Just as we’re moving closer to fair season, state officials have announced all statewide poultry and waterfowl exhibitions in Michigan are banned due to the rise in cases of the highly contagious avian influenza, also known as bird flu.
The announcement came on the same day Michigan confirmed its first bird flu outbreak at a commercial poultry farm in Muskegon County. More than 35,000 birds will be culled.
Michigan’s state veterinarian Dr. Nora Wineland says this outbreak is different, and likely worse, than the one in 2015 because then, the virus only appeared in wild birds, not domestic poultry.
"We're seeing point source introductions continue from the wild birds, we had hoped to see that diminish as temperatures warmed and the bird migrations moved on. And we haven't seen that diminishing happening yet," said Wineland.
Nearly 40 million birds have been impacted by bird flu nationwide. So far this year, Michigan has responded to 12 cases in non-commercial backyard flocks in nine counties across both the upper and lower peninsulas.
Michigan’s new guidelines follow other state pauses on poultry exhibitions. Before exhibits can continue. Wineland said "the state would need to go 30 days without any detections of highly pathogenic avian influenza in domestic poultry."
Since most of Michigan’s county fairs aren’t until late June, early July, it’s possible they won’t be impacted.
But the Marion Fair in Osceola County will be the state’s first fair on June 12.
Jacob Stieg is the Osceola County 4-H program coordinator through Michigan State University Extension. He’s also the 4-H poultry project point of contact for MSU. He said he's been through this before and is helping lead a small team develop plans to help 4-H programming continue across the state.
"Plan B is using plush birds, which for the listeners are like stuffed animals, but on a little bit higher end, where the youth will go up and actually do their showmanship process at the fair, like they have a live bird and some of the reactions of the plush bird is similar to the live animal," said Stieg.
Stieg said not having the live birds does not significantly impact students' ability to learn. But he said there are youth who have been preparing their show birds for a long time and some sell their birds as, essentially, a summer job.
"Many of these youth are coming to the county fair and they want to display what they've been doing," Stieg mentioned. "And it's with no live animals there that can be a challenge with that. But at the fair will have pictures of their birds at home for the show stock."
Stieg said in his county alone, more than 100 kids show poultry. There is no exact data on statewide participation rates, but it’s likely in the thousands. And in the rural northern lower peninsula, raising poultry is part of the fabric of everyday life.
"It just gives them a sense of where their meat’s being produced. And it's just keeping them to the roots, where most of our counties were built up on the rural agricultural sector," Stieg noted.
Click here to see more...