I wonder how many saw the article about the factory chickens in Newfoundland, Canada being struck with the HPAI or Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza? Did you even think about it, if you did?
On 6 January, the CBC announced that hundreds of birds in Newfoundland, Canada had contracted the H5N1 strain of avian flu.
What is extraordinary about this is that it is the same ‘highly pathogenic’ (HPAI) avian flu strain that killed the two White-tailed Eaglets in the Balkans last spring. The male had brought a stork or a crane onto the Estonian nest and the two chicks died as a result of eating it according to the autopsy conducted by Madis Leivits. Thijs Kuiken, Virologist from Erasmus University, Rotterdam said to me in an e-mail, ‘HPAI outbreaks in wildlife were restricted to autumn and winter, and had stopped altogether or were at low levels by the time spring arrived’. Kuiken notes that the incidence of HPAI is overlapping with the breading season of many wild animals that could have been impacted. Many chicks could have died.
Going back to the Newfoundland issue, the question is: how did it cross the Atlantic? Kuiken is working with the Newfoundland Government to discover how this might have happened.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/avian-flu-newfoundland-labrador-1.6304817
Today it was announced that this same Avian Flu is responsible for the culling of swans in the UK including those that belong to the Queen.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-berkshire-60025956
Of further interest is the fact that the same HPAI strain was discovered The in a bird shot in South Carolina in late December 2021. No region appears to be untouched.
If you are interested in learning more about Avian flu and its impact, please read the following article by Dr Kuiken. It is very informative and can be understood easily without great scientific knowledge.
How will this impact the health of all wild birds in Europe and North America? What can be done? Some answers are in the article above. Perhaps it is time to really look at the factory farming of animals carefully and deliberately to a view of becoming more local.
For those of you that enjoy watching the streaming bird cams and particularly those of the various types of eagles, it is possible that we will see more deaths due to H5N1 this season.
Sadly, we wait.
The featured image is credited to: “Swans @ River Thames, Kingston” by Kotomi_ is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0