For now, she said, the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance’s response will be to take an abundance of caution to protect its birds. Lamberski likened the uncertainties of the spread to the confusion about COVID-19 in mid-2020. It’s also unclear how long the virus will remain in an area, although some zoos on the East Coast have reported it already has subsided, she said.
Why are we having this lateral movement?” “If you look at the way it moved across the country, it went east to west and the migratory patterns are usually north to south in the fall and south to north in the spring.
But that raises the question of how it arrived in California, she said. “We were kind of anticipating maybe we would see cases in late summer or early fall, but to have them identify in mid-summer makes you scratch your head quite a bit,” she said about the avian flu’s arrival in California.īecause of the time of year the virus was found in California, Lamberski said the infected Canada geese probably were resident rather than migratory birds. Lamberski said the path of the avian flu’s spread is perplexing for a number of reasons. Nadine Lamberski, chief conservation and wildlife health officer for the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, said migrating Canada geese usually are seen at Safari Park in October and November, so the threat of the H5N1 strain occurring locally is a real concern. Signs are being installed to inform guests of the situation. To compensate for the empty spaces, Stehly said the park’s horticulture department is looking into adding more plants to the habitats to make them more visually interesting. Peacocks and peahens that once roamed the Zoo have been moved to an enclosure not open to the public behind the veterinarian hospital. Flamingos at the Zoo were moved from the open pond near the entrance to a covered duck pond earlier this month. The disease is spread by migratory birds, and the first step in protecting the avian collections at the Zoo and Safari Park has been to remove water fowl from exposed ponds where they might come into contact with infected wild birds. The strain has not been detected in San Diego County, but was found in two Canada geese and one American white pelican this month in Colusa and Glenn counties. The strain has been causing illness and death in a higher diversity of wild bird species than during previous outbreaks and is highly contagious for domestic poultry. The San Diego Zoo and Safari Park had been preparing for the arrival of the Highly Pathogenic Eurasian H5N1 strain of avian influenza since it was detected on the East Coast late last year. “There was a little squabbling here and there, but that’s what we’d expect,” bird curator Andrew Stehly said about the animals’ reaction to the move, which he said has gone smoothly so far. About 120 birds at San Diego Zoo Safari Park were moved to new protected habitats at Safari Park last week and more will be relocated in the next few weeks in response to a highly contagious strain of avian flu that recently was detected in California.
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