FRANCE TO CULL OVER ONE MILLION BIRDS TO FIGHT AVIAN FLU

Fri 21 January 2022:

The French government announced on Thursday that it will cull over one million birds in the coming weeks to combat an avian flu outbreak on poultry farms.

In the southwestern French departments of Landes, Gers, and Pyrenees Atlantiques, all ducks, chickens, and turkeys must be culled, totaling up to 1.3 million birds.

“It will take us about three weeks to clear the whole area,” the agriculture ministry said.

By wiping out the populations where the virus is spreading, officials hope to shorten the outbreak and prevent it from reaching other poultry-raising regions.

Over one million birds have already been killed in attempts to smother the avian flu outbreak that began in late November.

Farmers in the region, famous for its lucrative but controversial foie gras liver pate, are compensated for the culled animals.

The ministry plans to requisition abattoirs and pull in large numbers of workers, including vet school students, to speed up the process.

Herve Dupouy, a duck farmer and a farmers’ union leader in Landes said, measures like quarantines at times of potential contact with migrating wild birds, and reduced densities at duck farms, “were necessary, but haven’t been enough,”

Just a year after a similar virus decimated flocks, several European countries are now battling a highly contagious flu strain, H5N1.

Since 2015, four bird flu outbreaks have hit France, particularly the southwest, with 3.5 million birds killed last winter.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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