June 15, 2006
As of June 13, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, working with State and Federal partners, including the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation and the United States Geological Survey’s National Wildlife Health Center laboratory in Madison Wisconsin, has tested 1,210 samples taken from subsistence harvested birds in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta area.
These samples were collected as part of an effort to detect the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza (“bird flu”) if it ever arrives in the United States by way of wild bird migration. All of these samples tested so far have come back negative for H5N1. Therefore, the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza has still never been found anywhere in the U.S.
We thank the villages on the Delta and subsistence hunters that helped with this collection effort. Your contributions are vital to this surveillance effort. We will provide updates on the results of testing as they become available.
You can subscribe to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Alaska Region listserver, to have our press releases sent to your e-mail address automatically, by sending an e-mail message to: listserv@www.fws.gov. Please indicate that you would like to subscribe to FWS-Alaska news and give your name in the body of the message.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the principal federal agency responsible for conserving, protecting and enhancing fish, wildlife and plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. The Service manages the 95-million-acre National Wildlife Refuge System, which encompasses 540 national wildlife refuges, thousands of small wetlands and other special management areas. It also operates 69 national fish hatcheries, 64 fishery resource offices and 81 ecological services field stations. The agency enforces federal wildlife laws, administers the Endangered Species Act, manages migratory bird populations, restores nationally significant fisheries, conserves and restores wildlife habitat such as wetlands, and helps foreign governments with their conservation efforts. It also oversees the Federal Aid program that distributes hundreds of millions of dollars in excise taxes on fishing and hunting equipment to state fish and wildlife agencies.