First bird flu cases in wild birds reported in Los Angeles County this year were of two species of crows, according to county officials.
LAPD Capt. Phil Hastings said birds are an ongoing concern at San Antonio Zoo.
“We have had quite a bit of crows showing up here lately, so we have put a few caged, because we don’t know what species they are as far as what we can do about it,” said Hastings.
Los Angeles County has seen 23 bird deaths in 2018 to date. That’s on track to have more birds die in 2019 than deaths in 2018 combined.
At the moment San Antonio Zoo is quarantined of birds and keeping them in a single room with limited food and water.
“With all of these kinds of things the birds might be getting sick or otherwise stressed out and not eating because they’re not being fed and then they’re in such a confined situation and water is so limited they might really get stressed out, and then we’ll see more bird fatalities and so we try to be very cautious about that,” said Hastings.
“But we do want to get back to doing the exhibit, and we are just trying to make sure that we don’t stress the birds and keep them safe,” he added.
He added he has already seen a good result by putting birds in cages over the past month.
The number of bird flu deaths in L.A County has increased in 2019 to 23 out of about 8,600 birds, according to the National Park Service.
“The birds that we’ve seen here are primarily crows but there may have been some other species of birds in the same area that were being tested. We get more cases all over the country,” said Dr. Tom Frieden, head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
There is currently no cure for bird flu. It requires human intervention and can be prevented by vaccination.
L.A. County officials said they are working with the National Park Service to test birds as sick and test possible genetic mutations.
KXAN reached out to the National Park Service for comment.
The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health said in an email that they are working