Prairie poultry officials urge producers to take care after bird flu discovery in B.C.
Poultry producers are re-examining their biosecurity measures to prevent avian influenza from spreading across the country.
Producers in Alberta have been warned to increase their biosecurity measures, said Alberta Chicken Producers executive director Karen Kirkwood.
Alberta’s emergency management team, which represents the province’s chicken, turkey, hatching egg and table egg sectors, implemented emergency procedures when the first case of avian influenza was discovered in British Columbia at the beginning of December.
“Poultry producers were warned to increase their vigilance, especially with visitors to the farm,” said Kirkwood.
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“Our biosecurity practices are already very high.… We’ve done everything we can to ensure producers have that extra vigilance.”
The 240 barns represented by Alberta Chicken Producers are spread across the province, unlike in B.C., where poultry barns are clustered in the Fraser Valley.
Chicken Farmers of Saskatchewan chief executive officer Clinton Monchuk said the province’s already tight security measures would be double checked.
“It’s not going to be any different. We follow it to a T anyway,” said Monchuk.
He said producers are encouraged to postpone audits that require visitors entering the barns when a disease outbreak hits one area.
“The less people that get onto the farm, the better.”
As of Dec. 19, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency had confirmed that 11 commercial premises in Chilliwack, Langley and Abbotsford and one non-commercial flock in Aldergrove had tested positive for avian influenza, which forced the destruction of 245,085 chickens, turkeys, ducks and geese.
A single non-commercial flock of 85 ducks, chickens, geese and turkeys, was identified Dec. 19.
CFIA officials warned more premises may test positive for the disease because of its highly contagious nature.
On Dec. 19, about 100 birds in a backyard flock near Winston, Oregon, were found to be infected.
The CFIA has established a primary control zone around most of southern B.C. in an effort to contain the virus.
Nine countries have implemented a range of partial and full export bans on poultry and poultry products from Canada.
The CFIA confirmed that the virus detected in B.C. poultry is H5N2, a highly pathogenic strain of avian influenza.
The virus contains gene segments from a highly pathogenic Eurasian H5N8 virus, including the H5 gene and segments from the typical North American virus, including the N2 gene.
It is the first time a Eurasian-lineage, highly pathogenic H5 virus has caused an outbreak of avian influenza in poultry in North America. The virus has the ability to cause high mortality rates in domestic poultry.
Testing in wild birds has not detected this strain in Canada, although CFIA officials believe the outbreak may be linked to wild birds.
U.S. Department of Agriculture officials confirmed that the H2N5 and the H5N8 avian flu strains have been found in northern pintail ducks and captive gyrfalcons in Washington state, just south of B.C.
The pintail samples were confirmed after wildlife officials noticed increased waterfowl deaths at Wiser Lake in Washington.
The gyrfalcon samples were collected after a falconer reported signs of illness in his birds. The gyrfalcons were fed hunter-killed wild birds.
Neither virus has been found in commercial poultry flocks in the United States.
German authorities reported an outbreak of the highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N8 on a turkey farm in November. It was the first time the virus was detected in Europe.
mary.macarthur@producer.com
