Six months ago, when a
fatal avian disease was discovered in fighting cocks in Compton in Los Angeles
County, state and federal officials began an aggressive campaign to stop what
was thought to be an isolated outbreak.
Infected birds – and any possibly exposed to the virus – would
be quickly destroyed and buried in landfills.
But cases kept appearing, some of them hundreds of miles apart.
So far, 3 million birds have been ordered destroyed at 17 chicken ranches in
Southern California, Arizona and Nevada in an effort that has cost more than $35
million.
Containment of exotic Newcastle disease, ominously known as END,
seems no closer now than it did six months ago, with announcements of newly
infected poultry ranches at times coming one day after another. Despite
intensive protection efforts, the virus has infected five of 38 commercial
poultry ranches in San Diego County – four in Valley Center and one in Ramona.
The spread of the disease, which is harmless to humans, has some
grasping for explanations. Was the outbreak far more widespread than initially
suspected? Or could exotic Newcastle be spreading by some elusive means, such as
by illegal cockfighting or by wild birds?
Leticia Rico, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Food and
Agriculture, suspects the disease had a foothold before it was discovered.
"The disease has been out there. I don't know for how long,"
Rico said. "The more we looked, the more we found."
Some residents in San Bernardino County have told officials they
saw birds dying weeks before exotic Newcastle was detected there. So far,
nothing seems to have worked in stopping it.
A case of exotic Newcastle is found about once a year in San
Diego County, typically in birds smuggled in from other countries as pets. It
had not infected commercial flocks in California for 30 years.
After early finds among backyard birds in October 2002, task
force members went door to door in Riverside and San Bernardino counties seeking
new cases.
Commercial egg ranches across Southern California locked down
their properties, barring all but necessary visitors and practicing careful
bio-security measures. They urged their employees not to attend cockfights, or
even to visit homes where birds were kept. They sprayed trucks and visitors'
shoes with disinfectant.
August Fluegge Jr., who with his father owns ranches in
Escondido and Valley Center, divided his egg-processing facility into three
areas: dirty, common and clean. Each area has its own color.
The dirty area, marked with black paint, is where racks of
unprocessed eggs are assembled. If the racks must be rolled through the common
area, painted orange, that area is disinfected. But the racks can never come
into the clean area, which is painted white.
Despite the Fluegges' elaborate measures to protect their two
operations, their Valley Center ranch of about 55,000 birds tested positive last
week for exotic Newcastle. Fluegge declined to discuss any outbreak at his
ranch, but agreed to talk about protective measures.
The spread of the disease, despite ranchers' best efforts to
safeguard themselves, has some thinking that, ultimately, only so much can be
done.
"If I go out of business it's not like I'm going to die," said
Joe Cebe, owner of Ramona-based Cebe Farms, which breeds and hatches chickens to
be sold live at markets in Los Angeles. "I lie awake at night thinking about it.
But what can I do? If that disease is going to get me, it's going to get me."
The failure to contain the virus has Cebe and other ranchers
asking a lot more questions of visitors about where they've been – from utility
workers to catering-company employees. Cebe compares a truck that has visited an
infected ranch to sharing a toothbrush with someone who is sick.
But sharing is hard to avoid. "It's a close industry," said
Kerry Mahoney, the county veterinarian. "There's a lot of crossover, and
crossover of ownership in different properties."
Eric Larson, executive director of the San Diego County Farm
Bureau, said shared practices among commercial poultry ranches have been a
problem.
"Equipment moves back and forth between farms, feed trucks move
back and forth between farms, inspectors move back and forth between farms,"
Larson said.
"A grower can control vehicles and can control equipment, but if
they're going to be successful, they're going to have a large number of workers
come onto their farms everyday and that's an element they can't control."
Some believe the initial spread of exotic Newcastle might have
been aided by cockfighting, an illegal sport involving thousands of people
across the state.
Cockfighters aren't likely to report diseased or dead birds to
their county agriculture department, so exotic Newcastle can spread undetected
in that underground community.
"They don't raise these birds to stay on their little parcel.
They fight the birds in an organized fight circuit, and they sell birds to other
cockfighting enthusiasts," said Wayne Pacelle, a senior vice president with the
Humane Society of the United States, which has asked for a federal crackdown on
the sport.
"This is an organized criminal network of people who are
violating state and federal law. At the major derbies you can see people from a
dozen or more states."
Larry Cooper, a state Department of Food and Agriculture
spokesman, said last week that about 35 percent of the backyard birds euthanized
during the outbreak thus far have been fighting birds.
Task force officials have downplayed the role of wild birds,
which are not usually carriers of exotic Newcastle. But some ranchers have
become concerned about wild birds feeding on partially digested feed found in
manure piles at chicken ranches.
"The disease is live in the manure," said Rico of the Department
of Food and Agriculture. "It is a risk. That is why when we find infected
facilities we do remove the manure as well as the top layer of the soil."
With the outbreak still uncontrolled, the Zoological Society of
San Diego has implemented heightened bio-security measures at both the San Diego
Zoo and the San Diego Wild Animal Park, spokeswoman Christina Simmons said.
"The reports we're hearing is that the outbreak is getting more
widespread in San Diego County, and as it does it becomes more of a concern,"
she said.
Vendors, suppliers, the media and others doing business at the
zoo have been asked not to use the same vehicles that may have visited poultry
facilities, particularly those in Valley Center and Ramona.
The tires of their vehicles are now sprayed with a disinfectant
solution when they enter the zoo or animal park, and so are those of any other
vehicles that go beyond the public parking areas. This does not apply to the
general public.
There have been no discussions about restricting public access
to the zoo and park, Simmons said. The only measures taken so far were closing
the walk-through aviaries at both facilities to the public in early January.
This latest outbreak of exotic Newcastle disease in commercial
chicken flocks has not yet reached the level of the last outbreak, in the early
1970s, when 12 million birds were destroyed and $56 million spent before the
virus was eradicated. It took three years to stop that outbreak.
Staff writer James Steinberg contributed
to this report.
Elizabeth Fitzsimons:
(760) 752-6743; elizabeth.fitzsimons@uniontrib.com
Source: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20030226-9999_6m26new.html