Upheavals follow avian flu outbreak in western US

DENVER — Egg shortages and skyrocketing prices at grocery stores continue to impact consumers in the United States as a result of the historic avian flu that is spreading rapidly among wild birds and has triggered the killing of millions of poultry.

"We have never seen anything like the enormity of this outbreak," Michael Tincher, rehabilitation coordinator with the Rocky Mountain Raptor Program, told The Colorado Sun on Monday. The RMRP is a group of scientists working toward protecting and saving wild birds of prey.

Colorado's worst avian flu outbreak has now resulted in nearly 6.4 million poultry deaths and is increasingly crossing over into wild birds and killing bald eagles and other precious raptors, the newspaper reported, adding that wildlife watchers call the event "the stuff of bad dreams".

Last week, the US Department of Agriculture, or USDA, defined the recent bird flu on its website as Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, or HPAI. It warned poultry producers that wild birds can be infected and show no signs of illness. "They can carry the disease to new areas when migrating, potentially exposing domestic poultry to the virus," it said.

HPAI has been detected in all 50 US states, with Colorado, Utah, North Dakota, Oregon and California in the top 10 states having confirmed deaths of wild birds, though Florida, with its abundant coastline and waterfowl, leads the country in bird deaths with 379, according to USDA data.

'Just a small fraction'

Hundreds of wild bird deaths may not sound like many, but experts said the numbers being reported are "just a small fraction "of birds dying in the wild.

"Wildlife officials say they are overwhelmed by reports of carcasses in the wild and have limited testing of dead birds in order to concentrate efforts in the most impacted areas," The Colorado Sun said.

Calling the current global avian outbreak "the COVID of Bird Flus", Tincher said that initial key measures toward combating the plague are education and awareness, and "not about creating a panic".

"When COVID hit, we didn't know anything about it, so we need to be patient," he said. "We need to play the long game and see how it carries out."

Wild birds affected by the virus cover the gamut of wild waterfowl from the white pelican in the south to the snow goose in the north, and include the red-tailed hawk, the mallard and the bald eagle, the legendary symbol of US heritage.

Xinhua