This past week, APHIS and the California Department of Food and Agriculture confirmed outbreaks of HPAI at the Reichardt Duck Farm housing 170,000 birds and Sunrise Farms with 80,000 hens held for egg production. The outbreaks are in a region with a high density of small to medium-size commercial egg production operations, and with a profusion of backyard farms and collections of game fowl. 

Given recent cases of HPAI in Fresno, Merced and San Benito counties, authorities have advised farmers to confine flocks, invoking emergency organic rule provisions mandating outside access.  The fact that HPAI was identified in a free-living bird in the area during June suggests that H5N1 avian influenza virus may have become endemic in domestic birds and dissemination of virus is not confined to seasonal migration.