Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative
Highly pathogenic avian flu is on the decline after peaking in the spring months
Wildlife pathologist Brian Stevens inspects a Great Black-backed Gull at his University of Guelph lab.
The pathologist tracking the spread of the highly pathogenic avian influenza (H5N1) in Ontario wild bird populations says the number of cases has started to decline after peaking during the spring migration in April and May.
Brian Stevens is a wildlife pathologist for Ontario and Nunavut with the Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative (CWHC) working out of the University of Guelph. Part of his job includes looking for avian flu in carcasses of wild birds turned into the CWHC.
He says there have been no positive cases of infected birds collected from Oakville or Halton, but there have been cases in all neighbouring regions.
In Ontario, out of 317 bird carcasses that have been turned in across Ontario, Stevens says 87 have tested positive for avian flu.
“Our first case was a red-tailed hawk in Kitchener,” he explains.
“Since then, we’ve detected it in a lot of different species of birds, water birds, raptors and scavenger species. The way the virus works is it is normally carried by waterfowl, ducks or geese. Unlike some other strains of avian flu, this virus is killing a lot of wild birds.”
Significantly for backyard bird enthusiasts, songbirds are not as susceptible. Although Stevens is testing carcasses of songbirds, he says there have been no cases of avian flu in songbirds of the varieties that generally turn up at backyard feeders.
The chances of people or mammals catching avian flu are extremely rare.
In Ontario, Stevens says a red fox carcass came into his lab that tested positive for the virus. The primary worry for avian flu is people working in commercial poultry operations, who would have the most contact with infected birds.
Where avian flu spreads into commercial barns, entire flocks of chickens or turkeys have been culled to prevent the spread of the virus.
Anyone who comes across dead wildlife can contact the CWHC to investigate by calling 1-866-673-4781, emailing on-nu@cwhc-rcsf.ca, or submitting an online report.
“We’re looking for animals that have died of unexplained causes, right across Ontario.”
The Oakville Milton Humane Society suggests backyard bird enthusiasts remove their feeders for the summer because wild food is currently plentiful and reduces the congregation of wild birds.
In the meantime, Stevens says keeping bird feeders up should be fine, but he advises people to regularly disinfect bird feeders once or twice a week, depending on how frequently wild birds visit the feeder.
