Exotic Newcastle Disease

This list was compiled by The Oasis Sanctuary (http://www.the-oasis.org) during the END outbreak in the spring and summer of 2003. This information was updated in May, 2006 as many of the links to news articles and bulletins from government agencies have now vanished.

Exotic Newcastle Disease (END) is an avian virus that is a particular hazard to commercial poultry, but can affect any species of bird. It thrives in the moist and overcrowded conditions common to commercial poultry operations. As much a hazard as the disease itself is the sometimes overzealous efforts of health officials to stem the spread of the disease. During the outbreak in 2003, the Oasis Sanctuary maintained a self imposed set of procedures including the closure of the sanctuary to only essential traffic and biosecurity measures including cleansing of vehicles, tires, shoes of all that entered the sanctuary. Happily, Arizonas arid climate is one factor hindering the spread of END. This combined with the isolation of the sanctuary contribute to the safety of the birds at the Oasis from this and from other potential future threats.

From the State of Arizona:

From the State of Texas:

From the State of California: Other web sites with END information: Links en Español:

Articles, Press Releases and Misc. Information On Line:

Other Articles and Press Releases:

Article from the Tucson Citizen, Reprinted with permission.

Deadly bird virus near Yuma sparks warnings to owners


LARRY COPENHAVER
Tucson Citizen, Feb. 20, 2003

Arizona officials are trying to put the kibosh on a bird disease that has taken the lives of nearly a million birds in southern California and recently was reported in this state.

It apparently was introduced through organic fertilizer spread on a field near Yuma. The disease, exotic Newcastle disease, is caused by a virus and is considered a foreign animal disease in this country, said S. Peder Cuneo, an veterinarian with the University of Arizona.

He spoke at a news briefing yesterday.

The virus represents a potent threat to the poultry industry, he said. It is most severe when it invades flocks of chickens, peafowl, guinea, pheasants, quail, cockatiels, cockatoos and pigeons.

The disease so far has been confined to the Yuma area in Arizona, and no cases have been reported in Pima County.

The mortality rate of infected birds is nearly 100 percent, he said. Turkeys, Amazon parrots and other parrotlike birds develop a milder form of the disease, but they may be carriers.

There have been no reported cases of wild birds being infected.

California officials predict 2 million birds will be killed and disposed of before the disease is under control there, he said. It's suspected that the California epidemic began in a small private flock and spread to commercial growers.

There has been progress in controlling the virus in commercial flocks, but many so-called backyard operations are still affected in California.

Two weeks ago, Gov. Janet Napolitano declared a state of emergency following the discovery of the infection near Yuma.

The declaration prohibits the transport of live or dead birds of all types into the state. And Napolitano ordered Yuma County, La Paz County and portions of Mohave County quarantined.

In an effort to halt the spread of exotic Newcastle disease, Cuneo said people with fowl should step up measures around their flocks and make sure any transport, sale or contact with birds is done only with certified-healthy animals.

Flock handlers are urged to clean and disinfect areas where fowl are housed and to reduce or eliminate visits from people who are in contact with other flocks, he said.

"Birds do not have to look sick to spread disease," Cuneo noted. But many show a decline in egg production, a nasal discharge, diarrhea and finally drooping, as the virus attacks the central nervous system.

One potentially urgent threat here is the possibility birds may be smuggled in for cockfighting, an illegal blood sport, said Pima County sheriff's Detective M.W. Duffey.

Cockfighting was made a felony in 1999, but law enforcement officials have found signs that it still takes place, Duffey said. "We are trying to locate and educate those people with cockfighting birds."

Intentionally or recklessly passing the disease to other animals via an infected fowl is a Class 5 felony, Duffey noted. If the disease were to infect humans, it would be considered a Class 2 felony.

Generally, exotic Newcastle disease does not affect humans, he said.

However, some eye irritation, "a pinkeyelike condition," has been reported by people handling infected birds.

Cuneo said other precautions include not handling or introducing any new bird to a flock; keeping any equipment used with other flocks away, including motor vehicles, which can carry the disease in debris on tires and the undercarriage; and not sharing feed between flocks.

Also, personal attire worn around flocks should be considered a possible source in infection, he said.

The virus can be transported on clothing, shoes, in hair, even in the nasal and ear cavities of a person.

Bird swap meets, flea markets, bird markets, bird shows, aviaries, feed stores and pet shops should be considered possible places of contamination, he said.

"If your visitors have birds of their own, do not let them near your birds."

For more information on the disease, call the Arizona Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory at 621-2356 Ext. 18 or e-mail Cuneo at cuneo@u.arizona.edu.

Association of Veterinarians for Animal Rights
PO Box 208 Davis, CA 95617
http://www.avar.org


United Poultry Concerns
PO Box 150 • Machipongo, VA 23405-0150
www.UPC-online.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
5 Febuary 2003 		Contact: Teri Barnato 530-759-8106
Karen Davis 757-678-7875
United Poultry Concerns (UPC) and the AVAR Criticize the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s Approach to Eradicating Exotic Newcastle Disease in Birds

Two animal protection organizations, United Poultry Concerns (UPC) and the Association of Veterinarians for Animal Rights (AVAR), criticized the treatment that many California residents and their companion birds are receiving at the hands of men representing the Task Force of the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA).

Under an order to eradicate Exotic Newcastle Disease (END), an epidemic virus originating in birds bred for cockfighting in Mira Loma, where it could have been stopped from spreading in October according to Norco Animal Control Officer Renee Powers, the task force is “terrorizing innocent families and their defenseless birds.”

Powers said “one Norco woman suffered a nervous breakdown when men from the task force killed her two parrots before her eyes after pretending to ‘test’ them for END in a contaminated death truck parked outside her house.”

Norco resident Randy Walker, who is appealing the state’s plan to kill his backyard flock of 200 birds showing no sign of the disease, told The Press Enterprise on January 31 that he was badgered on his property by the CDFA Task Force on January 22nd. According to Walker, a task force worker told him “he had no right to appeal and threatened to have him arrested if he attempted to stop the killing.”

Walker’s neighbors, Mike and Sue Swallow, told UPC in an email correspondence that they attended a town meeting about END on January 23 “where Walker described the previous day’s appearance at his door of thirty-one task force men prepared, in full view of his family, to catch their birds, tape their legs together, put each one in a plastic bag, and gas them with carbon dioxide or shoot them to death with pellet guns.” Walker told the meeting the task force said they were going to bludgeon his family’s emu because the bird was too big for a bag.

More than 81,000 backyard birds have so far been brutally destroyed, and 285,000 more birds are scheduled to be bludgeoned, shot, and gassed, “euthanized,” according to The Press Enterprise on January 31, 2003.

“The mentality of ‘test and slaughter’ is inappropriate for infected or exposed chickens and other captive birds,” states Nedim C. Buyukmihci, VMD, President of the Association of Veterinarians for Animal Rights and Professor of Veterinary Medicine at the University of California, Davis. “Since wild birds can also be carriers and spread the disease, are we to slaughter all of them, too? A better approach would be to isolate via quarantine all affected poultry flocks and to apply vaccination and common-sense sanitation precautions. We would never ‘test and slaughter’ human beings. To do so with other beings is ethically and biologically inconsistent.”

If the mass-extermination approach to eradicating Newcastle Disease in the early 1970s is predictive, millions of birds, tax dollars, and human resources will be pointlessly sacrificed over the next few years, a prospect not entirely unwelcome to the egg industry, which has been trying to reduce the U.S. flock size for years. “They’d be crying all the way to the bank” if their chickens were stricken, one poultry producer told the Los Angeles Times.

“The filth, squalor, and stress imposed on birds by the cockfighting industry and the exhausting demands of commercial egg and chicken production guarantee infectious disease,” says United Poultry Concerns President Karen Davis. “You treat living creatures like trash, you have no welfare regulations for the birds, and this is what you get -- sickness, suffering, and death on a grand scale that will ultimately affect people.”

For information and updates on Exotic Newcastle Disease (END):
http://www.cocka2.com/newcastle
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/lpa/issues/enc/vnd.html

The Association of Veterinarians for Animal Rights is a nonprofit organization committed to balancing the needs of nonhuman animals with those of human animals. http://www.AVAR.org

United Poultry Concerns is a nonprofit organization that promotes the compassionate and respectful treatment of domestic fowl. http://www.UPC-online.org.

 
The Oasis relies on you for support, so why not donate now?

© 1997-2008 Oasis Sanctuary Foundation, Ltd., All rights reserved.
No part of this website may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
without written permission from the Oasis and the specific author.

Last Modified:    April 25, 2008 17:23 MST