This home, not yet formalized, is the second detected in the southwest, the main production area of foie gras, from the bird flu epizootic that had received last winter fifteen departments and leads to slaughter 3.5 million farmed poultry.
Le Monde with AFP
An avian influenza fireplace has been detected in Landes duck breeding, the main producer department of foie gras, for the first time since the epizootic last winter, announced Sunday 19 December the chamber of agriculture .
“It is located in Hastings”, near Peyrehorade, at the edge of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Marie-Hélène Cazaubon, president of the Landes Chamber of Agriculture. “The clinical signs did not allow any doubt and it was decided to depopulate the breeding (from Saturday) without waiting for the results (Sunday) of the final analysis.”
This home, not yet formalized by the prefecture or the Ministry of Agriculture, is the second detected in the southwest, the main zone of production of foie gras, from the bird influenza epizootic which had touched the last winter fifteen departments and leads to the slaughter of 3.5 million farmed poultry.
A first home detected in Manciet
The first had been detected this week in Manciet (Gers). It was then the eighth French livestock affected, after seven households reported in the northern department since November 26th.
In early November, to avoid contacts with migratory birds potentially carriers of the virus, the health authorities had asked all the outdoor and organic producers of metropolitan France to confine their poultry.
“We are in a migratory corridor by which birds from Northern Europe where the viral traffic is important in the birdlife, you have to be very vigilant,” Marie-Hélène Cazaubon, herself duck breeder. “95% of the farms are under shelter, but that does not completely prevent the virus from circulating. It can also happen by the fact of man, on his boots, for example,” she added.
The manager said at the same time “worried”, “because of the trauma lived at the beginning of the year (2021), still very present in the spirits and in terms of financial impact,” and “serene” , because “95% of breeders make health security efforts”.
According to her, there is less poultry in the farms that usually at such an epoch because the operators “can not keep only a number of volatiles that corresponds to their ability to take shelter” and because “some producers did not wish to resume ducks at this time. ” In addition, the poultry and ducks for the end of the year “are already parties” farms. Landes produce a quarter of the French foie gras and have about eight hundred farms of palmipedes, especially ducks.