Terrifying reason hundreds of birds are falling dead from the sky in Pennyslvania
Hundreds of dead birds have reportedly fallen from the sky in dystopian scenes in Pennsylvania.
The culprit is believed to be H5N1 bird flu, which has devastated poultry and dairy farms in the US and sporadically infected humans.
A wildlife nonprofit in the Poconos confirmed that dozens of snow geese had tested positive for the virus.
Janine Tancredi, co-director of The Wilderz at Pocono Wildlife, told local news: ‘People reported like birds falling from the sky.
“It seems far-fetched, but because they become so neurologically impaired, they don’t know where they are. They fly into trees. They fly into houses.’
She said all 35 snow geese her team tested for H5N1 in recent days were positive, but she suspects the actual number of affected birds is “probably more in the thousands.”
Locals are urged to avoid dead birds or contact with live birds, and to keep pets away from waterways and carcasses.
There have been no human cases of H5N1 in Pennsylvania, but residents of ten states have been infected.
Hundreds of snow geese have died in Pennsylvania due to bird flu. Conservationists say they’ve ‘never seen it this bad’
H5N1 has been devastating poultry and cattle flocks since 2022 and has reached farms in all 50 states.
It was not until April 2024 that the virus infected a person who had come into direct contact with a sick cow.
Sixty-five more human cases linked to the current outbreak have since been reported, including a serious infection that required hospitalization in Louisiana.
Most exposures (40 cases) were linked to dairy herds, mainly in California with 36 cases, followed by Michigan and Texas, which each reported one or two cases.
Poultry farms and culling activities were responsible for 23 exposures, with the highest concentrations in Washington (11 cases) and Colorado (9 cases).
Only one case involved exposure to other animals, reported in Louisiana, and two cases had unknown sources of exposure in California and Missouri.
The severe case in Louisiana was an outlier so far. Most infections were mild and caused pink eye, low-grade fever, sore throat and fatigue. But Louisiana officials said this more severe case of the disease was “not unexpected.”
The CDC claims that the overall risk to the public is low since the people who have become ill have had contact with infected farm animals.
USDA workers are shown disinfecting a turkey farm in Minnesota. Since the outbreak began in 2022, bird flu has wiped out large flocks of poultry in all fifty states
In Pennsylvania, conservationists believe the number of geese dying from bird flu could be in the thousands
But states are increasingly concerned.
California, where 37 human infections have been reported, has declared a state of emergency amid fears it could spread to people.
This isn’t too far-fetched, as emerging evidence suggests the virus could mutate in a way that makes it easier to infect humans.
After the CDC sequenced the virus in the critically ill Louisiana patient who had contact with backyard poultry, and compared it to samples of other H5N1 viruses from dairy cows, wild birds, poultry and previous human patients.
The mutations found in the Louisiana patient’s virus were not seen in the poultry living on the patient’s property, indicating that the virus did not already have these mutations when the patient was infected.
Instead, these changes likely developed as the virus multiplied in the patient’s body.
But on a more positive note, the changes did not fundamentally alter the general ‘avian characteristics’ of the virus. The virus still mainly retained genetic traits suitable for infecting birds, not humans.
Livestock diseases take a huge toll on farmers’ incomes.
And as farmers cull their flocks of poultry and dairy cows, the food their farms produce decreases, leading to limited supply, which translates into higher prices for consumers.
Bird flu is affecting more than just farm birds, however, as evidenced in Pennsylvania, where the state Game Commission says it is believed to have caused the deaths of about 200 snow geese in the greater Allentown area.
Like all flu, the virus is spread primarily through airborne droplets that are inhaled or land in a person’s mouth, eyes, or nose.
About 50 miles north, the Pocono Wildlife and Rehabilitation Center has taken in dozens of birds showing symptoms of bird flu since mid-December.
Sampson Metzgar, the center’s bird specialist, said: ‘Tremakes, lots of head shaking, very uncoordinated. They have difficulty keeping their balance, they walk a few meters and then sit for a while. The birds almost seem disoriented and confused.”
Ms. Tancredi of the Wilderz at Pocono Wildlife, meanwhile, said her team “euthanizes on arrival.”
“We don’t really have a choice.”
When she and her team arrived at a quarry in the Nazareth area on Thursday, they discovered hundreds of birds that had already died, she said.
She added that the total number of birds affected “probably looks more like thousands.”