The current loss of life of a brown bear cub on Alaska’s Kodiak Island has led to elevated issues in regards to the ongoing outbreak of extremely pathogenic avian influenza in North America. Wildlife officers confirmed final Wednesday that the cub had examined optimistic for HPAI, making it the state’s first documented case of a brown bear dying from chook flu. The cub isn’t the primary (or the one) North American mammal to contract the virus, nevertheless, and its loss of life reveals a pair issues about how chook flu is transmitted, in addition to the extent of threat posed to different mammal species.
The Kodiak brown bear cub was discovered useless by a deer hunter on Nov. 26, in response to Alaska Public Media. A necropsy carried out by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (and confirmed by a laboratory within the Lower 48) pointed to HPAI as the reason for loss of life. Weeks earlier, officers in Glacier Bay National Park euthanized a black bear cub that was later decided to be HPAI-positive.
“They thought it was drunk—it was stumbling, and then was abandoned by the mother,” ADFG wildlife veterinarian Kimberlee Beckmen informed reporters with KTOO News. Beckmen added that the cub’s mind was swollen and he or she mentioned “it would have died, probably within hours, had it not been euthanized.”
This description additionally sounds remarkably much like a current report involving a handful of bears that had been euthanized by Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks this 12 months after they had been seen strolling in circles and appearing disoriented. The brains of those bears had been additionally noticeably swollen, and whereas MFWP didn’t verify the reason for the swelling, these neurological signs appear to correlate with these seen in different HPAI-infected mammals.
To be clear, the listing of North American mammals which have examined optimistic for chook flu is comparatively brief, particularly when in comparison with the roughly 56 million wild and home birds which were affected by the virus already, in response to the CDC’s newest rely. In addition to bears, the listing of contaminated mammals features a handful of foxes—two of which had been additionally found in Alaska—together with a number of skunks, raccoons, coyotes, otters, and bobcats. It additionally features a few marine mammals like dolphins and harbor seals.
The one factor that each one these species have in frequent is their propensity for scavenging, and it’s seemingly that every of the contaminated animals picked up the virus by feeding on useless, contaminated birds. As Beckmen identified final week, scientists have additionally discovered the virus will not be foodborne, and that it could’t be handed from one mammal to a different.
“They don’t get it by ingesting, but they get it by inhaling the virus,” she mentioned. “So, while they’re scavenging, they’re probably inhaling the virus and that’s how it gets into their system.”
Beckmen’s level additionally brings up a significant concern that some hunters have about their chook canines being contaminated. The current findings show that despite the fact that the chance posed to searching canines could also be very low, it’s nonetheless doable for a canine to select up chook flu whereas retrieving an contaminated chook. Hunters can decrease these dangers even additional by not sending their canines out to retrieve birds which are clearly sick, and by avoiding areas with excessive concentrations of sick or useless waterfowl.
“The risks that I perceive for dogs would mainly be for retrievers if they’re used to retrieve waterfowl,” Beckmen says. “Or if they’re taken out and swum in a lake or pond that’s highly contaminated with waterfowl droppings.”
The threat posed to people, in the meantime, stays extraordinarily low, in response to each ADFG and the CDC. There has solely been one documented case of a human contracting chook flu within the United States this 12 months, and that individual was working at a business poultry operation the place they had been actively concerned with culling HPAI-infected birds.
“In the world there’s only been three people that have had the virus, and the one in the U.S. wasn’t even sick from it,” Beckmen says.