Israel scrambles to contain spread of bird flu

JERUSALEM — Israel is acting to contain a severe outbreak of bird flu that has already led to mass culling of infected poultry and has caused the deaths of about 5,000 migratory cranes in a popular nature reserve in the north of the country.

The minister of environmental protection, Tamar Zandberg, described the outbreak, identified as the H5N1 type, as “one of the worst blows to wildlife in Israel’s history” after a visit to the Hula Nature Reserve this week. Hula is a wetland that is a central stop on the winter migration route to Africa.

The reserve, usually bustling with bird-watchers at this time of year, is temporarily closed to visitors, and the Ministry of Environmental Protection said Wednesday that Zandberg was working to suspend the rest of the hunting season in the country, which normally runs until the end of January.

The fear, the ministry said, was that gunshots from bird hunters could cause the wild birds to fly off to other locations, spreading the disease, which it said could also be spread by contaminated car tires on hunters’ vehicles or on the soles of their shoes, or by the dogs retrieving their prey.

Officials have also warned of the danger of the transmission of bird flu from animals to humans, which could be deadly. No such cases have been recorded in Israel.

The first signs of the outbreak came about two months ago, according to the Ministry of Environmental Protection, with infections cropping up in chicken and turkey farms in different areas of the country.

Israel’s minister of agriculture and rural development, Oded Forer, said about 600,000 chickens had been culled. He said that would mean a shortfall of 15 million eggs per month over the next few months and that the department was working to import millions of eggs.

In an interview with Kan Radio, Israel’s public broadcaster, on Tuesday, Forer blamed the outdated, overcrowded chicken coops that he said were common in Israel for the severity of the outbreak of the virus.