birds

The National Audubon Society is taking a market-based approach to conservation. Its “bird-friendly beef” certification program proposes to measure ecosystem health by using birds as a metric.

Nearly 5.5 million chickens and turkeys have died or had to be destroyed in Buena Vista County, Iowa, during the latest bird flu outbreak — more than in any other county in the nation. That’s impacted producers, as well as workers and their families.

In the series, Christian Cooper will take viewers into the "wild, wonderful and unpredictable world of birds," according to National Geographic.

Oklahoma became the 31st state with a confirmed case of avian flu in chickens over the weekend.

The patient, an inmate in a pre-release program, was involved in culling poultry presumptively infected with H5N1 bird flu at a farm. The virus, while deadly for birds, poses a low risk to humans.

The price of eggs and dairy products has increased in Oklahoma. Global issues, pent-up demand from the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation and bird flu are a few of the reasons for rising costs.

State officials and scientists are cautioning backyard flock owners to be on high alert for bird flu. The highly contagious disease has reached small flocks in Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska.

Penguins may be the only birds visitors to many zoos can see right now, because they already are kept inside and usually protected behind glass, making it harder for the bird flu to reach them.

Nearly 23 million birds have died as a highly pathogenic bird flu virus tears its way through farms and chicken yards. It has spread to at least 24 states in less than two months.

Poultry producers and backyard flock owners are watching closely as a deadly strain of bird flu spreads across the eastern half of the U.S.