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