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Scout <me4guns@verizon.removeme.this2.nospam.net> wrote in news:ssq3ut$lva6$62@news.freedyn.de:

Slow media day. But there are huge numbers of birds missing.

COVID-19 isn’t the only virus that has significantly impacted the planet
in the past few years. Avian flu (H5N1), which has devastated the poultry industry and caused a 70% increase in egg prices in the past year, has
impacted more than just domesticated species.

What’s happening?
New research indicates that the flu, which has killed off hundreds of
thousands of wild birds, is one of the most devastating disease outbreaks
in history. Vox reported that the disease has spread across five
continents and hundreds of species, including endangered ones like the California condor, which classifies it as a “panzootic” — a pandemic among animals.

Avian flu typically causes death only among domesticated birds, like ducks
and chickens, killing up to 90% of the flock within an outbreak. But this
time, it’s different.

“What we’re seeing right now is uncharted territory,” Andrew Ramey, a
wildlife geneticist at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), told Vox. The
biology of the virus has caused it to attack wild species and even
mammals.

“It’s causing a high amount of mortality in a huge breadth of wild birds,
which is not something that has been seen before,” commented Wendy
Puryear, a molecular virologist at Tufts University. This is because the current avian flu virus has adapted to spread disease outside poultry
farms and infect even more species in its wake.

Why is avian flu concerning?
The current avian flu outbreak, which emerged in North America in the
winter of 2021, has killed or forced farmers to cull upward of half a
billion birds worldwide. The number of wild birds affected by the outbreak
is more difficult to track since governments lack the resources to test
every dead bird. “We haven’t seen these kinds of numbers with an influenza outbreak in wild birds previously, ever,” Puryear said to Vox.

The avian flu is particularly problematic for biologists studying
endangered and small bird populations, such as Michigan’s threatened
Caspian terns and the California condor. Nearly half of all bird species globally are declining due to habitat loss or change, predation, and
invasive species. The avian flu is just another hurdle to restoring their population numbers.

Scientists are also wary of the potential impact on humans since the virus already shows massive evolutionary potential. Although in its current
form, the H5N1 is unlikely to cause a pandemic, it can mutate and could potentially infect humans later in time, Vox reported.

What is being done to combat avian flu?
More effort is being taken to track the spread of the avian flu worldwide diligently and to sample regions where the flu may be present. In turn,
the surveillance should give poultry farmers more heads-up for when the
flu is expected in the area so that appropriate biosecurity measures can
be taken.

Birders and naturalists can also play a role in tracking the spread of the virus. Citizen science programs like iNaturalist have a feature to track
dead birds; the information is then shared with appropriate organizations.

The biggest question, though, is how the poultry industry will adapt to
the virus and persistent biosecurity threats in the coming years. Compact rearing operations only serve to spread viruses uncontrollably — and it’s likely the direct fault of increased demand for meat and eggs and
unsustainable poultry production, as an expert cited in the Vox article suggested.

“It’s useful to remember that wild birds are the victims here,” Nichola
Hill, an infectious disease ecologist at the University of Massachusetts Boston, said, as reported by Vox. “They spread HPAI but are not the
original source. My motto has become: Bird flu sucks, blame chicken
nuggets.

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Byron
7 hours ago

"Avian flu (H5N1), which has devastated the poultry industry and caused a
70% increase in egg prices in the past year, has impacted more than just domesticated species." Where I live eggs went from 86 cents a dozen to
$3.59 a dozen, I'm not good at math but I think that's more than 70%
increase.

GB
6 hours ago

So the news media once again is trying to place fear in us again. The
title of this story reads...."New research shows that a devastating new
virus is one of the worst outbreaks in history: ‘[This is] uncharted territory’. The avian flu (aka bird flu) has been around for years. It's
not uncharted territory. Some years it's worse than others. Unfortunately,
due to the migration path of birds, we have to deal with it each year.
Each state has a department of agriculture that works with the feds. There
are protections and protocol procedures that these departments use to
mitigate the spread of the virus.

https://news.yahoo.com/research-shows-devastating-virus-one-110000717.html

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