Avian flu confirmed in seagull off Makkovik coast, suspected in birds off Cartwright | CBC News

Highly pathogenic avian influenza has been identified in more birds in Labrador, says the Canadian Wildlife Service.

According to the federal agency, one seagull collected off the coast of Makkovik in April has been confirmed to have bird flu, while two seagulls collected off the coast of Cartwright in May and July are suspected to have the virus, but others are tests are required.

The H5N1 virus is believed to have killed thousands of birds in Newfoundland, particularly in the Cape St. Mary’s area. The virus was first detected in Newfoundland in December.

“We sent another shipment to the Newfoundland Provincial Laboratory on September 8 and those results are pending,” said Becky Whittam, manager of the Canadian Wildlife Service’s Atlantic Region Wildlife and Habitat Assessment Division.

“We are still essentially awaiting processing of approximately 54 samples collected during August and September.”

Fiona forced the closure of the testing facility

Testing can take weeks to months because samples are first sent to a provincial laboratory in Newfoundland for testing. If they are classified as a high priority species, test swabs are sent to the Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative on Prince Edward Island, she said.

Samples that come back from the PEI as suspected avian influenza are then sent to Canada’s National Food Inspection Agency laboratory in Winnipeg, Whittam said. However, testing at PEI was briefly delayed when the island was hit by post-tropical storm Fiona, Whittam said.

In a statement, the Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative’s regional director for the Atlantic region said the University of Prince Edward Island was closed for the week following the storm.

Megan Jones said the closure was due to widespread power outages and to keep people off the streets to allow infrastructure repairs.

“There was no damage to the labs and things are back to normal this week,” Jones said in the statement. She said power was quickly restored to the university and there was no significant testing backlog.

“All of our vital equipment (like freezers that keep valuable samples) were on backup power regardless, so again this was mostly a small delay.”

Not all dead birds transmit bird flu

While not all birds found dead in the wild are killed by avian flu, Whittam said. People should be cautious around dead birds or birds behaving strangely and report them to the provincial Department of Fisheries, Forestry and Agriculture or the Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative.

“Don’t treat or eat birds that appear sick or have died of unknown causes,” she said. “If you hunt birds, cook them thoroughly to an internal temperature of about 74 degrees Celsius and follow all safe food-handling practices, like washing your hands before and after.”

Whittam said hunters should also keep their game separate from other foods and clean surfaces before and after cooking.

However, songbirds like robins are not known to be carrying the virus at this time, and of all Labrador samples, only three have come back positive, she said.

“We know that a second set of samples were collected in July, a couple of ring-billed gulls, a herring gull, a common loon, and they all returned negative results,” Whittam said. “There are other possible causes of death in wild birds such as extreme weather conditions or the inability to find food.”

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