Germany Battles Bird Flu Surge, Culls Over 400,000 Poultry

Germany is facing a fresh wave of bird flu that has forced the culling of more than 400,000 poultry as authorities race to contain the fast-spreading outbreak. The Friedrich Loeffler Institute (FLI) described the current situation as alarmingly similar to the devastating 2021 epidemic, one of the country’s worst years for avian influenza.

The virus has already been detected in 30 farms, prompting large-scale destruction of chickens, ducks, geese, and turkeys to prevent further spread. Experts at the FLI warned that the trajectory of the outbreak remains uncertain, raising concerns of an even wider impact in the coming weeks.

The hardest-hit regions are the northeastern states of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Brandenburg, where losses have been particularly severe. Officials in Brandenburg’s Märkisch-Oderland district announced plans to destroy an additional 130,000 birds after already culling about 150,000 earlier this year.

Wildlife has not been spared either, as reports of mass crane deaths in the Linumer Teichland wetlands underscore the virus’s reach beyond farms. The ongoing crisis has revived memories of the 2020–2021 winter, when Germany was forced to destroy more than two million poultry to contain a similar outbreak.

Authorities are now intensifying surveillance and biosecurity measures across affected regions, hoping to avert another catastrophic year for the country’s poultry industry.