The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service announced on Wednesday that the avian flu, or H5N1, has been detected in several rats in California, CBS News first reported.
Officials confirmed that four black rats were found to have the highly contagious bird flu in late January in Riverside County, California, the location of two recent poultry outbreaks. The agency's update released this week also noted H5N1 detection in a fox in North Dakota, a harbor seal in Massachusetts, a bobcat in Washington state, and domestic cats in Oregon and Montana.
The announcement comes the same day as the USDA moved to rehire critical staff who had experience working on past avian flu outbreaks but were let go in the DOGE-led purge of thousands of federal employees.
"Although several positions supporting [highly pathogenic avian influenza] were notified of their terminations over the weekend, we are working to swiftly rectify the situation and rescind those letters," the USDA said to the outlet in a statement.
Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., told The Associated Press on Thursday that DOGE needs to be more selective in its firing practices. "While President Trump is fulfilling his promise to shed light on waste, fraud, and abuse in government, DOGE needs to measure twice and cut once. Downsizing decisions must be narrowly tailored to preserve critical missions," Bacon said.
Since the latest outbreak of bird flu began in 2022, approximately 160 million birds have been euthanized to help contain the virus. With most of the slaughtered birds being chickens, egg prices have skyrocketed over the past month reaching near $5 a dozen in some areas.
News of the virus spreading to a new species comes a day after the Public Health Agency of Canada announced it was purchasing 500,000 initial doses of British pharmaceutical maker GSK's vaccine to have on hand for its most at-risk citizens.
James Morley III ✉
James Morley III is a writer with more than two decades of experience in entertainment, travel, technology, and science and nature.
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