St. Louis Zoo Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza precautions

ST. LOUIS – Just one day right after St. Louis County announced a “presumptive positive” case of Hugely Pathogenic Avian Influenza, or HPAI, the Saint Louis Zoo has taken safeguards to safeguard birds in its collections.

“We have closed our Bird House to public access. And we have shut our Cypress Swamp to community accessibility as nicely,” claimed Dr. Luis Padilla, the vice president of animal collections for the zoo. “An unknowing, unwitting particular person could have tracked avian influenza on their shoes and arrive into a room wherever our birds could be at possibility.”

Lots of other birds have been moved indoors. That incorporates swans and geese from the lakes and the typically outside Humboldt penguins.

“You are in a position to see the penguins inside, but you’ll see none of our outdoor birds are exterior. We want to protect against them from coming into call with drinking water fowl that could be carrying the Really Pathogenic Avian Influenza.”

All of these techniques are in the most effective curiosity of the birds, specifically those people considered unusual or endangered.

“We’re having fowl welfare, bird security as the greatest precedence and we’re having this as a proactive precaution to hold all our birds secure,” Padilla claimed.

The zoo is doing work with the point out veterinarian and the Missouri Department of Conservation to observe circumstances. They want you to know that avian influenza does not pose a human health and fitness worry.

 “So it is nonetheless as protected of an working experience as it has at any time been. There is no threat to friends coming and taking pleasure in the zoo,” Padilla mentioned.

You can nonetheless take a look at Penguin Puffin Coast, but it will be shut an hour early each working day for deep cleaning. The zoo appreciates visitors’ understanding.

A zoo spokesperson reported the safeguards are part of a protocol in the function that HPAI is located in neighboring municipalities. According to the Department of Conservation, the hen in the St. Louis County situation was discovered as a Hooded Merganser, although a Bald Eagle was found out in St. Charles County.

The St. Louis Zoo reported HPAI does not pose a human wellness issue for zoo attendees.