In late March, a hunter witnessed snow geese acting strangely in the Montezuma Wildlife Refuge in Cayuga County.
The geese were swimming in circles with their heads thrown on their backs. The hunter called Krysten Schuler, co-director of the Cornell Wildlife Health Lab, which tracks wildlife diseases in New York state. Schuler ran some tests and found all the geese were sick with a new, virulent strain of avian flu called H5N1.
The sick snow geese signaled the arrival of H5N1—already sweeping across the nation—in Central New York, and the birds are likely just the tip of the iceberg.
H5N1 is classified as a ‘highly pathogenic avian influenza’ (HPAI) strain because it’s lethal to poultry. When the virus is detected in a single bird, the entire flock must be killed to contain the spread of the disease.
The last outbreak of HPAI in 2014-2015 resulted in the loss of more than 50 million poultry in 21 states according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) report. So far, H5N1 has affected nearly 40 million poultry in 32 states.
But HPAI is having a much more severe impact on wild birds this time around by a factor of ten.
U.S. Geological Survey map showing distribution of confirmed HPAI cases in the U.S. as of May 6, 2022.
Virus kills nine bald eagles
Schuler said H5N1 has killed at least nine bald eagles in New York since March, including one from Onondaga County. It’s also been detected in surprising variety of wild birds compared to the 2014-2105 outbreak, Schuler said, which left New York unscathed with no bird deaths, wild or domestic.
According to the most recent USDA tally, 30 wild birds have thus far been infected in New York. And that number is almost certainly higher, as wild birds often die unnoticed and therefore undetected. Furthermore, USDA-confirmed cases can lag weeks behind reporting from state labs like the one at Cornell.
If the current HPAI outbreak follows the pattern of past outbreaks, it could “burn out” in the coming weeks, said Schuler.
“We’re hoping that it goes away as the birds migrate north towards their breeding areas,” she said. “That’s sort of what we saw in 2015.”
But wildlife disease experts like Schuler are concerned about the virus’s ability to spread so quickly among so many different wild bird species.
“We’re a little bit worried that it’s going to [combine with] with other influenza viruses the birds are carrying,” she said, possibly resulting in an even deadlier new strain.
Raptor rehabber captures hawk with H5N1
On March 30, Morgan Hapeman got a call from a DEC police officer in northern Cayuga County about a Cooper’s hawk that was flying erratically. Could she check it out? He asked.
Hapeman, a licensed bird rehabilitator, operates the Finger Lakes Raptor Center on Seneca Lake, a non-profit facility that cares for sick, injured, or orphaned birds of prey and other avian species. She captured the hawk and brought it back to the raptor center.
“Cooper’s hawks run into stuff all the time chasing birds,” Hapeman said, “and his symptoms were just like head trauma. I didn’t think anything of it.”
The hawk showed signs of a neurologic injury, but they were subtle, just “a little bit of head movement that wasn’t normal,” Hapeman said. In a video Hapeman shared with Syracuse.com, the hawk can be seen in an isolation crate, its head twitching uncontrollably.
The hawk died the next day. Hapeman took the carcass to Cornell where it tested positive for H5N1.
Morgan Hapeman of the Finger Lakes Raptor Center captured this bald eagle in March when it fell out of a tree near Sampson State Park in Seneca County. It was euthanized the next day at the Cornell Wildlife Hospital.
‘It literally just fell out of the tree’
On the night of April 29, Hapeman got another call, this time about an adult bald eagle that was acting weird.
The eagle had been roosting in a tree in Sampson State Park, not far from the raptor center, when it just dropped to the ground after being “startled” by a juvenile bald eagle, Hapeman said.
“There wasn’t any altercation or anything,” she said, noting that a healthy adult bald eagle would ordinarily scrap with a juvenile over a roosting spot.
“It literally just fell out of the tree and crashed into shrubbery below it,” she said.
The park manager who initially called Hapeman approached the downed eagle and tucked in its wing, which was sticking out at an awkward angle. This was another indication to Hapeman that something was very wrong with the bird.
“What eagle lets you walk up and tuck his wing in?” She said. “Trust me, as someone who has handled a lot of eagles, I would not do that.”
They managed to get the eagle into an isolation crate and Hapeman took it back to the raptor center for the night. It didn’t seem to be in distress, Hapeman said. No broken bones, cuts, or tremors. It just seemed sick—but with what?
Recalling her recent experience with the Coopers hawk, Hapeman suspected the eagle had HPAI and brought it to Cornell the next day for testing. Hours later, a veterinarian called to tell her that the eagle was having head tremors that were progressing “to the point where his head was upside down,” said Hapeman.
Suspecting HPAI, the veterinarian euthanized the eagle. Tests later came back negative for H5N1, but nothing else makes sense to Hapeman.
“Lead poisoning can cause those same neurological signs, but his lead level was low,” she explained. “His behavior was very much like his brain didn’t know what was happening.”
The eagle had a band on its leg dated May 6, 2003 indicating that it was a male.
“This is a local bird, and he was 19,” Hapeman lamented. “I’m sure he has a mate and he probably has babies in a nest. They might all be dead.”
Songbirds and HPAI
Unlike poultry, waterfowl, shorebirds, and raptors, songbirds don’t seem to be affected by H5N1.
“We’re really not seeing dead songbirds or dead passerines,” said Schuler. “It’s not something that they’re getting in the same way, so we still don’t really know.”
Guidance on backyard bird feeders is mixed. If you have a backyard chicken coop, Cornell Cooperative Extension recommends removing any wild bird feeders to reduce the chances of transmission between wild and domestic birds.
Out of an abundance of caution, the Audubon Society recommends that people who live in counties with known HPAI cases take down bird feeders as well, said Chris Lajewski, director of the Montezuma Audubon Center.
“Removing bird feeders as a precautionary measure is not a bad idea in the spring when food resources are generally more abundant,” Lajewski said. For those who live in counties unaffected by HPAI, Lajewski suggests washing feeders with soap or a ten-percent bleach solution.
Can people get sick from this?
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) considers the current risk to the general public from the current H5N1 outbreak to be low.
Since the outbreak began in late 2021, only one person in the U.S. has tested positive for H5N1. That person was involved in the culling of poultry with presumptive H5N1 bird flu in Colorado, the CDC said on its website. The patient reported fatigue for a few days and has since recovered.
Wild bird HPAI symptoms
If you witness suspicious wild bird behavior or deaths, report it to your regional DEC office.
Raptors infected with H5N1 may not appear sick until just right before death. The University of Minnesota Raptor Center lists the following HPAI symptoms most common in wild birds:
- depression
- apathy
- difficulty breathing
- twisted neck
- head tilted at an angle
- circling
- incoordination
- leg/wing paralysis
- tremors
- inability to stand
- arching of the back
Domestic bird HPAI symptoms
Cornell’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences lists these symptoms of HPAI in domestic birds:
- Death without an apparent cause
- Lack of energy or appetite
- Sudden drop in egg production or eggs with malformed shells
- Swelling of head, comb, eyelid, wattles and hocks
- Purple discoloration of wattles, comb and legs
- Nasal discharge, coughing and sneezing
- Discoordination
- Diarrhea
Steve Featherstone covers the outdoors for The Post-Standard, syracuse.com and NYUP.com. Contact him at sfeatherstone@syracuse.com or on Twitter @featheroutdoors. You can also follow along with all of our outdoors content at newyorkupstate.com/outdoors/ or follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/upstatenyoutdoors.