Avian flu impacting southern Alberta birds, but numbers expected to trend downward

LETHBRIDGE, ALTA -

As the winter approaches, H5N1, better known as Avian Flu, is once again popping up in southern Alberta.

“We saw really high levels of mortality last year and, not surprising, a large amount of infection in domestic flocks especially in B.C. and in Alberta to some extent, but especially in B.C.,” said Everett Hanna with the faculty of environmental science at Lethbridge College.

Hanna has been working with the City of Lethbridge on avian flu and trying to find the cause of the death of the birds.

“In the sort of higher pitch points of the winter when it was really cold, birds were heavily concentrated,” he explained.

“This past spring 2023, we really didn't see much which was kind of surprising actually that it seemed to be more or less normal quote-on-quote for spring migration and prevalence.”

According to the Government of Canada, as of Dec. 14, 2023, there were an estimated 1.8 million birds impacted by the avian flu. Of those, there were 11 infected premises.

B.C. leads the way with nearly six million birds being impacted by the disease.

Despite those numbers, experts say figures this year are lower.

“Our spring and fall migration periods, and particularly it's our fall migration period and a lot of that, again, has to do with the birds as they’re essentially running through a bottleneck in terms of area where those populations are spread out during the breeding season and they all come back together,” said Matt Dyson, a research assistant with Ducks Unlimited Canada.

Ducks Unlimited Canada has been working with their supporters with up-to-date information on the flu.

The loss of neurological coordination, separation from their flock and mortality are all symptoms of the disease.

As winter arrives, Hanna says there's not much that can be done to limit the spread.

“It's really just a surveillance effort,” Hanna said. “There's no cure. At a population level, we're not really concerned for the most part for wild birds as they do live with it naturally.”

Even though H5N1 is extremely rare for people to contract, residents are being asked to stay clear and keep pets away as well.

Residents can also issue reports of dead waterfowl to the Alberta government at 310-0000.