📢 Avian influenza (aka #birdflu) situation update for January 2025: - 144 outbreaks in poultry and 160 in non-poultry birds & mammals across Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe. - High impact on poultry: 14.9 million birds died or were culled, mostly in the Americas. - In just four months, the number of poultry outbreaks is already comparable to the entire previous wave (Oct 2023–Sept 2024). - Outbreaks in poultry and non-poultry slightly decreased compared to December, suggesting we may be

A new, highly contagious avian flu is sweeping through wild bird populations and ravaging poultry farms as scientists work to contain the outbreak. https://cbsn.ws/3PlEHph | CBS Evening News

Lure training is important work as it helps highlight natural behaviors as well as provides important tools in the bird’s toolkit of confident, fluent skills. Here is burrowing owl Tina working on pouncing with a fake lizard that represents a potential prey item of burrowing owls. This little lady has some hops! | Avian Behavior Conservancy

Have you ever had training or behavior advice that seems to be everywhere but isn’t serving you and the bird you work with? We explore the really deep and challenging topic of the humane hierarchy and LIMA, where these concepts came from, like how intrusive is actually a legal term and is a construct, and how our subjective interpretation of them can hinder our training progress. When it was coopted in the dog training community in the 1970’s, it was used interchangeably with restrictiveness, bu

Training naked :) We have put together a fun little project with our new Harris's Hawk. We are using the constructional approach that we have used previously with the ornate hawk eagle training without any equipment and progressive diet management. We use careful attention to the slightest avoidance responses. Here he is showing curiosity and interest to our approach without any food present! We had a lively conversation during our Live Q&A in the Avian Behavior Lab today talking about this guy