlap with domestic poultry and cattle farms, it increases the potential for more disease transmission.

“In California we’ve lost 95% of our natural wetlands, primarily to agriculture,” he said. “There’s obviously benefits to that when it comes to feeding 8 billion (people).” But an unintended consequence is “waterfowl are using suboptimal habitats.”

From chickens to foxes, here’s how bird flu is spreading across the US

Man Shot Dead by Brother-In-Law in Gajapati Forest During Hunting

Man Shot Dead By Brother-In-Law In Gajapati Forest During Hunting

By Yajati Keshari Rout On Jun 16, 2024

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Bhubaneswar: A man died after being shot at allegedly by his brother-in-law while both had gone to poach wild animals in the forest near Bhaliagani village within Mohana police station limits of Gajapati district.

The deceased man has been identified as Kailash Nayak.

According to sources, the incident took place Saturday, while Kailash and his brother-in-law were hunting wild animals and a bullet hit Kailash killing him on the spot.

Reportedly, police have seized the body and sent it for post-mortem. Also, the police have detained the deceased’s brother-in-law, suspected of opening fire on Kailash.

Police have started investigating the incident to ascertain whether it is a case of murder or an accident, sources added.

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The Wyoming Game and Fish Department killed three bighorn sheep that wandered into Sinks Canyon State Park out of concern for disease, but a local wildlife researcher questions the need for the killings.

https://cowboystatedaily.com/2024/06/14/after-state-kills-3-wyoming-bighorn-wildlife-researcher-questions-policy/

Mark Heinz

June 14, 20244 min read

Wyoming Game and Fish personnel recently killed three young bighorn rams that wandered into Sinks Canyon State Park, per state policy to prevent the potential spread of lethal disease to other wild sheep.

But a local wildlife researcher questioned the need for the action, suggesting that bighorns should be tested for possible pneumonia infection from domestic sheep before they’re killed, not after.

“I would like to have them take an animal’s life on evidence of a problem, and not just summarily take an animal’s life on the assumption that they’re infected,” Jack States, who lives in the Sinks Canyon area, told Cowboy State Daily on Friday.

Worries Over Disease

Wyoming has a policy to prevent bighorn from mingling with domestic sheep whenever possible. Bighorn are vulnerable to pneumonia and other respiratory diseases that can potentially spread to them from domestic sheep.

So, the rams that wandered into Sinks Canyon State Park were killed to prevent the possibility of them becoming infected and carrying it back to wild herds, according to Game and Fish.

“When bighorn sheep co-mingle with domestic sheep, they may be exposed to bacteria that domestic sheep are known to harbor,” the agency says. “While these pathogens, or bacteria, may be treatable in domestic sheep, they can be fatal to bighorn sheep.”

It’s because of that risk that wildlife officials say they take that drastic action.

“Wandering bighorn sheep pose a very high risk of introducing pathogens back into their wild herds, and we want to prevent future disease events from happening. Bighorn sheep are very sensitive to many pathogens, so we take reasonable precautions to prevent exposure of these pathogens to the herd,” Game and Fish Wildlife Health Laboratory Supervisor Jessica Jennings-Gaines said in a statement from the agency.

Young rams are known to range long distances, but frequently return back to their herds, according to Game and Fish.

It’s thought the rams that were killed came from North Fork Canyon northwest of Lander, “where a small herd exists,” according to the agency.

Tissue samples were taken from the lambs and sent to a laboratory to be tested for disease. Meat from the animals was donated to needly locals.

From the perspective of ranchers, there is also concern that allowing bighorns and domestic sheep to get too near each other could in some instances cause sheep ranchers to lose their grazing leases on federal lands.

Some central Wyoming ranchers are worried about that, in light of the proposed reintroduction of bighorn sheep into the remote and rugged Sweetwater Rocks area.

Critical Of Policy

States has a Ph.D. in environmental ecology and has assisted Game and Fish and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service with bighorn research in Wyoming and other states.

He said he understands the concerns over wild and domestic sheep mingling and the threat of disease.

But he questions the need to kill bighorn sheep without trying to capture them, get blood samples and test those for disease first.

“What if they’re not infected?” States asked. “What if those sheep came from a herd that was not infected, and they eliminated their right to try to find a new habitat?”

Whiskey Mountain Herd Still In Trouble

He said that respiratory disease infections are common in bighorn sheep across Wyoming, and many rams might have developed some immunity.

Ewes don’t seem to have as much immunity, and bighorn lambs seem especially vulnerable to dying from infections, he said.

The famed Whiskey Mountain herd, also near Lander, has battled waves of disease outbreaks since the 1990s.

States said he’s worried about the future of that herd, particularly because lambs keep dying from disease.

“I think they’re still in decline, though they haven’t had the sort of massive die-offs they did in the 1990s,” he said. “We’re not getting the necessary recruitment (lamb survival rates) to prevent the extinction of that herd,” he said.

Allowing bighorn to expand their range in some places might give them better odds, he added.

“We can’t keep restricting bighorn sheep to defined herd units like we’re doing now, where they cross a line and get shot because of possible contract with domestic sheep,” States said.

He said that Game and Fish has kept him in the loop regarding the removal of the rams in Sinks Canyon and the subsequent testing for disease, which he appreciates.

“We need to do everything possible to develop a constructing and transparent relationship with all the agencies involved in sheep management,” he said.

BY 

KITTY BLOCK AND SARA AMUNDSON

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The HSUS

In the most important farm animal welfare debate of the 21st century so far―the U.S. Supreme Court case regarding California’s Proposition 12—it was beyond disconcerting that the Biden administration put itself on the wrong side of progress by backing the advocates of cruelty and bottom-of-the-barrel pork production. The producers fighting Proposition 12 are trying to maintain the status quo of using intensive confinement systems such as gestation crates—metal cages so small pregnant pigs can’t even turn around for months on end and have been documented chewing on the bars until their mouths bleed from constant frustration. Those who don’t feel like meeting the public’s demand for more humane treatment of farm animals are fighting Proposition 12 every way they can.  

Now, the Biden administration’s failure is being compounded by Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, who is out stumping for zero-welfare pork producers in their efforts to use the Farm Bill to obliterate Proposition 12 and similar laws in other states. And the White House should stop him before he does any further damage to the administration’s reputation and policies on animal welfare. When President Biden took office, his administration had the opportunity to reverse course from the Trump administration’s amicus brief supporting that faction of the pork industry fighting Proposition 12. Instead, Biden’s Solicitor General filed a brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in support of a challenge to California’s Proposition 12. 

Now, as Congress moves to finalize the Farm Bill, Secretary Vilsack is recklessly seeking to undermine the interests of thousands of farmers across the country and major public health associations who have all taken a decisive stand against the cruel and dangerous confinement of farm animals. 

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At its heart, Vilsack’s approach is profoundly undemocratic because it ignores the millions of voters and consumers who have rejected the cruelty of extreme animal confinement at both the ballot box and the supermarket. Moreover, it’s a slap in the face to small family farmers and forward-thinking corporate actors in food production and retail who support more humane standards in agriculture and have made substantial investments in crate-free and cage-free systems. These are parties whose interests Vilsack is also charged to protect, but he’s ignoring them and parroting the misleading claims of the National Pork Producers Council instead. 

Vilsack’s use of the word “chaos” is particularly disingenuous, especially considering how he referred to similar efforts in the 2014 Farm Bill to block state laws on intensive confinement as “troublesome in that it would create legal challenges and confusion in the market place….It’s one that we have a lot of concerns about.” If anything, momentum to end caged cruelty has grown since then: 15 states spanning the political spectrum already have laws addressing cruel intensive confinement of farm animals, and 80% of American voters—including nearly equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats—support enactment in their own states of a law to protect farm animals. Across the country, American voters and/or their elected representatives have rejected extreme confinement; it’s the laggard producers Vilsack seems determined to serve who are sowing chaos. The marketplace, consistent with voter preference and consumer demand, is sorting itself out, and Vilsack needs to end his efforts to drown out the basic claim for decent treatment of animals that this section of the industry is determined to reject.

It’s disturbing that as the former governor of Iowa, Vilsack would be so dismissive of the sovereignty of states to govern in the best interests of their citizens when it comes to such fundamental matters as animal welfare and public health. On the other hand, Iowa has long occupied the bottom third of states when it comes to animal protection laws, and its state legislature has gone to great lengths to favor and shield intensive confinement practices in agriculture over the last quarter century. We had hopes that Vilsack would be more attentive to public opinion concerning animal welfare as head of the USDA. But he has dashed those hopes.

A forward-thinking USDA leader would have moved to embrace the enormous economic opportunities that humane laws and corporate supply chain policies have opened up in the wake of successful campaigns to halt agribusiness cruelties such as the gestation crate and the battery cage. He’d listen to the market leaders who are committed to meeting emerging public demand for products that are not the result of intensive confinement cruelty, and he’d take account of the shifting corporate models now moving to meet the same demand. But that’s not Secretary Vilsack. 

It’s a shame, especially considering that President Biden took office with one of the strongest animal welfare records of any elected official in American history, a consistent champion for our cause for decades. In stark contrast, his secretary of agriculture has chosen to serve the worst actors in American agriculture―the pork conglomerates that support the cruelest practices and that, in turn, are counting on Secretary Vilsack to sustain their morally bankrupt business models. 

They are getting what they want, too, as the secretary is working overtime for these foot-dragging interests. Vilsack is doing so even though he knows that congressional support for the Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression (EATS) Act and other measures targeting laws like Proposition 12 is weak and he doubts there is the political capacity to do something about it. 

In fact, that’s the one thing Vilsack’s right about; there are but 14 senators and 37 representatives co-sponsoring the EATS Act, not one of them a member of Vilsack’s own party. By contrast, more than 200 federal legislators on both sides of the aisle oppose this language or anything like it. Vilsack should do the math. Blocking state laws on intensive confinement is a poison pill in the Farm Bill, particularly given how tight the margins are for getting a package over the finish line. 

There’s a reason that House Agriculture chair Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., and others hostile to Proposition 12 are attempting to shoehorn language into the Farm Bill; it’s the only way they can foist this shakedown on the American public, and the sight of a Democratic agency head aiding and abetting such a power grab is a sad one.

Industry capture of the USDA is nothing new, of course. But in Vilsack’s case, it has reached a new low. And that’s an insult to animals and the people who care about their welfare.  

Sara Amundson is president of the Humane Society Legislative Fund. 

https://www.humanesociety.org/blog/vilsack-farm-bill-insults-animals-voters

BY LAUREN IRWIN – 06/15/24 9:43 AM ET

SHAREPOST https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/4723753-former-cdc-director-predicts-bird-flu-pandemic/

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Former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield said he predicts a bird flu pandemic will happen, it’s just a matter of when that will be.

Redfield joined NewsNation Friday to discuss the growing concern for bird flu, as the virus has been detected in dozens of cattle across the country and the World Health Organization identified the first human death in Mexico.

“I really do think it’s very likely that we will, at some time, it’s not a question of if, it’s more of a question of when we will have a bird flu pandemic,” Redfield said.

He also noted that bird flu has a “significant mortality” when it enters humans compared to COVID-19. Redfield predicts the mortality is “probably somewhere between 25 and 50 percent mortality.” NewsNation noted that the death rate for COVID was 0.6 percent.

At the end of May, the CDC identified the third human case of someone diagnosed with the virus since March. None of the three cases among farmworkers were associated with one another. Symptoms have included a cough without fever and pink eye.

There is no evidence yet that the virus is spreading between humans. Redfield said he knows exactly what has to happen for the virus to get to that point because he’s done lab research on it.

Scientists have found that five amino acids must change in the key receptor in order for bird flu to gain a propensity to bind to a human receptor “and then be able to go human to human” like COVID-19 did, Redfield said.

“Once the virus gains the ability to attach to the human receptor and then go human to human, that’s when you’re going to have the pandemic,” he said. “And as I said, I think it’s just a matter of time.”

Redfield noted that he doesn’t know how long it will take for the five amino acids to change, but since it is being detected in cattle herds across the country, he is a bit concerned.

More than 40 cattle herds nationwide have confirmed cases of the virus. The CDC is tracking wastewater treatment sites to pinpoint where the virus is but the agency said the general public’s current risk of contracting the virus is low.

Since cattle live close to pigs and the virus is able to evolve from pigs to humans, there is cause for concern. Still, he argued, there is greater risk for the disease to be lab-grown.

“I know exactly what amino acids I have to change because in 2012, against my recommendation, the scientists that did these experiments actually published them,” he said. “So, the recipe for how to make bird flu highly infection for humans is already out there.”