U.S. officials have announced the emergency use of a bird flu vaccine to protect the California condor, a critically endangered and magnificent animal that has already bounced back once from the brink of extinction.
After finding a California condor dead from the highly pathogenic avian influenza in March, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sought the help of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, which granted emergency approval for use of the vaccine. Even since, more than a dozen condors have died from the bird flu, known as H5N1.
The department approved the emergency vaccination “because these birds are critically endangered, closely monitored, and their population is very small which allows close monitoring of the vaccine,” the release said.
