Protests amid avian flu outbreak at Noah’s Ark Animal Sanctuary
Demonstrators lined the highway in entrance of Noah’s Ark Animal Sanctuary calling for the top of the group to step down because the state takes management of the power to assist mitigate an avian flu outbreak among the many hen inhabitants housed there.
LOCUST GROVE, Ga. – It may very well be months earlier than a Georgia animal sanctuary reopens after being closed by hen flu that killed wild vultures roosting there, a part of an outbreak that has led to 40.3 million deaths in industrial and yard flocks nationwide.
A notice on the Noah’s Ark web site Tuesday mentioned the sanctuary, which homes greater than 1,500 animals in Locust Grove, might be closed till Sept. 30.
Nevertheless, the state veterinarian, Dr. Janemarie Hennebelle, said in a video Friday that birds there might be quarantined for at the least 5 months. Simply over 100 have been euthanized as a result of they have been at excessive danger for the virus, she mentioned.
Noah’s Ark mentioned euthanized birds included peacocks, peahens, emus, ostrich, Guinea fowl, chickens, turkeys and geese, one owl, one crow and one sandhill crane. “These species of birds could be carriers of the avian influenza and have been uncovered to the vulture inhabitants that has been dying off,” it mentioned in Monday’s unsigned assertion.
Noah’s Ark nonetheless has a whole lot of birds that are alive and properly, the sanctuary mentioned.
Hennebelle and state Agriculture Secretary Gary Black didn’t determine Noah’s Ark by title, describing it solely as a non-commercial flock in Henry County.
The state Agriculture Division was notified Aug. 13 that an uncommon variety of black vultures had died, and was instructed 5 days later that home geese have been displaying hen flu signs, Hennebelle mentioned. She mentioned samples have been taken from the geese on Aug. 19, and three days later a federal lab confirmed that it was the H5N1 pressure.
That pressure has contaminated industrial and yard flocks in 39 states and has been reported in 2,100 wild birds in all however a handful of states, in keeping with the U.S. Division of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.
“As a pure illness occasion, the location must be contained, cleaned up after which sanitized/disinfected. We’re on the contained stage,” mentioned a press release Monday from Noah’s Ark. “Our State Company companions are and can lead clear up and sanitization. They are going to lead full vulture elimination and roost elimination and sanitation.”
Neither state officers nor Noah’s Ark mentioned what number of black vultures have died there.
