Avian flu discovered in Whatcom County; public asked to help in testing wild birds

Published 12:01 am Friday, December 26, 2014

OLYMPIA — The state Department of Fish and Wildlife is seeking the public’s help in testing wild birds for a type of avian influenza that has killed tens of thousands of chickens and domestic turkeys in British Columbia and has recently been detected in wild birds in Whatcom County.

An infected domestic guinea fowl has also been confirmed in Oregon.

Although the virus poses no apparent threat to human health, highly pathogenic strains of avian influenza can be deadly to domestic poultry and, rarely, wild birds.

State wildlife managers ask that anyone who sees a wild bird that is sick or dead call the state Department of Fish and Wildlife at 800-606-8768.

Canadian inspectors first confirmed the highly pathogenic H5N2 strain of avian influenza at two British Columbia poultry farms during the first week of December.

Aware of that finding, Fish and Wildlife had two birds — a gyrfalcon and northern pintail duck — found dead in Whatcom County tested for bird flu the following week.

The gyrfalcon, used for hunting and fed wild duck by its owner, was found to have a highly pathogenic H5N8 form of the virus.

A duck found dead at Wiser Lake was infected with H5N2, similar to the strain found in poultry in British Columbia.

On Dec. 18, the U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed the presence of the H5N8 virus in guinea fowl and chickens in a backyard poultry flock in Winston, Ore.

In asking for the public’s help, agents are particularly interested in waterfowl and birds such as eagles, hawks, falcons, ravens, and gulls that prey on them or scavenge their carcasses.

In addition, field staff from Fish and Wildlife and from two federal agencies will ask hunters’ permission to collect samples from birds they have harvested to test for the disease in several counties.

Those efforts will be focused in Whatcom, Skagit, Snohomish, Thurston and Clark counties.

“The sampling procedure takes less than a minute per bird, and will help us determine the prevalence of the disease in wild birds,” said Don Kraege, waterfowl section manager for Fish and Wildlife.

“Waterfowl are carriers of the disease, but often don’t show symptoms. The primary risk is to domestic chickens and turkeys.”

Kraege said that the agency tested more than 10,000 wild birds for bird flu viruses from 2005 to 2011, and found bird flu viruses in about 10 percent of all birds tested.

None, however, were associated with any illnesses or mortality.

The effort is part of the state’s multi-agency response to highly pathogenic H5 bird flu that also includes the state Department of Agriculture, the state Department of Health, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the National Wildlife Health Center and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

State and federal agriculture officials strongly recommend that poultry producers prevent contact between their birds and wild birds.

Migratory waterbirds such as ducks, geese and shorebirds are now migrating southward from Alaska along the Pacific Flyway, making domestic birds especially susceptible to contracting the disease.

The state Department of Agriculture asks that anyone who spots sick or dead domestic poultry report the observations at 1-800-606-3056.

For more information about avian influenza, see http://tinyurl.com/PDN-avianflu