Bird Flu in Ducks

Duck hunters beware. It turns out that bird flu may be hitting duck populations in the Northwest. Here is Kent Catlan Deputy Director in the division of emergency management at the Watkin County Sheriff's office. "The USDA did confirm the presence of avian influenza in wild birds in Watkins County. Right now we are looking at two separate virus strains which were identified. We have the HPAIN2 in a northern in tailed duck and HPAIH1 in a captive falcon."

We all know how contagious these kinds of viruses can be. For example, humans can contract West Nile virus via a mosquito bite after the mosquito has fed on birds. Remember the falcon that got infected according to Ofc. Catlan. Here's how that came to be. "The captive falcon was fed some wild birds."

So feeding a falcon a wild bird that was infected caused the falcon to get infected. The question is, what if you ate an infected duck? "As far as the H5NH strain of bird flu, transmission from birds to people is difficult. It requires close contact with the birds including hands-on, holding, handling, butchering them or exposure to the bird droppings." Until we learn a lot more let's all be very careful.