Dozens of dead vultures found in Fuquay-Varina. Is avian flu spreading in NC?

“What you’re about to see is very shocking,” Steve Stone said in a Facebook Live video recorded outdoors Jan. 2 in Fuquay-Varina.

Stone, a volunteer bird rescuer and caretaker with the American Wildlife Refuge, showed dozens of big, black birds strewn by a field surrounding a water tower, some lying dead in bunches near trees.

The mass deaths of the vultures is “almost certainly” due to the avian flu epidemic, said Mindy Wharton, a spokeswoman for the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, a state agency.

Cases of avian flu among black vultures, different from the more common red-headed turkey vultures, have risen in North Carolina recently. Cases also were documented among domestic fowl and wild birds in 47 of the 50 states in 2022.

“It has picked up again recently with smaller mortality events spread across the state in black vultures and occasionally Canada geese starting in late October,” Wharton wrote in an email to The News & Observer. “While we had a few initial cases involving 100-200 black vultures in the Piedmont, the majority of these events have been fewer than 25 birds.”’

Because so many vultures turned up dead in Fuquay-Varina, some in piles, Stone first believed residents who wanted them gone might have poisoned them.

That belief wasn’t baseless: The town bought vulture effigies to place on water towers to ward off the scavengers, saying the birds can damage water towers and are a nuisance, according to a Facebook post by the town.

“We’ve had several vultures die of bird flu, but never this number before,” Stone told The N&O.

Stone, who rehabilitates wild birds as part of his work with the American Wildlife Refuge, was contacted by a local homeowners association to investigate the dead vultures on Jan. 2.

He found them after 1 p.m. within a 100-yard radius of the water tower, which is near residential streets by U.S. 401 and Hillcrest Drive.

The birds were in advanced stages of rot, meaning they may have been lying there for weeks or even months, Stone said.

Avian flu threat to ecosystem

By their nature, vultures eat dead things — about a pound daily. That means that the roughly 40 or 50 dead birds in Fuquay-Varina were once eating a cumulative 18,000 pounds of dead animals annually.

Their loss means more dead animals, like roadkill, on roads and streets, which can rot and spread disease in the local environment including waterways, according to Stone.

“There’s going to be more vermin; there’s going be more mice and rats,” he said. ”Other scavengers will increase in quantity to make up for the lack of (vultures).“

Vultures also help keep down insect populations that accumulate in dead animals, he added.

“I really don’t like the fact that people don’t understand what vultures mean and are,” he said.

In a recent Facebook post, the American Wildlife Refuge posted submitted photos of more dead black vultures near Falls Lake, suspecting that the disease is spreading.

A carcass that Stone had tested for avian flu at a state laboratory in Raleigh came back positive on Thursday.

Stone said he only learned of the result unofficially, because the lab has to provide test results to the state, which then publicly releases disease information through the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“It’s a tangled mess being further tangled by red tape,” he said. “Government offices are not communicating all the situations that they’re finding with the people who are directly involved with the animals.”

The USDA’s federal database of avian flu cases for North Carolina includes two cases in black vultures in Wake County last November.

Avian flu epidemic in NC

Last year, the contagious bird disease appeared for the first time in the state’s widespread poultry industry, threatening the chicken and turkey food supply, The N&O reported previously.

Tens of thousands of turkeys on Johnston County farms were killed last year to prevent the flu from spreading after it was detected in flocks there.

Avian flu poses a major threat to wild birds by killing the majority, or all of the birds in a single flock, according to Matthew Koci, an N.C. State University poultry science virologist.

“It attacks all the systems of the body,” Koci previously told The N&O.

The N.C. Department of Agriculture recently reported that it was found in a backyard flock of chickens in Durham last November.

The rest of the birds in a flock have to be killed when a case is detected in order to prevent disease spread.

Reporting avian flu cases

If you suspect your birds are sick or dying, state officials recommend calling:

▪ Your local veterinarian.

▪ The N.C. State Veterinary Office at 919-707-3250.

▪ Your local branch of the N.C. Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory System. In Raleigh, the number is 919-733-3986.

The public is also asked to to report incidents involving 20 or more dead waterbirds, waterfowl, black vultures, or Canada geese to the NC Wildlife Helpline at 866-318-2401 or at HWI@ncwildlife.org.

Any birds observed with symptoms like swimming in circles, head tilt and lack of coordination should also be reported to the N.C. Wildlife Helpline.