The carcasses of thousands of northern gannets have been covering the shores of the Magdalen Islands in Quebec for the past two weeks, victims of highly pathogenic bird flu.
“No one had to tell me this was happening. It’s obvious: we’re talking about thousands of dead birds,” said Magdalen Islands Mayor Jonathan Lapierre.
“We’re not talking about waste or an ordinary situation. We’re talking about an extraordinary event out of our control. Especially because we don’t have an incinerator, we don’t have a landfill. We’re on an island!”
The Quebec Ministry of Wildlife says it has confirmed several hundred cases of highly pathogenic H5N1 since May 24 in the Magdalen Islands, 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.
2 million birds slaughtered on farms
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has estimated that nearly two million birds in commercial farming operations have been destroyed by the virus.
The agency says bird flu is spreading worldwide and outbreaks have been confirmed in all provinces except Prince Edward Island, where domestic and commercial poultry have not been affected. , but a handful of wild birds and even some fox kits have tested positive.
“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 they are not euthanized. It is also difficult to predict how long the virus (highly pathogenic H5N1) currently circulating in North America will remain. Research in Europe currently indicates that this strain in particular it appears to be quite resilient and able to survive in wild bird populations. “
Magdalen Mayor Jonathan Lapierre says “we’re talking about thousands of dead birds.” (William Bastille-Denis / Radio-Canada)
Stéphane 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 the Magdalen Islands, 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 disease in the wild cannot be stopped, says the expert
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 Montérégie 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,” Jalenques said. “We are talking about large areas with large bird populations. There are many diseases in nature that we cannot control.”