South Dakota is at the epicenter of this fall’s bird flu season with a total of 134,900 turkeys at three facilities already killed to contain the spread, and reports coming in about thousands more. The only other state reporting confirmed infections in commercial flocks during the last 30 days is North Dakota, where 60,300 turkeys have been killed in response, according to the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Detections this early in the season are troubling, according to Beth Thompson, South Dakota’s state veterinarian. The peak avian influenza seasons typically coincide with the fall and spring migration of wild birds, which can carry the virus without becoming sick. The spread of bird flu before those migrations begin is concerning.
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