Last month, Mike Weber got the news every poultry farmer fears: His chickens tested positive for avian flu.Following government rules, Weber's company, Sunrise Farms, had to slaughter its entire flock of egg-laying hens â 550,000 birds â to prevent the disease from infecting other farms in Sonoma County north of San Francisco.'It's a trauma. We're all going through grief as a result of it,' said Weber, standing in an empty hen house.
'I think this is an existential issue for the commercial poultry industry. The virus is on every continent, except for Australia at this point,' said Maurice Pitesky, a poultry expert at the University of California, Davis.Climate change is increasing the risk of outbreaks as changing weather patterns disrupt the migratory patterns of wild birds, Pitesky said.