Bird Flu Outbreak Puts Mink Farms Back in the Spotlight

(New York Times) A new variant of avian influenza appears capable of spreading among mammals, highlighting the need for more proactive surveillance, experts said. Early last October, the mink on a fur farm in Spain suddenly began to fall ill. They stopped eating and began salivating excessively. They became clumsy, started to experience tremors and developed bloody snouts. At first, experts suspected that the coronavirus might be to blame. It was a reasonable assumption; since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, the virus has repeatedly found its way onto mink farms, sparking large animal outbreaks, triggering mass mink culls and prompting temporary moratoriums on mink farming. But it was not the coronavirus that had infiltrated the Spanish mink farm, scientists soon discovered. It was H5N1, a highly pathogenic strain of avian influenza. Over the last few years, a new variant of H5N1 has spread widely through wild and domestic bird populations around the world. It has taken an unusually heavy toll on wild birds and repeatedly spilled over into mammals, such as foxes, raccoons and bears, that might feed on infected birds.