Scientists have discovered a peculiar side effect in some seabirds affected by the avian flu.
If they survive the devastating and often deadly virus, northern gannets can experience eye color changes, where irises go from pale blue to jet black, The Guardianreported. The discovery has the potential to help scientists deal with the virus.
For decades, avian flu has been responsible for the deaths of both wild and domestic birds,perThe Guardian.
The first description of avian influenza, also known as bird flu, can be tracedback to 1878in northern Italy. During that time, it was characterized as a contagious ailment affecting poultry, leading to significant mortality rates. This disease was commonly referred to as “fowl plague.”
Now, it affects wild water birds as well asdomestic birdslike poultry and other animals.
The current outbreaks of avian influenza (“bird flu”) continueto cause devastation in animal populations worldwide.Although largely affecting animals, these outbreaks pose ongoing risks to humans, says the World Health Organization (WHO).
The WHO wrote today that an increasing number of H5N1 avian influenza detections amongmammals, which are biologically closer to humans than birds, raises concern that the virus might adapt to infect humans more easily.
In addition, some mammals may act as mixing vessels for influenza viruses, leading to the emergence of new viruses that could be more harmful to animals and humans.
Announced on July 12, 2023, the WHO, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations,and the World Organisation for Animal Health urge countries to work together across sectors to save as many animals as possible and protect…
AUSTIN — Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) received notification of two new cases of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in deer-breeding facilities in Frio and Zavala Counties.
In Frio County, a 2-year-old white-tailed doe died in a deer-breeding facility and was post-mortem tested following CWD surveillance testing requirements. This is the second deer-breeding facility in Frio County to have a positive CWD detection.
In Zavala County, a 3-year-old white-tailed buck died in a deer-breeding facility and was post-mortem tested following CWD surveillance testing requirements. This is the second deer-breeding facility in Zavala County to have a positive CWD detection.
Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory in College Station initially analyzed postmortem samples; the National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Ames, Iowa, provided a CWD-positive confirmation for both samples.
FILE – Pictured is a white-tailed deer in an undated photo. (Michigan Department of Natural Resources)
LANSING, Mich., (WPBN/WGTU) — Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed multiple bills into law on Tuesday, including one that reduces penalties for hunters who fail to report their deer harvests within 72 hours.
Senate Bill 52, sponsored by Senator John Cherry (D-Flint), reduces the penalty for failing to report a deer harvest or retain a deer harvest confirmation number to a one-time $150 fine.
“Reducing the penalty for failing to report a deer harvest will lower costs for hunters and ensure no one is put in jail for a simple, easily fixable mistake,” Gov. Whitmer said.
The penalty had been a possible misdemeanor resulting in up to 90 days in jail and a fine of up to $500 paying the costs of prosecution.
Avian flu outbreaks have been confirmed at nature reserves across Scotland.
The National Trust for Scotland (NTS) said two kittiwakes had tested positive at its site at St Abb’s Head in the Scottish Borders.
Scotland’s nature agency also said bird flu had been confirmed at its Forvie reserve in Aberdeenshire and on the Isle of May in the Firth of Forth.
NatureScot said its avian flu task force was now on “high alert” due to dead seabird numbers in coastal areas.
It comes after more than 1,000 dead birds were removed from Aberdeenshire beaches in recent days.
At Stonehaven more than 520 birds were recovered over the course of three days while a further 120 were collected at Cruden Bay.
And on Wednesday more than 250 dead birds were removed from Inverbervie as well as 150 from Balmedie.
NTS said positive tests on two kittiwakes at St Abb’s Head were not unexpected due to the number of dead birds, but stressed many thousands of others were still doing well.
NatureScot said avian flu had been confirmed in sandwich terns, common terns, kittiwakes, herring gulls, black-headed gulls and guillemots so far this year.
At Forvie more than 200 sandwich terns have died with test results awaited on common and arctic terns. Kittiwakes have also tested positive on the Isle of May.
NatureScot said the overall picture across the country was “not yet clear” with tests on some birds in other parts of the having come back negative.
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Wildlife manager Alastair MacGugan said: “Unfortunately after a quieter period we are beginning to see an increase in the number of dead birds being reported through our surveillance network, particularly on the east coast.
“While we are thankfully not seeing the large numbers of dead birds around breeding sites that we did last year, this development is really concerning.
“We’re working hard with all partners in Scotland’s avian flu task force to understand what is happening and take action to make our wild bird populations more resilient.”
Dr Liz Huphreys, British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) principal seabird ecologist, said it was clear that seabirds were still being badly affected by avian flu despite the situation initially seeming “less catastrophic” than last year.
Paul Walton, of the RSPB, said seabird numbers had already dropped by nearly 50% between 1986 and 2019 prior to the “devastating impacts” of bird flu last year.
He said it was time for conservation efforts to be “prioritised and resourced” to help protect these “incredible creatures”.
Members of the public should avoid touching sick or dead birds and report them via the UK government’s web page.
‘It could be the tipping point for kittiwakes’
Ciaran Hatsell said kittiwake numbers had already declined significantly in the past 30 years
The head ranger at St Abb’s Head, Ciaran Hatsell, said they were trying to stay positive.
“We have lost a lot of kittiwakes this year to avian flu,” he said.
“It was mainly adults that we were losing but now we are starting to see it in chicks as well. It has hit a bit later this year than it did last year – we were hopeful that we had got away with it.”
He said it was the last thing they needed after seeing the population decline by more than 70% in the last 30 years.
“This virus could really be the tipping point for the population reaching an unviable level,” he said.
However, he added that there were some signs of hope.
“Recent studies carried out by the Scottish Seabird Centre and the RSPB have shown that the black eyes mean that it has had exposure to the virus and survived which is brilliant news.
“It is one of the first real signs of hope.”
The RSPB’s Troup Head Nature Reserve, on the Aberdeenshire coast, is Scotland’s largest mainland gannet colony, as well as home to thousands of kittiwakes and guillemots.
Last year the site was ravaged by avian flu, losing about 3,000 gannets. About 5,000 chicks also died – more than 90% of the total.
Richard Humpidge, the site manager, described the current avian flu situation in Scotland as “pretty grim”.
“Guillemots and kittiwakes have halved in number over the last two decades and this is just knocking the numbers further down,” he said.
“Like the gannets at Troup Head last year, it’s not going to be until next year when the birds come back that we’re going to have an indication as to how badly they have been affected.
“We know it’s going to be bad, we just don’t know how bad.”
He said birds had already been vulnerable due to food shortages.
“If we add another stress factor into that, such as avian flu, it’s going to have a devastating effect.”
Annual hunt off
Meanwhile, an annual hunt of young seabirds in the Western Isles will not go ahead again this year due to concerns about the virus.
Usually, every year, about 2,000 gannet chicks are taken from the island of Sula Sgeir, 40 miles (64km) north of Ness on Lewis, to be eaten as a delicacy.
The two-week hunt has been a tradition since the 15th Century, and modern harvests are permitted under licence.
It did not take place last year because of concerns about bird flu, and the team of hunters, known as the Men of Ness, have decided not to go out this year.
Sula Sgeir is an uninhabited island which is home to between 9,000 and 10,000 pairs of gannets.
NatureScot said: “The last visit to Sula Sgeir, in 2022, did not show out-of-the-ordinary colony mortality.
“However, we are conscious that avian flu may have hit the colony later last summer, hence follow-up work this year to check the health of colony.”
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The World Health Organization warned Wednesday that the recent surge in bird flu outbreaks among mammals could help the virus spread more easily among humans.
Since late 2021, Europe has been gripped by its worst-ever outbreak of bird flu, while North and South America have also experienced severe outbreaks.
This has led to the culling of tens of millions of poultry worldwide, many with the H5N1 strain of the virus, which first emerged in 1996.
But there has recently been a worrying spike in infections in mammals.
“Avian influenza viruses normally spread among birds, but the increasing number of H5N1 avian influenza detections among mammals — which are biologically closer to humans than birds are — raises concern that the virus might adapt to infect humans more easily,” the WHO said in a statement.
“In addition, some mammals may act as mixing vessels for influenza viruses, leading to the emergence of new viruses that could be more harmful to animals and humans.”
Outbreaks have been reported in 26 species, including farmed mink in Spain and sealions in Chile. H5N1 was recently detected in cats in Poland.
The WHO, along with the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH), urged countries to work together to save animals and protect people.
“There is a recent paradigm change in the ecology and epidemiology of avian influenza which has heightened global concern as the disease spread to new geographical regions and caused unusual wild bird die-offs, and alarming rise in mammalian cases,” said WOAH science chief Gregorio Torres.
Infections in humans can cause severe disease with a high mortality rate.
Human bird flu cases are usually the result of direct or indirect exposure to infected live or dead poultry or contaminated environments.
“The virus does not appear to be able to transmit from one person to another easily, but vigilance is needed to identify any evolution in the virus that can change that,” said the WHO’s pandemic preparedness chief Sylvie Briand.
Experts were looking for changes that could be more dangerous to humans, and urged countries to boost their monitoring capabilities, she added.
“This is especially important as the virus is now affecting countries with limited prior experience in avian-flu surveillance,” Briand said.
The WHO said that since 2020, a variant had led to an “unprecedented” number of deaths in wild birds and poultry in many countries in Africa, Asia and Europe.
The virus spread to North America in 2021 and then to Central and South America in 2022.
Last year, 67 countries in five continents reported highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu outbreaks, with more than 131 million domestic poultry lost due to death or culling in affected farms and villages.
In 2023, another 14 countries reported outbreaks, mainly in the Americas, as the disease continues to spread.
These outbreaks have caused “devastation” in poultry and had harmed farmers’ livelihoods and the food trade, the WHO said.
“Several mass death events have been reported in wild birds,” the UN health agency added.
“Although largely affecting animals, these outbreaks pose ongoing risks to humans,” it said.
“The epidemiology of H5N1 continues to rapidly evolve,” said the FAO’s chief veterinary officer Keith Sumption.
He pleaded for timely sharing of genetic sequences to monitor for changes, resulting in better risk assessment and disease control.
A South African National Parks ranger monitors a group of African penguins at Cape Town’s famous Boulders penguin colony, a popular tourist attraction and an important breeding site which which are suffering an outbreak of avian flu in Cape Town, South Africa, September 27, 2022. REUTERS/Esa Alexander/File Photo
July 12 (Reuters) – Three UN agencies on Wednesday warned that an ongoing rise in avian flu outbreaks globally raised concerns that the virus might adapt to infect humans more easily, and urged countries to strengthen disease surveillance and improve hygiene at poultry farms.
Earlier this year, a new H5N1 strain of bird flu that is highly contagious among wild birds explosively spread to new geographical regions, infecting and killing a variety of mammal species and raising fears of apandemicamong…
Two men faced criminal charges this spring for trespassing in Montana Fish Wildlife & Park’s Blackfoot-Clearwater Wildlife Management Area in March of 2022. Photo: NBC Montana
SEELEY LAKE, Mont. —Two men faced criminal charges this spring for trespassing on Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks’ Blackfoot-Clearwater Wildlife Management Area in March of 2022.
Ivan Yarmolich of Missoula and Logan Baston of Anchorage, Alaska, entered the area for shed antlers nearly two months before the area opened.
Yarmolich pleaded guilty and received a $585 fine, lost two years of hunting, fishing and trapping privileges and received a two year ban from Montana Wildlife Management Areas.
Baston agreed to a deferred prosecution agreement and was banned from the management areas for six months.
Alaska Wildlife Troopers are urging hunters across the state not to illegally waste meat from their kills this season, after online reports of unharvested animals in the Nome area.
Hunting is one of thelargest subsistence activitiesin Northwest Alaska. Fishing, hunting and trapping all require proper licensing, and have many rules and regulations. When it comes to subsistence hunting, one of them is “Field to Freezer” — the process of hunting an animal and harvesting all of the animal.The Alaska Department of Fish and Game saysthat under state law, all edible meat must be salvaged from big game animals except brown bears, wolves and wolverines. Any furbearer must be harvested.
Dylan Brooks, a wildlife trooper in Bethel, said one…
According to new estimates, Nigeria is expected to nearly double its population in the next 27 years.
The rise is in contrast to a growing number of countries that will experience population declines.
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The annual United Nations designation is not only a chance to recognize “the dreams of all 8 billion of us on our planet,” as UN Secretary-General António Guterres put it in a blog post on Tuesday, it’s also a chance to take stock…
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