Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency on Wednesday in response to Avian Influenza, also known as “Bird Flu,” being detected in dairy cows in Southern California. This comes after the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) ordered a new national milk testing regimen to better monitor the outbreak at the beginning of the month.
“This a step in the right direction … It can help assist with those herds that that were affected,” says Zach Cahill, a North Coast representative for the Western United Dairies trade association, who runs a certified organic dairy in Ferndale, of the emergency declaration. “We haven’t had any cases in this region, and we’re still being very thoughtful with how we navigate this, but it is good to see that there is support for that industry on the state level.”
Bird Flu has been detected across 16 states, with 61 total reported confirmed cases of infection in humans across seven states, including 34 in California. All reported cases in the U.S. have been mild, though one in Canada was classified as “severe.”
The Humboldt County Department of Public Health advises that risk to the general public “remains low,” so there’s no need to start swearing off milk. (The pasteurized kind, anyway, as raw milk is believed to carry an increased amount of dangerous bacteria and viruses.) Humboldt County’s dairy farmers, meanwhile, say they are exercising caution but don’t believe they will be heavily impacted by the new testing requirements.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced in April that one in five samples of milk purchased at grocery stores nationwide tested positive for genetic traces of the virus, but that doesn’t mean they contained the live virus that could cause an infection. Cahill stresses the safety of pasteurized milk.
“I would just really like to remind consumers that pasteurization kills the virus, and in order to make sure that your milk products are safe, I would highly encourage everybody to make sure that their products are pasteurized, which everything that you’re going to buy in the store is and it’s safe,” Cahill says. “Bulk tanks are going to be getting tested. And so, if the herd does come up with it, it still is a safe product to consume because of the pasteurization.”
While the sale of raw milk is legal in California, the sale of raw milk is banned within Humboldt County. This makes it so that the only milk you will find in stores is safe, pasteurized milk.
Darin Ferreira, owner of Ferreira and Son Dairy, says people are making a bigger deal out of “Bird Flu” than necessary.
Cody Nicolson Stratton, one of the owners of The Foggy Bottom Boys, says the additional testing that the USDA is requiring is “negligible” for local farms, as their milk is already routinely tested.
However, he says The Foggy Bottom Boys has taken measures to protect the farm’s herd from contracting Avian Flu.
“We are known for giving tours to members of the public and schools, but we suspended those to prevent outside activity and bringing things into the farm,” Stratton says. “We increased the use of foot baths, which are points where you wash your shoes in water and chlorhexidine solution to sanitize them as well as hand washing around the farm. We began developing treatment protocols with our herd veterinarian, so that if Avian Influenza were to develop here, we already had protocols in place of how we would treat our animals and how we would handle that development.”
Ferreira says another reason Humboldt County dairy farms are not expected to be as impacted by the Avian Flu outbreak is that most herds within the county are closed herds, meaning the cattle have little to no interaction with outside livestock. This allows the herds to have decreased exposure to health risks, especially when it comes to infectious viruses like Avian Flu.
However, Ferreira says that his farm is one of the few that is expanding and isn’t a closed herd. He says the risk of Avian Flu has made it difficult to trade and sell cattle, as he does not want to risk infecting his herd, saying he’s now suspended expansion efforts in order to protect his existing herd.
“There’s safety protocols with the USDA and the state of California having implemented protocols,” Cahill says. “There’s very little transfer of cattle into this area, but quarantining animals that come in is a measure that takes place just to ensure that if cattle happen to be infected, they don’t spread it.”
Despite the expected minimal impact, Stratton says he thinks the state of emergency declaration is a good step in further preventing the outbreak.
“The governor’s declaration of a state of emergency for Avian Influenza will streamline efforts between different agencies, provide additional funding and allow greater flexibility in their response,” Stratton says. “This will hopefully support a one-health approach to the matter. I hope that this will better enable Humboldt County’s family farmers to weather HPAI (high pathogenicity avian influenza) if it’s detected in our dairy herds and build off the knowledge already gained elsewhere in the state.”
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