‘Unprecedented’ Bird Flu Epidemic Ripping Through Canada
Canadian poultry farmers are facing fear and stress as a highly pathogenic strain of H5N1 avian influenza is currently circulating in both wild and domestic flocks across North America.
According to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency poultry and egg producers in Canada have lost more than 1.7 million birds to avian influenza since late 2021. That tally includes both birds that have died of the virus and birds that have been euthanized.’
David Hyink, an Alberta chicken farmer, checks his barns each day with a sense of trepidation. He knows if the disease were to turn up on his property, it would mean the loss of his entire flock.
Avian influenza has a high mortality rate, and those birds at outbreak sites that don’t die from the disease are humanely euthanized to prevent the spread of the virus.
“While we haven’t had it on our farm, and I hope we don’t, it just appears it could be anybody,” Hyink said. ”It could be us next, the farm next to us, you just don’t know.”
Alberta is Canada’s hardest hit province with 900,000 birds dead and 23 farms affected. Ontario is the second hardest hit with 23 affected farms and 425,000 birds dead.- READ MORE
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