LISTEN: Georgia's poultry industry was marked free of avian influenza, also known as bird flu, earlier this month. Meanwhile Georgia's wild birds continue to get hit by fatalities. GPB's Sofi Gratas explains.

As temperatures drop in the fall and winter, hundreds of bird species from the coldest parts of North America make their way down south to settle in for the season.  

It’s a prime opportunity for bird enthusiasts. But as birds migrate and congregate, researchers like Becky Poulson, with the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study at the University of Georgia also know to be vigilant for an increase in disease spread.  

“Really across the continent, we're starting to see pretty staggering increases in detections of highly pathogenic viruses” Poulson said about a spike in positive cases in November and December.  

Those highly pathogenic viruses include variants of avian influenza, commonly referred to as bird flu. The most recent data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows detections of an H5 strain among Georgia’s wild birds.  

Poulson said the reported uptick to their labs in Athens could mark a shift in infections of highly pathogenic avian influenza, or “high path,” to later in the year. 

“There's some sort of seemingly cyclical nature to the patterns of high path we see in wild birds,” she said. “Those peaks in activity are seemingly sort of shifting slightly later into the year.” 

It’s possible that some peaks in bird flu detections come from a higher proportion of younger birds that don’t have any immunity to the virus, Poulson said.  

Nicole Nemeth, head of diagnostic services at the wildlife cooperative at UGA, notes that reported cases are just a snapshot.  

“The numbers that we see coming in are often just a small representation of the broader outbreaks,” Nemeth said. “And a lot of times, we'll get one or two carcasses from a site, and it's usually a roosting site, where maybe they report there's 15 that died, [or] 50 that were seen dead.” 

Georgia’s Department of Agriculture announced this month that the poultry industry is free from bird flu after a series of cases earlier this year on farms in Elbert and Gordon counties that left commercial farmers and backyard flock owners equally vigilant.

The virus continues to wreak havoc on farms elsewhere in the country. 

By the years end, bird flu has been fatal for an unknown number of the state’s wild birds, such as black vultures, bald eagles and Canada geese.  

“It seems to be almost as bad in terms of the cases and numbers that we saw in 2022, which was the first year a lot of wild birds in North America had ever seen this virus immunologically,” Nemeth said.  

Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention maintains that the ongoing highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreak poses a low risk to human public health.  

The virus killed two people this year — both came in contact with an infected flock. Far more people have gotten sick, and workers on dairy and poultry farms remain especially at risk.

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