Montana sees first bird flu infections since April, officials adapting … – Montana Right Now

Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) cases resurfaced in Montanas domestic birds this October, ending the summertime break in cases as the outbreak continues into its 18th month and state officials adjust their response.

Last week in Glacier County, a poultry flock intended for sale and consumption was confirmed to have bird flu by Montana officials. Per federal guidelines, officials killed the flocks some 50,300 birds to prevent the virus from spreading.

The same week a backyard flock in Flathead County tested positive for HPAI and eight birds were culled. On Tuesday evening, another backyard flock in Park County was confirmed to have bird flu, the Montana Department of Livestock said.

The three instances are the first HPAI cases Montana has seen since April. Experts attribute the uptick to the fall migrations of waterfowl and other wild birds that spread the virus to farm-raised, or domestic, birds.

We knew that this fall migration was a potential risk period for seeing additional cases, Tahnee Szymanski, state veterinarian for the Montana Department of Livestock, said in an interview Wednesday. Generally speaking, this virus survives better in cool and wet conditions than it does in hot and dry ones. So fall weather right is much more conducive to virus survivability.

While the uptick in cases was expected, this HPAI outbreak is different from previous ones in terms of severity and ability to infect more wild birds. The last national outbreak in 2014-2015 lasted seven months and in Montana, infected just one backyard flock and a single captive wild bird.

Comparatively, the Park County flock is Montanas 20th flock impacted since the state recorded its first case of this HPAI strain (H5N1) in April 2022.

Tahnee Szymanski, state veterinarian for the Montana Department of Livestock, said in an interview Wednesday that the infections are still from the same strain, but it has genetically mutated since it started spreading a year and a half ago.

As the bird flu outbreak has continued, the state has adapted its response, Syzmanski said. Depopulation requirements have loosened and quarantine times have been shortened.

Producers have been rigorous with their biosecurity to limit interactions between wild and domestic birds, Syzmanski said.

Most of the cases are transmitted from wild to domestic flocks rather than the virus bouncing from domestic to domestic flock, which is a testament to the work that all of our poultry producers are doing, Szymanski said.

Some of the successes there as far as biosecurity have allowed us to do things like not require depopulation of some small backyard flocks, Szymanski said. And when we started this process, the duration that affected premises had to be under quarantine was longer.

Once a flock is confirmed positive for bird flu and animals are culled the federally-approved methods include CO2 gassing and cervical dislocation the premises have to be disinfected and quarantined before birds can be raised there again. That quarantine period used to be 150 days or more, and is now 120 days, Szymanski said.

Its still a huge blow to producers who lose out on months of income. The U.S. Department of Agriculture offers some indemnity payments to producers, but they rarely cover the full costs of the impact, Szymanski said.

We would like to find the means to not have to depopulate so many birds, which has had so much disruption to the industry, Szymanski said. Last year, as we were entering the fall months, based upon the number of depopulations that had occurred, we were seeing increases in egg prices, and the price of poultry at the grocery store, and we would like to not have those repercussions.

Still, animal health officials say depopulation is often the most humane route for suffering birds and that its an important method to reduce viral spread. The virus has killed more species of wild birds than HPAI ever has before, and has also spread to an array of mammals and two known human infections, though Syzmanski said the risk to people is still low.

Vaccinating domestic birds for HPAI would be logistically complicated and disrupt international trade agreements, Szymanski said. She added the only species approved for emergency HPAI vaccination is condors in California.

Producers can take steps to limit the risk of bird flu, including keeping birds, feed troughs, and watering stations indoors and changing clothes and shoes when entering poultry birds to avoid biocontamination. The most common symptom of HPAI is sudden death of multiple birds in a flock, which producers should report to the livestock department immediately, Szymanski said.

Biosecurity feels like a really hollow talking point at this time weve been saying it for so long now but it really is the key piece, Szymanski said. If you have birds and want to keep them safe, think about ways to minimize exposure to wild birds.

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Montana sees first bird flu infections since April, officials adapting ... - Montana Right Now