How big of a problem is bird flu for Kansas people and pets? Here’s what an expert says
Talks of the bird flu have seemed to take over social media in recent months.
Bird flu, also called avian influenza, is a virus that primarily impacts poultry flocks. It is usually passed onto them by migratory birds.
The virus can cause birds to be lethargic, and suffer from respiratory issues like swollen eyelids and nasal discharge. In severe cases, the virus leads to death.
But how prominent is the virus in Kansas? Should you be worried about eggs purchased at the grocery store? Can you or your pets catch bird flu? Those are just some of the questions currently circulating on social media about the virus.
To help you sort through the information overload we spoke with Dr. Justin Smith, the animal health commissioner with the Kansas Department of Agriculture and Kansas’ lead in animal response issues.
Here are the facts.
How common is the bird flu in Kansas?
Bird flu first became a national talking point in 2022, Smith said.
“We started seeing the impact that it was having on our poultry operations [and] the impact on our migratory birds,” he said.
Since then, 23 Kansas counties, including Sedgwick County, have dealt with bird flu. In 2024, the state saw 16 instances of bird flu, nine of which happened in the fall and winter.
In a lot of cases, the bird flu can remain undetected, and birds with the virus can show no symptoms. But that hasn’t been the case recently, specifically with wild birds.
“The last couple years we have seen significant death loss in our wild populations,” Smith said. “This one does tend to be affecting those of those wild populations more intensely.”
Based on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s national data, bird flu detection in wild birds is considered “widespread.” Poultry flocks are seeing “sporadic outbreaks,” as are mammals, but the current public health risk remains low.
The most common signs of bird flu in animals are, from the American Veterinary Medical Association:
Lethargy
- Low energy
- Swelling of body parts
- Coughing
- Sneezing
- Nasal discharge
- Diarrhea
The biggest sign a flock is infected is sudden death.
Should I be worried about neighborhood geese?
Because the bird flu is most commonly carried by migratory birds, it is common that geese be infected, maybe even the ones in your neighborhood.
The best thing to do in all cases is to avoid contact with wild birds.
“If you see a wild bird that isn’t acting right, that doesn’t look good, leave it alone,” Smith said. “The last thing to do is to take it home and put it in with your birds and try to nurse it back to health, because what you’ve done is you’ve just infected your resident flock.”
You can also report possible bird flu sightings to the Kansas Department of Wildlife.
If you have a bird flock, Smith recommends to add extra measures to keep the flock separate from wild birds.
Can bird flu be passed to my pets?
While it isn’t as common, some other animals can also be infected with bird flu. Recent cases show the possibility of bird flu mutating to infect dairy animals, like cows.
“There was an incident that happened in [spring], where we’ve seen what we call a spillover event, where the virus mutated to where it was infecting dairy cows,” Smith said.
Nationally, the CDC says that there is currently an “ongoing multi-state outbreak” of bird flu in cows.
But when it comes to pets, the only case that could be of concern is the virus spreading to cats, Smith said.
“They have some susceptibility to this virus if they consume a infected carcass or infected milk or infected meat that maybe hasn’t been cooked long enough,” Smith said.
But there is no proof that cats can spread the virus between them, Smith said.
Can humans catch the bird flu?
There have been instances where humans caught the bird flu, Smith said, but it’s extremely rare.
“It is those workers that have been associated to those live animals, namely that they’ve dealt with a poultry plot that’s been positive, or they’ve gotten milk in their eye from an infected cow,” Smith said.
The human symptoms from the virus are usually minor, Smith said. There is one case in the United States that ended in a death due to underlying health conditions of the person infected.
Does bird flu impact eggs?
The virus can infect eggs, Smith said.
“If a chicken is infected with the virus and lays an egg, there’s a chance that egg has the virus in it,” he said.
But that doesn’t mean you should be worried about eggs purchased at the grocery store.
“From a commercial and a consumer point, flocks that we’re collecting eggs from are healthy, and if they’re not, we’re doing the testing so any egg that may have been from that infected premises are destroyed, so they’re not entering any kind of a commerce,” Smith said.
The bird flu, however, is likely to drive up the cost of eggs. The U.S. Department of Agriculture predicts the price of eggs to increase by 20% in 2025 due to the virus outbreaks.
To sum it up, while the bird flu remains a concern for both wild birds and poultry flocks, Kansans shouldn’t worry about it from a personal health perspective, Smith said.
“We want to make sure people understand that we don’t consider this a food safety hazard,” Smith said. “The human health hazard of it is very minimal, and if we deal with it appropriately, we’ve been able to keep it out of the majority of our flocks here in the state of Kansas.”
