The carcasses of thousands of white-tailed deer have been covering the coasts of the Madeleine Islands of Quebec for the past two weeks, victims of highly pathogenic bird flu.
“Nobody had to tell me this was happening; it’s obvious: we’re talking about thousands of dead birds, ”Ile-de-la-Madeleine Mayor Jonathan Lapierre said in a recent interview.
“We are not talking about waste or a normal situation. We are talking about an extraordinary event out of our own control. Mostly because we don’t have an incinerator, we don’t have a landfill. We’re on an island! “
The Quebec Department of Wildlife says that since May 24, it has confirmed several hundred cases of highly pathogenic H5N1 in Iles-de-la-Madeleine, an archipelago of islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
Lapierre said the operation to remove all the dead animals has begun. The carcasses, he added, must be moved by boat.
“All of this is not easy considering our location, the ship also carries rare people and goods,” Lapierre said. “We had to manage all these elements together.”
The highly contagious virus has spread across the country among wild and domestic birds such as roosters, chickens and ducks. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has estimated that nearly two million birds in commercial farming operations have been destroyed by the virus. The agency said bird flu is spreading worldwide and outbreaks have been confirmed in all provinces except Prince Edward Island.
“This year has been an unprecedented year for global bird flu,” the agency said in a statement.
“Birds in an infected barn will all die in a few days if not slaughtered. It is also difficult to predict how long the currently circulating virus (highly pathogenic H5N1) will remain in North America. Research in Europe currently indicates that this strain in particular it seems quite resilient and able to survive in wild bird populations. “
Stephane Lair, a professor of veterinary medicine at the University of Montreal, says the first cases of highly pathogenic bird flu probably arrived in North America in late winter, and involved birds that migrated from Europe.
“It happened naturally,” Lair said. “When a new virus reaches a new population, the animals have no immunity. There is no doubt that, at first, the infection rate will be high.”
Serge Hubert, a resident of Iles-de-la-Madeleine, said in a recent interview that he had never seen so many dead moose floating in the water before this season.
“We’ve been seeing them floating for the last two or three weeks, dead. We’ve been fishing 25 miles off the coast and we’ve seen corpses all along the way.”
The Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative, which is partnering with the federal government to control wild bird populations, said that while not all dead birds can be tested, they can link most cases to the island with H5N1. . Marion Jalenques, a veterinarian in the group, said the H5N1 strain is not considered high risk to humans, but is spreading rapidly among birds.
“We are testing many cases right now, but we cannot receive 300 dead birds at a time,” Jalenques said in a recent interview, adding that municipalities in eastern Quebec and the Mauricie and Monterigie regions have also reported cases.
“If we try 10 out of a few hundred of the same event, it’s definitely related.”
He said that while the removal of commercial birds helps prevent the spread of the virus, it is almost impossible to contain the virus in the wild.
“We can’t do much (to avoid it),” Jalenques said. “We are talking about large areas with large bird populations. There are many diseases in nature that we cannot control. “
This story was produced with the financial assistance of Meta and the Canadian Press News Fellowship.
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