Bird flu hits Long Island farms, culling 100,000 ducks

Long Island Duck is a national delicacy known for its mild flavor and tender meat. But its future is being thrown into doubt after the island's last duck farm was quarantined due to an outbreak of bird flu.

Crescent Duck Farm, a farm in Akborg, New York, will have to kill its entire flock of about 100,000 ducks, potentially putting it out of business, the owner said in an interview. A highly contagious virus, H5NI avian influenza, was detected last week.

The Suffolk County Health Department said the farm was quarantined and state and federal agricultural officials were working to conduct “depopulation, cleaning, and disinfection efforts” at the facility, which supplies ducks to many restaurants in New York City and elsewhere. He said he was on site. Similar outbreaks have led to the culling of herds and herds in more than a dozen states.

Doug Corwin, the fourth generation of his family to run Crescent Duck Farm, which has been in business since 1908, said Thursday that the future of his business is uncertain.

“I’ve been doing this all my life, and we’re the last in this business,” he said. “It's heartbreaking. You can work your whole life for something and then one day it's all gone.”

Health officials said the risk to humans remains low. “At this time, the virus cannot be transmitted between humans,” Suffolk County Health Commissioner Dr. Gregson Piggott said in a statement.

But he said transmission could occur between infected birds and farm workers exposed to them, and investigations were ongoing.

Since last year, there have been 67 confirmed human cases of H5N1 in the United States, and one death. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The outbreak has raised concerns across the United States, with California declaring a state of emergency last month due to an outbreak that affected hundreds of herds.

Health officials have not publicly identified Corwin's farm as the site of the outbreak, but This news was previously reported by RiverheadLocalSuffolk County website.

Duck farming was once a mainstay of the economy on Long Island, especially in rural eastern Suffolk.

According to one source, in 1940 there were 90 duck farms in the towns of Brookhaven, Southampton, and Riverhead. historical research Published by the Suffolk County Planning Department. But today there is only Crescent.

Corwin said the process of culling the birds, disinfecting the facility and de-quarantineing the farm could take two to three months.

He added that “the silver lining that we have that will hopefully move us forward” is the government's agreement not to discard thousands of eggs, which will allow future flocks to be saved. He added that it may be possible to revive it.

However, he had not decided whether to take that path or not.

“Unless the USDA approves a vaccine for this virus, I'm not 100% sure we want to go through that,” he said. “I don't want to go through something like this again.”

A local hatchery agreed to try hatching the eggs. This could allow farms to keep genetic lines of delicious ducks with optimal meat-to-fat ratios alive long enough to get back into business.

This farm produces 3.5 percent of all ducks sold in the United States. We supply restaurants in many cities including New York, Washington DC, Philadelphia, and Boston.

“The reason I'm still in business is because of my genetics, and if I can't preserve my genetics, I'm worthless when it comes to duck farming,” Corwin said. “My customers are people who use multiple ducks a night – chefs who use one duck after another.”

The outbreak has forced Corwin to lay off at least 45 of his roughly 75 employees. He said he was still shocked that his herd was infected.

“This is spreading like wildfire here,” Corwin said. “I'm 66 years old. My great-grandfather started this business. I've seen a lot of things, but I've never seen anything like this.”