Management of waterfowl on and around farms could reduce the risk of infection of commercial poultry and dairy operations from avian flu and other disease, Maurice Pitesky, associate professor at the UC-Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, told a seminar at World Ag Expo.
Pitesky noted that the Central Valley gets nearly 60 million migrating waterfowl — which roost on water — every fall and winter. Digital mapping tools show a correlation between bodies of water and infected commercial operations, he said.
“So in California, unfortunately, we're number one in this kind of spatial interface between these waterfowl and the amount of dairies we have, the amount of poultry facilities we have, and that creates this kind of kind of game of risk or probability,” he said. Farmland in the valley a key source of both food and habitat for wild birds.
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He suggested a few hypothetical mitigation strategies, such as having farmers sell hunting permits on their land to de-bird the surrounding area, or flooding land in relative proximity to commercial facilities to shift habitat for migrating waterfowl.
"If we thought about [reflooding] three years ago, then there would be a solution," Pitesky said. "I think part of the problem is no one's trying anything new. We're stuck because everyone keeps thinking it's going to go away. That's not strategy."
For now, Pitesky is asking dairy farmers to participate in his mapping tool, which will provide data to help create a predictive model of which dairies are most likely to be burdened by waterfowl migration.
