It’s officially called Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, better known as bird flu, and poultry farms in the Bay Area and across the nation are in lockdown because of it.
But now the virus has mutated and is being passed on to cows and workers, particularly at dairy farms. That’s raising concerns in places like Petaluma, where dairy is an important industry.
It feels like one battle after another at the dairy farms dotting the Petaluma countryside. They just beat back Measure J, which threatened the commercial dairies in the county, and now they’re facing a threat from above–avian flu.
“Knock on wood, we haven’t seen anything and, God forsakes, we hope we don’t. I hope nobody brings it here, but I have to explain to my employees, just be careful with who you’re around, where you’re going,” said Neil McIsaac III.
He and his family have been in the dairy business for generations, but they are also in the egg business. So, when avian flu began devastating poultry farms a year ago, they installed the same bio-security measures at the dairy as well.