2,700 Sandhill Cranes Die in Massive Bird Flu Outbreak in Indiana

The avian influenza has infected millions of birds on poultry farms. It has spread to dozens of mammal species. It has even claimed one human life. Now, it has felled over 2,700 migrating sandhill cranes in Indiana alone.  

The rapid die-off of the birds was first reported in February. It marks the largest known number of cranes to succumb to the H5N1 flu strain in North America, said the International Crane Foundation. Biologists fear the flu could spread to an endangered relative, the whooping crane. Of these, there are perhaps only 800 left. That’s roughly 0.1% as large as the sandhill crane's numbers.

This year sandhill cranes carried bird flu with them. It tore through the numbers quickly, wildlife expert Eli Fleace told the Chicago Tribune. Fleace is a biologist. He's with the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. The known deaths are 2,700 total. But the count is likely higher, Fleace added. "There’s birds that die that nobody sees.”  

The hardest hit region was Jackson County. It's in south Indiana. There, 500 sandhill crane deaths were logged in January. It's a stopping place for sandhill flocks as they migrate northward to Canada, Alaska, and Siberia to breed. Jackson County is also home to Cort Egg Farm. There, 2.8 million chickens had to be killed after a flu outbreak was found at the farm on January 25. 

Biologists are closely tracking the spread of the virus, in large part because of the threat it poses to whooping cranes, which can be found in habitats with sandhill cranes.

“On a smaller scale, humans really can’t do much in a single season,” Fleace told the Tribune. You can’t make the cranes isolate, Fleace said.

Fleace hopes the virus will diminish during the warm weather months, as influenza viruses tend to do.

Reflect: How do diseases spreading among animals affect the world around us?

Gif of sandhill cranes courtesy @usfws on GIPHY.