Sheida Soleimani is an artist, professor and a migratory bird rehabilitator who is the executive director of Congress of the Birds. Read more about her work here.
RIPBS: It’s February 2025 – how often are you getting birds with Avian Flu symptoms?
Sheida Soleimani:
Every day at this point. I’m getting upwards of 10 to 15 calls which, for this time of year, is a lot when it comes to birds. I know it’s winter, we don’t have baby birds right now, some migratory shore birds and sea birds, but they’ve already migrated here and they’re here and their resident colonies. We are getting so many calls and videos and messages about birds – “This bird looks like maybe its wing is broken” or “It looks like its neck is broken.” My new thing now is that I always ask for a video to screen the bird before I respond to the call, in the sense that responding for treatment. I would really say almost every other video I’m getting per day is a video of birds showing neurological symptoms.
RIPBS: What do some of those neurological symptoms look like?
SS:
- That comes in the form of ataxia - a loss of balance, inability to walk properly, and lots of stumbling. A bird that’s unable to get up. Outstretching of the wings to try to find balance, so people think that might be a broken wing or they got an injured leg, but that’s a symptom of avian flu.
- Movement of the head - the head could be ticking backward,it could be moving side to side, it could be twisting around, that’s a neurological symptom that one should look for.
- Watery runny droppings - we’re seeing that a lot of times, they’re not even able to move anymore, they’re just stuck in one place and they’re continuously defecating in the same place over and over and they’re covered in their feces. That feces is a vector for disease, as well.
- And group mortalities are things to look out for.
RIPBS: What should someone do if they see a bird displaying symptoms?
SS:
If you do find a bird that is alive, and that you believe to be symptomatic, the first thing you need to do is to call a licensed wildlife rehabilitator or wild bird rehabilitator. If you have a towel, ideally a cardboard box, cover the bird with something so you know it’s contained and it cannot get away. Call the wildlife rehabilitator before you take any further action. Do not touch the bird. Once you call the wildlife rehabilitator they will come out to the site to respond to that bird. Or we do have to rely on members of the general public to help us treat animals because there are not many of us (rehabilitators.)
Wear proper P.P.E. - gloves, a mask and if possible, a gown or something covering your clothing. If you can’t wear a gown make sure you wash all your clothes as soon as you get home.
Wear rubber boots or shoe covers. Make sure to disinfect your shoes upon return home. Put a towel or blanket over it, wrap it up in that towel, put it in a cardboard box and transport it to the rehabilitator. If you have a bird that looks sick don’t just show up at a facility unannounced, this is a bio-security measure we wanna keep our animal safe.
If it’s dead already it’s best to report it to D.E.M. and bring these deaths to their attention. Wear gloves and a mask and put the deceased into a plastic bag, put that plastic bag into another one, and that one into another one. So three layers of plastic to contain the disease to make sure other birds that are scavengers don’t smell the bird and try to eat it. And then that needs to go into a secure trash can.
RIPBS: Can it be contracted by pets or other mammals? Just how contagious is it?
SS:
It’s a huge concern and it’s we’re seeing it in multiple different ways. The first thing that people should be concerned about are their flocks, their chickens or their ducks. If you have a free-range flock, especially if you live near a body of water that is a huge concern. I am encouraging everyone I know who has flocks that are free-ranging to keep them in a contained, secure area. Build them a run, build them a screen. The last thing you want is for them to come into contact with waterfowl or a bird that is sick with avian flu. It will spread to your flock and D.E.M. will come if your flock isn’t already dead at that point, and destroy the birds. It’s really tragic and heartbreaking.
Cats are a huge one. It’s just basically death for them and there have not been any survivals that we’ve seen in domestic cats. In New Orleans, there was a feral cat that contracted avian flu from a wild bird colony near the water and died. In California, cats that have been drinking raw milk died because there are cows that are infected out west.
Do not drink raw milk right now. Do not feed it to your animals. Multiple states would actually even have to do a recall for a specific brand of raw pet food. People were feeding the specific raw turkey and raw chicken to their cats, the cats contracted avian flu and died.
Dogs: I’m encouraging people to not take their dogs on walks in areas where we’re seeing lots of bird flu cases. Ninigret Point there are a lot, Watch Hill Beach, Charlestown Breachway where the snowy owls, and loons have been found. Dogs are natural investigators. They’re going to go up to an animal and smell it. Let’s say they go up to a dead goose and they smell it. That is a contraction point or vector point for HPAI (avian influenza).
RIPBS: Is it able to spread to people?
SS:
Yes, we just had our first case our first death in the United States - a man in Louisiana died. A 13-year-old girl in Canada was diagnosed with it too. They don’t even know what she came into contact with to have gotten it. A child in San Francisco drank raw milk and got it. We’ve had over 70 cases in the United States. Predominantly those who are working in industries like farming, chicken farming, and cow milking facilities, but it is not unheard of for it to spread to people from wild birds. We have not had a positive case from a wild bird in the United States at this point, but there are many others worldwide that have been contracted from wild birds, and so it is certainly a risk.
RIPBS: Is it connected to the egg shortage in any way?
SS:
It is connected to the egg shortage. Unfortunately what you’re going to see with factory farming, is one of those chickens in those mass factories get avian flu, and they have to kill all of the birds. Chickens don’t really start laying eggs until they’re about six months, at least, of age so if we’re destroying millions and millions factory farmed birds. That means that you have to really start off from the beginning with brand new birds and in a sterilized. We are going to continue having a rise in the price of eggs and we’re going to continue having a shortage of eggs.
RIPBS: Is this a threat to the community? How concerned should we really be?
SS:
Yes, we should be very concerned on a much larger scale than we are because there is no way that this disease is actually being properly contained. Farms might start getting bio-security measures. They might start getting P.P.E. for the people that are working there. A lot of people that work at these factory farms are immigrant workers, they’re undocumented and if they get sick, they’re afraid of saying that they’re sick because they’re afraid they’re gonna get deported.
We’re not getting enough information from our government because Trump has stopped doing briefings on avian flu. We have RFK who has openly said that the vaccine that’s in the stockpile is harmful, where there’s no proof for that at all. There is a vaccine in the stockpile, that’s ready to be modified if this was going to be something that began spreading from person to person. But this isn’t going to be like an operation warp speed kind of thing, there’s going to be a lot of resistance and I have a fear that if it does get to this point, which is very possible that it will, we are not ready and we’re not going to be able to mount an appropriate response.
RIPBS: How likely is it that we can contain this avian flu and how does it go away?
SS:
I don’t think it’s something that’s going to exactly “go away.” I think it’s a matter of, whether there will be an immunity built up in bird populations. There are birds that can survive or have survived. We don’t have accurate numbers because no one’s doing the testing but there have been some cases where centers have gotten birds that they’ve done tests on and they have antibodies and that’s really good to know that it’s possible, although we are not able to say that that’s happening often. There are things that communities can do to help mitigate spread and I think the number one thing is education.
For more information, you can check out this saved series from the Congress of the Birds’ Instagram page.
