Bird Flu Risk

“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.” That’s Kent Catlin, Deputy Director in the division of emergency management at the Watkin County, Washington Sheriff’s office. Avian flu has also been discovered in Oregon. Not surprisingly, and always looking for an excuse to bar our imports, the Chinese government has banned imports of U.S. poultry and eggs due to recent detections of avian influenza in non-commercial flocks in the Pacific Northwest,  according to the USA Poultry and Egg Export Council, a U.S. poultry industry group. If you are a poultry producer, are you at risk ? “That is where the greatest risk is, if the wildfowl that are in the migratory patterns, if they are passing over our domestic poultry operations, that is the greatest risk for transmitting the virus to any type of poultry operation. And how does it get transmitted? Direct contact, whether that is through sharing a water source or something else, it would be direct contact with an infected animal.” Those words come from Dr. Scott Leibsle, an Idaho state veterinarian.