What to know about the bird flu outbreak in wild birds and what it means for backyard bird feeders

WCCO-AM / 830 WCCO

Bird flu has devastated poultry and dairy farms, and sent the price of eggs soaring in the United States since it was first detected in North America in late 2021. But what has been the toll on wild birds?

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00:00It's highly unlikely that you would catch bird flu from a wild bird, however, for an

00:20abundance of caution, we'd certainly recommend not approaching or handling a dead bird that

00:27you might find. As far as we know, there are no cases of people actually catching bird

00:37flu from wild birds yet in North America. In terms of bird feeders, the general recommendation

00:50is there's no need to stop feeding because songbirds contract the disease less easily

00:57and pass it on less easily. Unless, for example, you also keep poultry, in which case there

01:09is some possibility of bird flu making it from a songbird to chickens. In terms of dealing

01:20with feeders, the general recommendation is that there shouldn't be a problem with feeding

01:25birds. But if you want to be particularly cautious, you can look on the CDC website

01:39and you'll be able to see where outbreaks or current data is on outbreaks of bird flu.

01:45Yeah, so it does seem to affect different birds in different ways, and part of that is behavioral

01:55and part of that is to do with the bird's physiology. So in the case of, for example,

02:03waterfowl, waterfowl seem to easily pick up the disease and shed it. Although mortality

02:14amongst waterfowl is slightly lower than, for example, amongst poultry that can often

02:19have close to 100% mortality. So that's one of the big concerns is that poultry are being

02:25heavily affected by bird flu.

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