The North Carolina Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services (NCDAC) today announced that tests have confirmed highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in one of the state's dairy herds, raising the number of affected states to seven.
Officials didn't detail the potential source of the virus, but said movements of cattle from earlier affected states has been suspended.
The NCDAC said testing was conducted by the US Department of Agriculture National Veterinary Services Laboratory (NVSL) in Ames, Iowa.
Across US, 21 herds now affected
Steve Troxler, North Carolina's agriculture commissioner, said, "This is an evolving situation, and we are waiting for more diagnostics from NVSL and will work collaboratively with our federal partners and dairy farmers in North Carolina."
He said animal health officials in the state have spent years developing steps to manage HPAI in poultry. "But this is new, and we are working with our state and federal partners to develop protocols to handle this situation."
This is an evolving situation, and we are waiting for more diagnostics.
Meanwhile, the number of dairy herds in previously affected states continue to grow, with the total now at 21. Among other recent detections, Michigan now has a second positive herd, along with more detections on farms in Texas and New Mexico.
In addition to North Carolina, 17 other states have tightened their cattle import rules to varying degrees.
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/avian-influenza-bird-flu/avian-flu-detected-north-carolina-dairy-herd
If you're worried about ticks, put up an owl box.
The animal driving most Lyme disease in the eastern US is the white-footed mouse. Ticks that feed on them are far more likely to come away infected than ticks that feed on other animals. The bigger the local mouse population, the worse the next year's tick year.
A single barred owl pair raising chicks can take hundreds of rodents in a breeding season. Owls also don't carry Lyme. The bacterium can't survive their digestive tract, so an owl that eats an infected mouse is a dead end for the disease.
Researchers at the Cary Institute, the leading lab on Lyme ecology, have been explicit about this: "Landscapes that support predators have reduced Lyme disease risk."
One owl box on its own isn't going to fix a tick year. But a yard with owls, foxes, bobcats, and weasels in it has fewer mice, and a yard with fewer mice has fewer infected ticks.
If you have woods or fields nearby, a properly sized barn owl or screech owl box (different species, different ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Internet_theory
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