By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
Avian influenza is always around. A particularly deadly strain of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) has impacted birds around the nation this year. Cheyenne Bottoms Wildlife Manager Jason Wagner said the problem began locally about three weeks ago with the arrival of hundreds of thousands of migrating snow geese.
"I was monitoring closely," he said. "Through USDA, we were catching ducks and I was sampling hunter-harvested ducks that were shot at the Bottoms. We sampled 351 ducks in our area. Out of those 351, I think 47 of those ducks tested positive for avian influenza."
Bottoms staff was not seeing a large die-off of birds at that point. A few days later, however, Wagner would see 20-30 birds a day acting sick or already dead. He estimated some 400,000 total geese have stopped at the Bottoms over the past three weeks, and fewer than 1,500 of those birds died. Most samples sent to a lab in Georgia confirmed that HPAI was the culprit.
"The worst part about it is the predominant wind pushes all the carcasses every day toward the main road that everyone is driving," Wagner said. "It makes it look way worse than it actually is."
Wagner believes the peak of infection has passed as many of the birds have left the area. Still, he encourages the public, especially poultry farmers and hunters, to educate themselves about the virus. Changing boots between hunting and farm, disinfecting tires, moving poultry food sources indoors, and cooking waterfowl to 165 degrees can help mitigate the spread of the virus.