3rd outbreak of bird flu diagnosed in north Israel’s Jezreel Valley

Sue Surkes is The Times of Israel's environment reporter

Illustrative -- Birds seen flying above a stack of hay in Nahalal in the Jezreel Valley, November 11, 2019 (Anat Hermony/Flash90)
Illustrative -- Birds seen flying above a stack of hay in Nahalal in the Jezreel Valley, November 11, 2019 (Anat Hermony/Flash90)

The season’s third discovery of bird flu is made at Moshav Nahalal in northern Israel’s Jezreel Valley, just 600 meters (a third of a mile) from the first outbreak earlier this month on the same moshav.

The first outbreak was traced to a nine-building poultry coop containing 8,700 14-week-old turkeys in Nahalal, and the second was at Moshav Ram-On, south of the Jezreel Valley.

The disease has now broken out in two large poultry sheds at Nahalal housing 34,000 hens used to breed chickens for meat.

Bird flu outbreaks have been reported overseas in recent weeks, in countries including France, Germany, Poland and the US.

Between September and December last year, there were five cases of bird flu — starting in Moshav Sde Ya’akov in the north. Four kibbutzim were affected.

Since March 2006, when the first cases of bird flu were discovered in Israel, bird flu has been discovered almost every year during the bird migration season.

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