UGBA Position Statement on the threat from Avian Flu

The UGBA takes poultry health seriously. One of the primary reasons for the founding of the UGBA in 1975 was to cooperate with universities, state, federal and any other public or private agencies which seek to control poultry diseases. We have encouraged our members to participate in the USDA's National Poultry Improvement Plan (NPIP) and other programs which foster good poultry health. In fact, most of the larger poultry states include a game fowl breeder on their respective poultry disease task force. We work with some of the leading public veterinarians and scientists in the country as well to ensure best practices for biosecurity for our flocks. We believe in properly registering flocks across the nation and continue to work with the USDA to promote better health standards for all fowl. For example, the UGBA has successfully worked in the past with the USDA to eradicate diseases such as Exotic Newcastle Disease (END). During the END outbreak in Southern California in 2002 and 2003, the UGBA identified registered breeders and flocks in the area to help stop the spread of this disease (and at no time did the USDA ever hold a game fowl breeder responsible for causing this outbreak).

The HSUS sponsored legislation seriously undermines the USDA's efforts to continue to work with gamefowl breeders to register their flocks and takes a step backwards in their mutual goal of disease prevention. This legislation actually has the opposite effect on trying to prevent avian flu transmission or any other infectious poultry disease. In the event of an avian flu outbreak, stiffer penalties than the ones that already exist could cause gamefowl breeders to be less cooperative with USDA and the CDC, making eradication more difficult.

When the HSUS attempts to use the threat of avian flu to justify the felony penalties for transporting gamefowl, they purposefully ignore several facts:

1. Avian flu H5N1 has not been found in the USA or in the American continent;

2. Importing gamefowl from the Asian and European countries where avian flu has been detected is prohibited by the USDA;

3. Wild birds, especially waterfowl, are the primary hosts of the avian flu virus. Wild birds are more likely to spread virus into commercial flocks because there are far more commercial birds than gamefowl;

4. Transport of commercial fowl (broilers and spent layers) in thousands of open-sided trucks across the nation represents a far greater risk of spreading avian flu than does transport of relatively few numbers of gamefowl inside vehicles. In areas where commercial broiler production occurs, it is normal to see the sides of the roads littered with white feathers that have blown out of the cages as the birds are being transported to the processing plants;

5. At this time, avian flu H5N1 is not spread from person-to-person.

It is clear that the transport of gamefowl within the USA does not represent a significant threat to transmit avian flu to people or commercial poultry flocks.