US Plans First Avian Flu Vaccination For Free-Living Wild Birds “Is That A Joke?” – Flyer against harassment of women causes outrage in France

The United States Department of Agriculture announced that emergency authorization for such a vaccination had been granted by the authorities.

It would be the world’s first vaccination of free-living wild birds against bird flu, the Friedrich Loeffler Institute for Animal Health in Greifswald told the German news agency on request. However, the vaccine must first be tested on black vultures.

With a wingspan of almost three meters, the California condor (Gymnogyps californianus) is the largest bird in North America – and has been saved from extinction with great effort. In the 20th century, humans hunted the large vultures and nearly wiped them out. In 1984, the last eight naturally occurring specimens were captured to breed in zoos.

The first animals were released back into the wild in Arizona and California in the early 1990s, and there are now about 600 living in the wild. More than a dozen condors have also died from the currently rampant bird flu, which has already killed many millions of animals worldwide, according to US authorities.

Vaccination could be a “very interesting option” for condors, said Timm Harder, chief of the Friedrich Loeffler Institute’s National Reference Laboratory for Avian Influenza. However, a number of things must be taken into account, for example the often unclear tolerability and the short-term immunity. Similar vaccinations have already been carried out on a smaller scale in zoos and animal parks in Germany, among others, and in poultry in many countries outside Europe and North America, such as China. (sda/dpa)