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Deadly bird flu found in Puget Sound harbor seal population
By My Northwest and KIRO 7 News Staff
October 06, 2023 at 3:17 pm PDT
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+Caption(Robert F. Bukaty/AP)
PUGET SOUND, Wash. — Wildlife officials are sounding the alarm, after determining several dead harbor seals found in the north Puget Sound had bird flu.
It’s believed that avian influenza jumped from wild birds in the Salish Sea to local harbor seals. That’s after three adult seals tested positive for the virus in mid-August, according to a report from the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
The press release was also linked in a NOAA social media post.
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This is as an ongoing outbreak of avian flu has affected wild populations of seabirds around Rat Island and Marrowstone Island. Katie Haman, a wildlife veterinarian with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, recently recovered 1,600 dead birds in the area and said that she was trying to minimize exposure to the seals, among other mammals.
“I think the fact that we only had five, I would like to think that number was lower than it could have been, because we were out collecting the carcasses and hopefully reducing that the transmission,” Haman said. “I hope that we are we’re in the clear, at least in the transmission from the birds to the mammals.”
Currently, evidence shows the virus is spreading directly from birds to seals and is not being spread from seal to seal. That’s important as a mammal-to-mammal spread could mean a higher risk of the virus spreading to humans. Bird flu can infect humans, but health officials say that risk is low.
“The discovery of HPAI H5N1 in seals brings to light the potential for cross-species transmission and highlights the complexity of managing infectious diseases in wildlife populations,” says Kristin Wilkinson, NOAA Fisheries’ regional stranding and entanglement coordinator said in a report.
Even so, beachgoers are urged to keep themselves and their pets away from animal carcasses. If you encounter sick, injured, or dead seals, call the West Coast Region Stranding Hotline at (866) 767-6114, and the Washington State Department of Health is advising residents not to touch the dead bird.
On the East Coast, however, about 500 gray and harbor seals have died from bird flu around the coast of Maine. NOAA declared an unusual mortality event for the area due to the unexpectedly high volume of deaths.
Last winter, an outbreak of bird flu occurred in the domestic population in commercial poultry farms, causing price spikes for eggs and meat, and forcing the euthanasia of more than 47 million chickens and turkeys.
This isn’t the first instance of bird flu among local animals in Washington in 2023. In January, an outbreak forced a Monroe farm to shut down for the rest of the year. That led to a mass culling of nearly 200 ducks.
In July, bird flu was found in birds and seals near Jefferson County’s Fort Flagler State Park.
This story was only posted by My Northwest.
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Putin Explains When Russia Would Use Nukes
Story by Isabel van Brugen •10h
Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures during his annual meeting with participants of the Valdai Discussion Club, October 5, 2023 in Sochi, Russia. President Putin is having a two-day visit to Russia’s Black Sea resort of Sochi to meet foreign and local political experts.© Contributor/Getty Images
Russian President Vladimir Putin outlined on Thursday when his country would use nuclear weapons.
The Russian leader escalated his nuclear rhetoric at an annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi, declaring that Moscow has successfully tested the nuclear-powered, nuclear-capable Burevestnik cruise missile—a claim Kremlin officials had denied just days earlier.
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There have been growing fears throughout Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine that Russia may use nuclear weapons.
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Many fear that Ukraine retaking Crimea would be a red line for Russia and that Putin may use his country’s nuclear capabilities to defend the territory. Putin illegally annexed the Black Sea peninsula from Ukraine in 2014.
“In the event of an attack on Russia, no one has any chance of survival,” Putin warned.
In a wide-ranging speech, Putin said Russia’s military doctrine outlined two reasons for the country’s potential use of nuclear weapons—the first being a counter attack should another country first launch a nuclear strike on Russia.
He said no nation would survive a retaliatory nuclear strike from Russia.
“To date, there will be no chance for the aggressor to survive in the event of our response,” he said.
The second reason, Putin said, is a threat to the existence of the Russian state, even if conventional weapons are used against the country. Putin said he saw no reason to lower the bar for using nuclear weapons, as one Russian analyst had suggested.
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“I don’t see the need for this. There is no situation in which today something would threaten the existence of Russian statehood. I think no person in his right mind would think of using nuclear weapons against Russia. And a potential enemy knows about our capabilities,” he added.
The Russian leader said back in September 2022 that he’d be prepared to use nuclear weapons to defend Russian territory.
“If the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will without doubt use all available means to protect Russia and our people—this is not a bluff,” Putin said in a televised address to the nation at the time.
Putin was also quoted by Russia’s state-run news agency RIA Novosti as saying Thursday that the “last successful test of the Burevestnik, a global-range cruise missile with a nuclear installation, a nuclear propulsion system, has been conducted.”
When Putin first announced the program to develop the Burevestnik in 2018, he touted it as a “a low-flying stealth missile carrying a nuclear warhead, with almost unlimited range, unpredictable trajectory and ability to bypass interception boundaries.”
Putin didn’t say when the latest test took place
