Livestock

Subterms

    Latest story

    175 Shares159 Views

    A Bird Flu Pandemic Would Be One of the Most Foreseeable Catastrophes in History

    by

    Almost five years after Covid blew into our lives, the main thing standing between us and the next global pandemic is luck. And with the advent of flu season, that luck may well be running out.The H5N1 avian flu, having mutated its way across species, is raging out of control among the nation’s cattle, infecting roughly a third of the dairy herds in California alone. Farmworkers have so far avoided tragedy, as the virus has not yet acquired the genetic tools to spread among humans. But seasonal flu will vastly increase the chances of that outcome. As the colder weather drives us all indoors to our poorly ventilated houses and workplaces, we will be undertaking an extraordinary gamble that the nation is in no way prepared for.All that would be more than bad enough, but we face these threats gravely hobbled by the Biden administration’s failure — one might even say refusal — to respond adequately to this disease or to prepare us for viral outbreaks that may follow. And the United States just registered its first known case of an exceptionally severe strain of Mpox.As bad as the Biden administration has been on pandemic prevention, of course, it’s about to be replaced by something far worse. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Donald Trump’s pick to lead the nation’s vast public health agency, has already stated he would not prioritize research or vaccine distribution were we to face another pandemic. Kennedy may even be hastening its arrival through his advocacy for raw milk, which can carry high levels of the H5N1 virus and is considered a possible vector for its transmission.We might be fine. Viruses don’t always manage to adapt to new species, despite all the opportunities. But if there is a bird flu pandemic soon, it will be among the most foreseeable catastrophes in history.Devastating influenza pandemics arise throughout the ages because the virus is always looking for a way in, shape shifting to jump among species in ever novel forms. Flu viruses have a special trick: If two different types infect the same host — a farmworker with regular flu who also gets H5N1 from a cow — they can swap whole segments of their RNA, potentially creating an entirely new and deadly virus that has the ability to spread among humans. It’s likely that the 1918 influenza pandemic, for example, started as a flu virus of avian origin that passed through a pig in eastern Kansas. From there it likely infected its first human victim before circling the globe on a deadly journey that killed more people than World War I.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    More stories

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      California Man Arrested After Shooting Spree Kills at Least 80 Animals

      by

      The hourslong episode in the middle of the night triggered a shelter-in-place order in Monterey County. One official described the scene as “horrible.”A bloody shooting spree in California this week left at least 80 animals dead and sent neighbors fleeing to safety in the middle of the night, the authorities said.A man, Vicente Joseph Arroyo of Salinas, was taken into custody after he fired multiple weapons in a vineyard in Prunedale over a three-hour period on Tuesday, the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release. Prunedale is an unincorporated community in Monterey County, about 100 miles south of San Francisco.Just before 3:30 a.m. on Tuesday, the sheriff’s office responded to calls of multiple shots being fired, and soon issued a shelter-in-place order for residents within a five-mile radius.“Various calibers of weapons could be heard being fired in an area that was extremely dark and covered in thick vegetation,” the news release said. “This made it difficult for deputies to immediately locate the person or persons responsible for firing the weapons.”Officers from multiple agencies responded to the scene, and by sunrise the authorities had located the suspect and a crashed vehicle along a road in the vineyard.After Mr. Arroyo, 39, was taken into custody without incident, the authorities found a cache of weapons including multiple long rifles, shotguns, handguns and an illegal assault weapon.Pictures from the scene posted to social media by the sheriff’s office showed a large amount of ammunition and what appeared to be at least one bulletproof vest.Monterey County Sheriff’s OfficeRoughly 80 animals were killed in the shooting spree, the authorities found, including miniature horses, goats, rabbits, guinea pigs, chickens, ducks and birds. Mr. Arroyo lived in a trailer next to the property where the animals were killed, Cmdr. Andres Rosas, a spokesman for the Monterey County sheriff’s office, told the San Francisco Chronicle.While some animals initially survived, they were later euthanized because of the severity of their injuries, the authorities said.Mr. Arroyo was booked into the Monterey County jail for willful discharge of a firearm with gross negligence, animal cruelty, illegal possession of an assault weapon, vandalism, criminal threats and felony possession of a firearm. His bail was set at $50,000.The sheriff’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday, including questions about whether there was a clear motive.Jason Maynard, a neighbor, recalled the overnight chaos, telling the TV station KSBW and other local news outlets that after hearing the gunshots, he told his wife and child to drop to the floor.“It is a horrible scene,” Commander Rosas told the news station. “We are very fortunate that no human lives were lost.”Mr. Rosas said there was no information to indicate the suspect was looking for anyone specific and that it appeared the animals were the targets.“I’ve been doing this for 24 plus years now,” he said, “and no, I’ve unfortunately never seen anything like this when it comes to animal life lost.” More

    • 175 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      How a Crisis for Vultures Led to a Human Disaster: Half a Million Deaths

      by

      The birds were accidentally poisoned in India. New research on what happened next shows how wildlife collapse can be deadly for people.To say that vultures are underappreciated would be putting it mildly. With their diet of carrion and their featherless heads, the birds are often viewed with disgust. But they have long provided a critical cleaning service by devouring the dead.Now, economists have put an excruciating figure on just how vital they can be: The sudden near-disappearance of vultures in India about two decades ago led to more than half a million excess human deaths over five years, according to a forthcoming study in the American Economic Review.Rotting livestock carcasses, no longer picked to the bones by vultures, polluted waterways and fed an increase in feral dogs, which can carry rabies. It was “a really huge negative sanitation shock,” said Anant Sudarshan, one of the study’s authors and an economics professor at the University of Warwick in England.The findings reveal the unintended consequences that can occur from the collapse of wildlife, especially animals known as keystone species for the outsize roles they play in their ecosystems. Increasingly, economists are seeking to measure such impacts.A study looking at the United States, for example, has suggested that the loss of ash trees to the invasive emerald ash borer increased deaths related to cardiovascular and respiratory illness. And in Wisconsin, researchers found that the presence of wolves reduced vehicle collisions with deer by about a quarter, creating an economic benefit that was 63 times greater than the cost of wolves killing livestock.“Biodiversity and ecosystem functioning do matter to human beings,” said Eyal Frank, an economist at the University of Chicago and one of the authors of the new vulture study. “And it’s not always the charismatic and fuzzy species.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 100 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      3 Presumed Bird Flu Cases Reported in Colorado

      by

      The cases, which have yet to be confirmed, were identified in farmworkers culling infected birds. The risk to the public remains low, health officials said.Three workers at a poultry farm in northeast Colorado have preliminarily tested positive for bird flu, according to state health officials.The workers had been culling birds from an infected population at the farm, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment said on Friday. All three workers had direct contact with infected birds and were experiencing mild symptoms, including conjunctivitis and “common respiratory infection symptoms,” the department said.The results are preliminary, and the tests have been sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for confirmation, the C.D.C. said.So far, four farmworkers in the United States have been infected with the virus, called H5N1, which is tied to a continuing outbreak among dairy cattle in several states.One case has been reported in Colorado, another in Texas and two more in Michigan, according to the C.D.C. All of those cases involved direct exposure to dairy cows, according to the state and federal health authorities, and officials have said that there is no evidence that the H5N1 virus spreads easily among humans.The risk to the public remains low, the C.D.C. said, but the agency added that it had sent a team to Colorado at the state’s request to help investigate.The C.D.C. said that it would look into whether workers were wearing personal protective equipment. Farmworkers are advised but not required to wear such equipment, including masks, safety goggles and gloves.“These preliminary results again underscore the risk of exposure to infected animals,” the C.D.C. said of the three new cases in Colorado. “There are no signs of unexpected increases in flu activity otherwise in Colorado, or in other states affected by H5 bird flu outbreaks in cows and poultry.”Avian influenza refers to a group of flu viruses primarily adapted to birds. The virus infecting farmworkers, H5N1, was first identified in 1996 in China and reported in people in 1997 in Hong Kong. A new form of H5N1, which surfaced in Europe in 2020, has rapidly spread around the world, and an outbreak in the United States has affected more than 99 million birds.The outbreak has been spreading among dairy farms since at least March, and 152 dairy herds in 12 states have tested positive for the virus. Scientists are researching how the virus is being transmitted through cows.The virus has also spread to a wide array of animals, including marine mammals like seals and bottlenose dolphins, skunks, squirrels and even domestic cats. More