ROSWELL — Carl Jacobsen, wildlife biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) at Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge, said he is sure avian flu is present in wild birds at the refuge.

“I’ve seen waterfowl that display symptoms of it,” he said. Jacobsen was not ready to make an outright statement about the flu being present in the 24,563-acre refuge, however.

“I have never sent a sample in, so I can’t say definitively it is here,” Jacobsen said. “But it’s very common, so I would be surprised if it wasn’t.”

Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI), commonly known as bird flu, is widespread in wild birds worldwide and is causing outbreaks in U.S. poultry and dairy cows. Three cases of HPAI have been reported in U.S. dairy workers in 2024, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website.

An additional case of HPAI in humans, which involved a fatality, was reported recently near Mexico City by the World Health Organization. The case in Mexico involved the strain H5N2, a different strain from the cases in the U.S., which involved the H5N1 strain.

According to the CDC, the probability of humans contracting HPAI is very low, but people should avoid direct contact with wild birds and other animals suspected of being infected with bird flu viruses and observe them only from a distance.

Bird flu viruses can infect the respiratory and gastrointestinal tracts of birds and have been identified in more than 100 different species of wild birds around the world, according to the CDC.

According to the FWS website, at least one confirmed case of avian flu was collected in Chaves County in February, but exactly where in Chaves County the sample was collected is not listed. That case was in a Canadian goose. Other cases of bird flu in wild birds in New Mexico this year have been collected in Curry and Eddy counties and along the Rio Grande flyway in Bernalillo and Socorro counties. Most of those detections have been in Canadian geese, snow geese and hawks, according to the FWS.

Besides the widely reported cases of bird flu in dairy cows, numerous cases of the disease have been detected in mammals in New Mexico, including skunks, red foxes, domestic cats and house mice, according to the FWS website. The website lists 11 cases in house mice and one case in a red fox in Roosevelt County in May of this year, as well as six cases in domestic cats in Curry County in March and April.

Jacobsen said he was told by Migratory Game Bird Coordinator Dan Collins, who works at the FWS Regional Office in Albuquerque, that HPAI is present in wild bird populations at all times, but the disease’s impact on wild bird populations is variable according to the time of year and other conditions.

Tanya Espinosa, a public affairs specialist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said in an email to the Daily Record that there have been no reports of major decreases in wild bird populations in the U.S. that can be attributed to avian influenza.

Wildlife professionals are encouraged to investigate all unexplained wild bird deaths, she said. Samples from birds are submitted to screening laboratories for initial testing, and all detections need to be confirmed at the National Veterinary Services Laboratories (NVSL), according to Espinosa.

She said there have been a total of 24 individual detections of bird flu in wild birds from New Mexico confirmed by the NVSL since the onset of the current avian flu outbreak in January 2022.

Animals and birds can be infected with HPAI even if they don’t show any symptoms, the CDC said, and people should also avoid unprotected contact with poultry or other animals that may be sick or have died, or that are suspected or known to have bird flu virus infection.

The public is also advised not to touch surfaces or materials that may be contaminated.