LI Animal Rights Group Urges Nixing Poultry After Bird Flu Found

LONG ISLAND, NY — A Long Island animal advocacy group is urging residents to keep poultry off of their plates and out of classrooms after a backyard flock in Suffolk County was found to have the highly-pathogenic avian influenza.

Long Island Orchestrating for Nature plans to erect a billboard with the slogan,“Animal Exploitation Breeds Killer Diseases. Keep animals off your plate and out of your classroom,” as a way of educating the public about the issue and to "hopefully help prevent the next pandemic," said president John DiLeonardo.

It's not the first billboard the group has worked on. Back in the fall, LION worked along with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to erect a billboard in Brookhaven to highlight abuses in the beef industry after Hannibal, a black Angus steer escaped from a slaughterhouse and was on the run for several months in the Mastic and Moriches area.

DiLeonardo said the group is currently working on a mock-up of the billboard and no plans have been set for where it will be placed.

Citing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, DiLeonardo said that three out of four emerging infectious diseases in humans originate in animals, which is, "in part, caused by our reliance on animal agriculture."

"By breeding and raising animals, we are creating hotspots for zoonotic diseases where birds are confined by the tens of thousands in cramped and unsanitary conditions, often surrounded by their own waste and deprived of fresh air and sunlight," said DiLeonardo, whose group is based in Riverhead.

"These conditions cause animals extreme stress and create the perfect breeding ground for pathogens. Selective breeding for profitable traits, such as larger breasts and faster egg production, results in loss of genetic diversity which makes it easier for an outbreak to happen and common use of antibiotics creates antibiotic resistance in humans and animals alike."

Even fowl that seems healthy can harbor various bacteria strains that can sicken children, eggs can carry salmonella, and fecal tests have confirmed that once hatched, chicks and ducklings also carry e.coli and other strains of salmonella, at least one that was found to be antibiotic-resistant, said DiLeonardi, citing the CDC.

A child who touches eggs, baby birds, or their environments will be directly exposed to the bacteria and the CDC warns that young children are at a higher risk of illness because their immune systems are still developing "and they are more likely to put their fingers or other items" in their mouths, according to DiLeonardo.

Schools that conduct hatching projects become "potential breeding grounds for these and other pathogens, including West Nile Virus, which domestic fowl can contract," DiLeonardo said, noting that Seattle Public Schools implemented a ban on all hatching projects after learning of that scenario.

An upstate teacher recently disclosed her district ended hatching projects after a salmonella outbreak was linked to their project at a New York education conference, DiLeonardo said.

The United States Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service announced Saturday that a non-commercial backyard, non-poultry flock of birds had tested positive for the avian flu.

Officials did not specify the location in the county or the breed of the birds.

Samples from the infected flock were tested at the Cornell University Animal Health Diagnostic Center, part of the National Animal Health Laboratory Network, and confirmed at the APHIS National Veterinary Services Laboratories in Ames, Iowa, according to the agency's statement.

The agency is working closely with state animal health officials on joint incident response and state officials have quarantined the affected premises, and the birds on the properties "will be depopulated to prevent the spread of the disease," officials said.

Avian influenza is caused by an influenza type A virus that can infect poultry like chickens, turkeys, pheasants, quail, domestic ducks, geese, and guinea fowl, and is carried by free-flying waterfowl such as ducks, geese, and shorebirds, officials said.