Hundreds of ducks stricken by bird flu have been found in the Chicago area along the shoreline of Lake Michigan.
Chicago Bird Collision Monitors (CBCM), a volunteer-run conservation project, has warned that the outbreak poses a “serious threat” to local bird life.
In January, a northern Illinois farm lost some 3,000 chickens to suspected bird flu.
The virus has also been detected in a captive hawk in DuPage County, while Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo has lost both a flamingo and a seal to the disease.
As the disease appears in more mammals—such as sea lions in South America and minks in Europe and China—experts fear that the virus is adapting to better infect this class, which also includes humans.
At the moment, human infections remain rare. To date, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recorded 67 human cases of bird flu, with one death resulting from the virus.