Poultry farmers in Quebec are grappling with a series of deadly avian flu epidemics, while the number of birds dead or euthanized because of the disease since the beginning of last year is approaching one million.
Poultry farmers are all taking extra precautions, said Sylvain Junior Henrie, co-owner of Ferme La Caboche in Rimouski.
At his farm located northeast of Quebec, people change their boots and coveralls before entering the buildings. He waits until later in the year to put his flock outside, and he has invested in mobile shelters and a series of tarps and canvases to ensure that wild birds cannot mingle with his chickens, organic ducks and turkeys.
“The important thing is not to bring anything from outside into our farming areas,” Henrie explained.
He has been spared so far along with other farmers in his area, but the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus is having a widespread impact on poultry farming in the province, ranging from farmer anxiety to a shortage of drug used to euthanize infected flocks.
On Friday, 20 localities in the province were considered actively infected. Alberta had the second highest number of infected sites with 11, followed by British Columbia with eight. More than 7.6 million birds in Canada have died or been euthanized because of the flu since last year, including 945,000 in Quebec.
On April 26, the Quebec government implemented new rules prohibiting exhibitions, fairs or sales where birds from different places rub shoulders.
Martin Pelletier, spokesman for a group that monitors poultry disease in Quebec, said there have already been more outbreaks this year than last.
“We expected to have cases this year, and for sure we had more than expected,” he said. Pelletier, who is director general of the Quebec Poultry Disease Control Team, explained that cases can increase in the spring due to the return of migratory birds carrying the disease.
Multiple challenges
Jean-Pierre Vaillancourt, professor at the University of Montreal Veterinary School, said the current outbreaks are concentrated in a group of farms in the Montérégie region, east of Montreal. He said the proximity of farms – some within 200 meters of each other – can create problems if employees, equipment or facilities are shared.
“We have a situation where you have a lot of farms very close together,” he said. So it created this kind of series of epidemics. »
He said some of the affected farms are duck farms, which creates an increased risk because ducks tend to carry the disease longer before showing symptoms.
Mr. Vaillancourt said that with the exception of Quebec, cases in the rest of Canada and the United States are much lower than last year. But the outbreak still raises many concerns, including the environmental challenges of carcass disposal and the social acceptability of killing tens of thousands of birds at once.
According to Mr. Vaillancourt, the bird flu is “devastating on many levels” for producers who have to see their entire flocks destroyed. Although they are compensated for lost birds, production disruptions can take months to overcome, hurting the economies of regions that depend on agricultural jobs.
Animal welfare is also a big concern, he said. Herds with the virus are euthanized, in part to spare them a slow death from the disease. However, carbon dioxide – the gas of choice for euthanizing birds – is currently in short supply, due to high demand for making soft drinks and other uses.
“It may even delay the slaughter of some herds, and that has direct welfare implications there,” laments Professor Vaillancourt.
Mr. Henrie said a flu outbreak would be devastating for a family farm like his.
“All our savings are (in the farm), he said, adding that the price of organic production is higher. It’s also a lot of time, so rather than losing a farm like ours, we’d rather take steps upstream to make sure the virus doesn’t get in. »
According to him, the H5N1 epidemic should cause people to question the massive industrial productions, which make diseases more difficult to contain and lead to mass deaths if the flu manages to enter an environment.
The virus being closely watched
Bird flu had been found in 274 species of birds, as well as dozens of mammals, including seals, foxes and raccoons, Vaillancourt said.
Public health agencies in Canada, the United States and Europe agree that the risk to human health remains low, with cases almost always limited to direct contact with infected birds or environments, such as a chicken coop. There are no risks associated with consuming well-cooked poultry products.
However, researchers are closely monitoring the evolution of the H5N1 virus. In a paper published earlier this year, scientists from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency examined cases in 40 different wild mammals and found that the virus had undergone “critical mutations”, although the agency said the risks of human spread remain minimal.