Cooperative Agreement for CESU-affiliated Partner with Rocky Mountains Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit

The USGS is offering a funding opportunity to a CESU partner for research in forecasting risk of goose Guangdong highly pathogenic avian influenza to poultry production in North America. Through migrational processes, birds have the potential to globally disperse disease-causing viruses. Dynamic models of avian migration hold the potential to predict in real-time the relative risk of introduction of foreign-origin avian influenza from Asia to North America, informing management agencies and domestic poultry operations about times and locations where risk may be greatest. This project will synthesize and extend information on avian influenza in wild birds and movement data for migratory species to forecast the relative risk of highly pathogenic avian influenza introductions to domestic poultry by estimating the place- and time-specific probabilities of viral occurrence in wild birds occupying poultry-producing regions of the U.S.