A day after an outbreak of bird flu was confirmed at popular Henry County animal sanctuary Noah’s Ark, state and federal authorities were still trying Tuesday to determine the extent of the disease among the property’s fowl.
A chief concern: Did any of the sick black vultures, whose on-site deaths were among the first signs of the disease, fly off the property.
“The issue here are these vultures,” said Bo Warren, policy director for the Georgia Department of Agriculture. “There is a roost on this property ... When we disturb that roost, those birds are going to scatter. They are not going to come back to that property. But we know they are infected.”
The state Department of Natural Resources, which handles wild birds, is conducting a three-kilometer search around the sanctuary for the vultures, Warren said.
That news comes as officials continued running tests on birds at the sanctuary, whose 250 acres is home to more than 1,500 animals, including tigers, bears, horses, bison, emu and alligators.
In addition to the vultures, sanctuary officials confirmed on Tuesday that chickens and turkeys have been euthanized as part of the effort to contain the outbreak.
“The vulture population is still dying off as the disease runs its course,” the management of the sanctuary said in a statement on Tuesday. “State agencies are leading the cleanup and disposal and will have an accurate accounting in coming days.
“As a precaution some of the affected birds on property are being depopulated,” the statement said. “None of the parrots or exotic birds in our care have shown any signs of disease. Officials are monitoring other birds within the surveillance area and no other birds are exhibiting any clinical signs.”
The facility is closed and will remain off limits to the public “during the response,” the managers said in the statement.
The state confirmed the H5N1 strain of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) was the cause of death of the black vultures. HPAI poses little threat to humans, but birds infected with the virus should not be handled, experts say.
Bird flu has affected more than 400 backyard and commercial flocks across 39 states this year, according to USDA data. There have also been more than 2,100 detections in wild birds in the U.S. so far in 2022.
The discovery of the outbreak coincided with a public hearing last week over safety and management concerns at the sanctuary. The meeting, attended by local and state leaders, including Georgia Department of Agriculture Gary Black and State Sen. Emanuel Jones, D-Ellenwood, aired out concerns from some staffers at the sanctuary that it was being mismanaged and needed more oversight.
In a statement at the time, managers of Noah’s Ark said the allegations were unfounded and were an effort by the sanctuary’s founder, Jama Hedgecoth, to seek “more power within the governance restrictions of a non-profit structure.”
Jones said he visited the site on Aug. 10 and was horrified by the deaths of the black vultures. He said he plans in the next legislature to require more regular inspections of facilities such as Noah’s Ark to avoid future issues.
News of the outbreak has unsettled many fans of the shelter, which Hedgepoth founded in Ellenwood in 1978 as a safe haven for injured animals or exotic pets that became too much for their owners to handle.
To connect the animals with visitors, the sanctuary has given many of them names and tells their back stories on its website.
Thomas the “troublemaker” peacock, for instance, was given to the shelter after he attacked vehicles in the neighborhood in which he roamed because he saw his reflection in shiny cars. Cockatiel Frankie found a home at the sanctuary after the novelty of him wore off on a 4-year-old child for whom he was purchased as a “beginner bird.”
Allison Hedgecoth, an animal husbandry manager at Noah’s Arc and the daughter-in-law of its founder, said she has heard from people who have expressed grief that the parrots they gave to the sanctuary for their safety could possibly be destroyed if they are found to have bird flu.
“I have had people who have surrendered these birds to us ... and they are calling me and emailing me freaking out, asking ‘What’s going to happen to my bird,’” she said. “It’s awful and I don’t know what to say.”
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