Experiences from the Front Line of the 2022 Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Outbreak in Raptors in Minnesota

The Raptor Center at the University of Minnesota (TRC) is one of the largest raptor rehabilitation centers in the United States. The center admits over 1,000 ill, injured and orphaned birds of prey each year and maintains a collection of approximately 30 non-releasable raptors used for public education and outreach programs. In 2022, the strain of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI; strain EA/AM 2.3.4.4. H5N1) that arrived in the United States behaved very differently from previous USA HPAI outbreaks. There is a high rate of transmission and clinical disease among wildlife in all four of the United States migratory flyways. At the start of the outbreak, TRC quickly stood up substantial biosecurity, testing, and quarantine procedures to maintain operations and be able to continue to receive and safely treat wild birds. From March 28th–December 31st, TRC admitted over 200 raptors that tested positive for HPAI, while maintaining biosecurity practices to protect current patients and resident birds. Conducting complete PCR surveillance on all wild raptor admissions since the start of the Minnesota HPAI outbreak provides a unique dataset and representation of the course of disease in wild raptors in Minnesota that present for care. The 2022 outbreak displays the importance of having actionable and evolving biosecurity protocols in captive animal facilities that adjust to the unique outbreak characteristics happening in the geographic region around the facilities. This presentation will go over the real life implementation of these biosecurity plans in the midst of a large disease outbreak, and how these protocols were adjusted over time. It will also discuss clinical characteristics of this strain of HPAI in wild raptor patients, diagnostic testing, and overarching HPAI lessons learned at a large raptor rehabilitation center during the spring of 2022.