State biologists suspect avian flu in Franklin County vulture deaths

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by Allison Mullet&Sam BeckerWed, December 3, 2025 at 3:11 PM

https://wset.com/news/local/state-biologists-suspect-avian-flu-in-franklin-county-vulture-deaths-rocky-mount-dent-street-and-franklin-street-department-of-wildlife-resources-december-2025

Updated Wed, December 3, 2025 at 6:57 PM

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Black vultures (Credit: Texas Parks and Wildlife Department)

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• Avian flu
• Vultures
• Franklin County
• Wildlife
• Avian influenza
• Department of Wildlife Resources
• Rocky Mount
• Disease testing

FRANKLIN COUNTY, Va. (WSET) — Numerous dead vultures were found in a creek bed on Tuesday, according to officials in Rocky Mount.

State and local agencies arrived at the wooded lot on the corner of Dent Street and Franklin Street to investigate the cause after a man spotted them while taking his daily walk along the sidewalk.

“I knew something was off, so I went over there and I seen and counted 37 dead vultures,” said Keith Bayne, the man who found the vultures. “So I knew something was very off.”

Bayne said normally there are lots of vultures in the creek, and he was shocked to see that nearly all of them had died. “Either something got in the water, or these vultures got bird flu,” he said.

A biologist with the Department of Wildlife Resources says they suspect avian influenza could be the cause of death for the vultures.

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Virginia Tech Animal Science Professor Mike Persia says it is not very common. “This is something fairly new that this is infected the vulture population,” Persia said.

The good news is that the creek the vulture was found in is not connected to the town’s drinking water. “The water is safe; this didn’t affect the water treatment plant or anything like that, so that’s good to know. But again, we’re trying to keep them away from that area,” Rocky Mount Mayor, Holland Perdue, said.

RELATED: Authorities investigating after numerous dead vultures found in Franklin County creek

Persia said this strain of bird flu is highly contagious and spreads through direct contact with an infected bird. He said if one sick bird died here first, it would explain why so many others were impacted at once.

“All the vultures would be around that carcass and feeding on that carcass, so it sorta makes sense to me that that would be the mode of infection even though we don’t know for sure,” Persia said.

Persia said cases like this are rare. In fact, if this case of bird flu in these vultures is confirmed, it will be only the second time in Virginia that multiple vultures have died because of bird flu.

The Department of Wildlife Resources issued a statement in regards to this incident. You can read that below.

“Due to recent detections of highly pathogenic avian influenza in black vultures, the Department is treating this as a suspected case and is sending samples to be tested. DWR sends test samples to the University of Georgia – Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study. DWR receives the results from these preliminary tests relatively quickly, and results will be communicated with the Town of Rocky Mount. Anything with a positive result in the preliminary test then gets sent to the National Veterinary Services Laboratories for confirmatory testing.”

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A list of all the confirmed cases can be found HERE.

Elusive Californian mammal captured on camera for first time ever

By Issy Ronald, CNN

 3 minute read 

Updated 7:16 AM EST, Tue January 28, 2025

https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/28/science/mount-lyell-shrew-california-camera-intl-scli/index.html

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The Lyell shrew was the only mammal species in California which had never been filmed before. Vishal Subramanyan, Prakrit Jain, and Harper Forbes

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Momentarily pausing after eating some mealworms, an elusive shrew’s long snout pointed skywards, unaware of the historic portrait that had just been captured.

Not a single Mount Lyell shrew had ever been photographed alive before, making them the only known mammal species in California to have eluded human cameras, according to the California Academy of Sciences.

That all changed in October when recently graduated wildlife photographer Vishal Subramanyan along with student scientists Prakrit Jain and Harper Forbes ventured out into the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains and captured six live Mount Lyell shrews (Sorex lyelli). There, they photographed and observed them before setting them free.

The initial idea originated with Jain, a student at University of California, Berkeley, who said he was “shocked” to find that no one had ever taken a photo of a live Mount Lyell shrew.

In collaboration with University of California Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, Jain, Subramanyan and Forbes devised a plan to search the streams and wetland habitats that crisscross the sparse landscape near the small community of Lee Vining, about 300 miles (482 kilometers) east of San Francisco.

“I’m always down for a crazy adventure. So I said, ‘sure, why not?’ We should give this a try,” Subramanyan told CNN Monday.

Shrews have such a high metabolic rate that they die if they stop eating for a few hours, meaning that they don’t survive long in traps.

The team set more than 100 pitfall traps, designed for shrews to fall into as they walked across the ground, and constantly monitored the traps for three consecutive days, only sleeping for two hours at a time to monitor the animals’ wellbeing.

The team photographed the shrew against a white background, as well as a natural one. Vishal Subramanyan, Prakrit Jain, and Harper Forbes

“We caught a Mount Lyell shrew within like the first two hours… and I think the fact that we ended up catching six of them, and we caught one so easily shows that it’s not crazy difficult,” Subramanyan said.

“It just shows that it’s generally an underappreciated species in an underappreciated ecosystem that people haven’t spent the time, and been able to actually bring dedicated focus to the shrews.”

They also recorded four different species of shrews in the area, some of whom were so similar to the Mount Lyell shrew that they later ran genetic tests to confirm that they had indeed spotted one.

“Handling the shrews was a little bit difficult,” Forbes told CNN, adding that they cut off a small piece of the shrews’ tails for genetic testing.

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“They bite and they’re venomous. So we had to improvise quite a bit. We had to weigh them in plastic bags, and they’re only a few grams, but they chew through the plastic bags. They’re kind of a pain generally, but they’re worth it.”

By capturing the shrews alive, the team said they were able to observe their behavior, noticing the mammals’ habit of stashing food away for later or taking micronaps.

Photographing live animals, particularly ones who are smaller and more obscure, also allows the public to connect with them, helping conservation efforts.

Mount Lyell shrews are extremely threatened by the climate crisis and could lose up to 90% of their cold, high altitude habitat as the Earth warms, researchers said, citing a study conducted by UC Davis.

“Without that kind of public awareness and outreach through photographs, the species could have just quietly disappeared under the radar, and nobody would have had any idea about it,” said Subramanyan.

Woman asking for new trapping regulations after she and her dog were hurt in state park

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• https://www.wtae.com/article/pennsylvania-state-park-raccoon-creek-woman-dog-hurt/63404433

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HOOKSTOWN, Pa. —

Valerie Plummer and her dog Shiloh were both seriously injured while walking in Raccoon Creek State Park on Jan. 6.

Plummer said she was walking her dogs on a multi-use trail in the park, something she had done many times before.

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“I was just walking, and they decided to stop and sniff. The one of them just pawed the ground. Her paw got caught in a trap, and she freaks out,” Plummer said. “I went in to grab the trap to try to figure it out, and she just latched on to me and just tore my arm apart.”

Shiloh suffered broken teeth and a ruptured blood vessel in her eye, while Plummer’s arm was severely injured.

Plummer had to hike out to park rangers to get help. Once she reached them, she asked about the legality of the traps in a nonhunting area.

“And they didn’t have an answer. You don’t have to report where you put your traps here in the state park,” she said.

Determined to prevent future incidents, Plummer wrote to the Pennsylvania Game Commission.

“I just feel like there should be signage. There is no signage here at the office or anything stating like, ‘Hey, trapping season’s now in. Be aware of trapping,'” she said, “You look at surrounding states. It’s not allowed to be on the trails or in the area. It has to be a certain amount of distance away.”

Pittsburgh’s Action News 4 has requested a comment from the game commission.

The state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources says it’s looking into the incident.