Roughly 200-300 ducks have been found dead in Chicago and the northern suburbs around Lake Michigan in recent days, according to a new report from local news outlet NBC5. The red-breasted mergansers have died of suspected bird flu, according to local experts who spoke with NBC5, though it doesn’t appear tests have confirmed that suspicion definitively yet.
About 50 ducks were found over the weekend at Chicago’s North Avenue Beach in Lincoln Park and 50 more were found on Oak Street Beach, according to NBC5. And at least the same number, “if not more,” were found floating in the water at each beach.
Smaller groups of dead birds have been found in the area near Lake Michigan, with a conservation group called Chicago Bird Collision Monitors putting the estimated number of dead birds at around 200 to 300. Health officials have warned the public not to touch any dead birds suspected of having the bird flu, and to keep pets like dogs and cats far away from birds. Several cats have died in the U.S. from bird flu after eating food containing raw chicken.
At least 22.96 million birds have been confirmed to have contracted H5N1 bird flu in the U.S. during the past 30 days alone, according to data from the USDA’s website, with 82 commercial flocks and 42 backyard flocks identified. But those numbers don’t even include wild birds found dead like the ones in Chicago. Egg prices have soared in recent months as entire flocks need to be killed when bird flu is identified on the nation’s farms.
The backyard flocks are smaller in total number of birds than commercial flocks but can cause just as many problems from a public health standpoint. The person in Louisiana who became the first human to die from bird flu during this current outbreak in early January was infected by backyard chickens. The strain found in birds appears to be more severe when it infects humans, compared with the strain found in cows, which tends to cause much milder symptoms when humans acquire the disease from that route of transmission.
There have been 67 human cases of bird flu identified in this current outbreak, according to the CDC’s website, though it’s not clear if that H5N1 tracker is even being updated anymore. The CDC, much like every other government agency, has been disrupted by President Donald Trump taking power and issuing orders to purge government information that displeases the regime. A source at CDC told Gizmodo last week that words like LGBT and transgender were being scrubbed entirely. The CDC did not respond to an email from Gizmodo Monday morning about the dead birds in Chicago.
There is no sign of human-to-human spread of bird flu, but there’s serious concern that such a mutation could start a pandemic. And with Trump now in charge of the entire U.S. government, and fringe conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the verge of being confirmed as the leader of Health and Human Services, a pandemic would be particularly devastating to the health of everyone.
