![]() ![]() Infections among the Arizona flock where the virus was found are holding steady. “APHIS approved this emergency vaccination of the condors because these birds are critically endangered, closely monitored, and their population is very small which allows close monitoring of the vaccine to ensure it is administered only to the approved population,” the agency said in a statement issued on Tuesday.Īlong with the hopeful announcement that a vaccine may soon be ready to administer, efforts to isolate infected birds have been successful. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. For more information see our Privacy Policy. Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. Before administering it to condors, a pilot study has been initiated to test the vaccine on North American vultures – “a similar species” – to ensure there are no adverse effects. ![]() While the emergency-use approval by the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is limited to California condors, the agency is continuing work to develop options for other types of birds. Roughly 58 million commercial poultry have had to be euthanized in attempts to slow the spread of the disease, which has also claimed the lives of hundreds of bald eagles and been detected in more than 6,700 wild birds, a figure widely considered to be underestimated. Though the virus is not considered a high risk to humans, it’s been among the most devastating outbreaks for birds in the country’s history. This dangerous strain of avian flu has rapidly spread across the US, killing millions of domestic and wild birds since it arrived in North America at the end of 2021. Condors don’t mate until they reach maturity at around eight years old, and females only produce a single egg every two years. The fast-spreading disease is one of several threats condors have faced since populations were first decimated by hunting during the California gold rush, including dangers posed by the toxic DDT pesticide and lead poisoning from ammunition lodged in scavenged carcasses. Once abundant in the skies across their western range, which spans from the Pacific north-west to Baja California, Mexico, only a few hundred of these iconic and enormous vultures remain in the wild even after decades of dedicated breeding and conservation efforts. “In a matter of weeks, this event has set our recovery effort back a decade or more,” the Peregrine Fund, an organization dedicated to protecting birds of prey and a key federal partner in restoring and rehabilitating California condors to the wild, wrote in a late-April update on the HPAI impact on condors, adding that the new threat posed by avian flu “highlights the need to address preventable and manageable threats, and rely even more heavily on proven strategies such as captive breeding to increase the wild population”. Despite it being limited to one flock in Arizona, conservation groups are concerned that the deadly illness has already taken a devastating toll on the delicate condor population.
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