stock up on Tofurky.

Published 2025-09-08 by Cory Allen Heidelberger

South Dakota stands out this week as the nation’s leader in newly reported outbreaks of bird flu:

The two outbreaks in South Dakota affect 55,400 turkeys at a facility in Faulk County and 52,600 turkeys at a facility in Beadle County. North Dakota has one outbreak affecting 60,300 turkeys in Dickey County. The other outbreaks in the last couple weeks affected a few dozen birds in a couple of backyard flocks in Georgia and New York.

APHIS continues to crank out this bird flu data despite losing 1,300 workers in the Trump-Musk government hacking last spring. The agency’s ability to collect and share data like these bird flu figures is vital to American agriculture:

[45-year APHIS veteran Kevin] Shea notes that over the years, APHIS employees have worked to successfully eradicate or keep at bay pests such as the boll weevil, a beetle that feeds on cotton buds, and New World screwworm, a parasite that burrows into the open wounds of animals. It’s recently resurfaced in Mexico.

He fears that progress could now be lost, with animal health technicians, epidemiologists, entomologists, wildlife biologists and many who supported them gone.

“It’ll be very hard to ever rebuild the animal health workforce and the plant health workforce because they’ve taken away so much of what made government service attractive to those people — stability, security and a sense of public mission,” Shea says.

…Given the depletion of key staff at APHIS, Shea presumes there was a lack of understanding among the new political leadership of what the agency does. He also presumes the Trump administration outsourced the reduction of the workforce to Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, “who I’m sure have no idea,” he says.

What he would want them to know is that American agriculture has been relatively free of pests and disease in recent decades thanks in large part to the work of APHIS. And that, in turn, has given the U.S. two important things: a trade advantage in relation to the rest of the world and an abundant, cheap supply of food.

It’s easy to imagine what it would look like if the U.S. were to lose significant ground on this front. Outbreaks of avian influenza in 2025 alone have resulted in the culling of more than 30 million hens, according to USDA, sending egg prices soaring. Citrus greening disease, caused by a tiny sap-sucking insect from Asia, has already wiped out much of Florida’s orange crop.

“We’re trying to save California,” Shea says. “If we don’t have a fully functioning APHIS, that’s at risk” [Andrea Hsu, “Exodus of USDA Veterinarians and Others Drives Fears That U.S. Farms Are at Risk,” NPR, 2025.05.30].

But who needs the USDA and all those so-called experts, anyway? Just don’t let any turkeys sneeze on you… and stock up on Tofurky.

• Published: Sep. 08, 2025, 6:00 a.m.

• https://www.cleveland.com/community/2025/09/seven-hills-accepting-bow-hunting-season-permits.html

By 

• John Benson, special to cleveland.com

SEVEN HILLS, Ohio — Bow hunting season returns to Seven Hills.

“We offer a deer hunting program, whether you’re a resident or nonresident,” Seven Hills Police Chief Michael Salloum said.

Families ‘hope no stone is unturned’ as Southport killings inquiry resumesFamilies ‘hope no stone is unturned’ as Southport killings inquiry resumes

“As long as you complete the application, your land qualifies for the minimum acreage, you pass the archery test and have hunting permits from ODNR (Ohio Department of Natural Resources), we’ll allow deer bow hunting in the city.”

Applications are now being accepted for the white-tailed deer herd archery season, which runs from Sept. 27 through Feb. 1.

The requirement includes having access to 2.5 contiguous acres, which can include multiple properties.

“Most of them find adjacent properties that add up to the minimum of acreage required,” he said.

“There may be one or two that have just enough for one property.”

With a cutoff date of Dec. 31, deer applications are $28 for residents and $55 for non-residents.

“Last year, we had 20 permits issued,” he said.

“The year before, it was roughly about 34, so it all depends on the season. We get anywhere from 20 to 30 permits each deer hunting season.”

In terms of deer kills last season, the chief said 26 were reported.

The chief said last year there were 12 vehicle vs. deer accidents in Seven Hills.

While currently Parma and Parma Heights are actively culling deer, that’s not the case in Seven Hills.

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“In 2016, Seven Hills — along with five neighboring communities — asked voters if we should participate in a deer management program,” Seven Hills Mayor Anthony D. Biasiotta said.

“The voters approved this measure. Seven Hills now enters year 10 of seasonal deer bow hunting. There is no plan to change the program at this time.”

Lisa Schnirring

September 5, 2025

Avian Influenza (Bird Flu)

NIAID/Flickr cc

After a month with no H5N1 avian flu detections in dairy cattle, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) today reported a positive test involving a herd from Texas, raising the nation’s total since early 2024 to 1,079 infected herds in 17 states.

The detection is Texas’s first since May.

Also, APHIS reported another H5N1 outbreak at a commercial turkey farm, the second recent detection in South Dakota. The new report involves a facility in Beadle County that houses 52,600 birds. Other outbreaks in turkeys over the past week occurred in flocks in Faulk County, South Dakota, and in Dickey County, North Dakota.

Source of California child’s H5N1 infection still a mystery

In related news, investigators from California and their partners at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) yesterday published their investigation findings into one of two unexplained H5N1 infections in California children. They published the details in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

The school-age child’s symptoms included fever, muscle pain, abdominal pain, and conjunctivitis (“pink eye”). They began on December 13, 2024, lasting 1 week and involving two healthcare visits. 

The first visit was at a local emergency department, where staff collected a nasopharyngeal sample that tested positive for influenza A and was sent to the San Francisco Department of Public Health’s lab as part of enhanced surveillance. Further subtyping identified H5N1 on January 9, and follow-up sequencing revealed that the virus belonged to the B3.13 genotype that had been circulating in dairy cattle, other mammals, poultry, and wild birds.

No other family members had been sick, and polymerase chain reaction and serology testing of some of the child’s close contacts revealed no evidence of human-to-human spread. A sample collected from the child on January 10 was still positive, but specimens collected 4 days after that were negative.

Poultry not likely the cause

The family lived in an urban environment and had a pet dog. A family member had bought raw poultry at a live-bird market more than 2 weeks before the child’s symptoms began. It was cooked and eaten the same day. Investigators wrote that poultry wasn’t the likely source, given that poultry-market testing was negative, the child wasn’t exposed to raw poultry, and the parents weren’t sick. The investigators said the child spent time outdoors at school and may have had environmental exposure to the virus.

The researchers said continued surveillance and real-time subtyping at public health labs is a key part of novel flu surveillance and that detection of B3.13 serves as a reminder that the virus continues to transmit across susceptible species, requiring a strong One Health approach.