WVIK-AM (with audio; Rock Island, Illinois; Feb. 18) —University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Wildlife Medical Clinic Director Dr. Stephany Lewis says waterfowl birds are the most susceptible to spreading avian influenza. They migrate and could come into contact with other bird populations or mammals, passing the virus.
“[T]he populations that we worry about more are the ones that are not so resilient, right? That are either lower in numbers, trending down in numbers, or there are some species that especially during migration and in the winter where you have a huge subset of the entire population in a very small geographic area,” Lewis said in a phone interview with WVIK. “So those are the situations where we really worry about those populations not being able to bounce back if we have a mass casualty event or mass die-off.”