By ANN HINCH

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — Though Indiana State Board of Animal Health (BOAH) veterinarians and staff have kept busy planning and testing birds, the summer may have seemed a figurative "deep breath" after a tense winter and spring anticipating another case of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) at any time.

On Sept. 17, an emergency rule BOAH put into place earlier in the year to prevent commingling of birds at Indiana fairs, shows and exhibitions expired – 90 days after the last instance of a new HPAI case was detected nationally. (Only one case was found in Indiana, in a backyard flock this spring.)

At last week’s quarterly meeting, board members unanimously passed a final rule designed to cut the risk of HPAI.

The rule requires sellers and buyers in any poultry sale or transfer in Indiana to keep a record of the transaction for at least three years. This will help with tracking an animal if HPAI is detected. Sales of poultry to a state-approved slaughtering facility or through an approved livestock market are exempt because those facilities already create records for BOAH. Poultry exhibition organizers must also register their event with BOAH.

These requirements are already in place for other Indiana livestock, said Dr. Kyle Shipman, BOAH backyard and exhibition poultry health. He has been trying to educate affected poultry owners and keepers – chiefly of backyard flocks – of the new recordkeeping requirement where he can, at markets, shows and on Facebook. He also urges them to register their premises with BOAH.

"Poultry" for this rule includes chickens, turkeys, ostriches, emus, rheas, cassowaries, waterfowl and game birds (such as pheasants, partridges, quail, grouse, guineas and peafowl). It does not apply to all birds, such as doves and pigeons for example, which Dr. Michael Kopp in BOAH commercial poultry explained are fairly resistant to HPAI.

He said some people may not understand why backyard poultry owners’ small flocks should fall under the same rules as large commercial operations. He pointed to bans on import of U.S. poultry and eggs this year in more than 70 countries and explained if a state had a case of HPAI, no matter in what size flock, it was added to the list.

U.S. trading partners in much of the world have citizens who eat poultry from small and backyard flocks rather than large commercial ones, Kopp explained, so it affects their perception of how virulent diseases in the United States can spread here. In effect, it doesn’t matter in what size flock HPAI shows up – just that it does at all.

State Veterinarian Dr. Bret Marsh praised compliance with the "no bird shows" rule this summer, particularly from those whose birds clearly weren’t poultry – such as owners of racing pigeons, and even an Indy parrot club that agreed to postpone.

"We had all kinds of people who were ‘stepping up,’" he said. "They understood the rule; they understood the challenge."

An emergency rule that was enacted in July for the three-year recordkeeping requirement expired Oct. 9, but the board has renewed it until the permanent rule can legally be put on the books.

Devastating poultry industry losses such as those in Iowa and Minnesota this year have put BOAH on the offensive – if another HPAI case shows up in Indiana, vets want to keep it from becoming an outbreak.

Constant monitoring is one way to do this. Dr. Maria Cooper, who works in biodefense and high-consequence disease preparedness for BOAH, said it detected avian flu in 11 wild geese this summer the agency was testing for antibodies – out of hundreds – but none were the highly pathogenic viruses. This fall, BOAH will be testing more than 500 birds killed by licensed hunters, as well.

Nationally, Kopp said from July-Oct. 2, in 12,000 birds tested, only one mallard duck was positive for HPAI, in Utah. Testing will continue through at least mid-2016 as officials try to identify at-risk transmission pathways. (More than 48 million birds were lost in 219 detections from December 2014 through June, chiefly in the Midwest, Northwest and West Coast.)

Detection and confirmation of HPAI is one challenge. "Frankly, avian influenza can look like anything," Cooper said, pointing out BOAH had a scare last month when an Indiana commercial poultry owner lost upwards of 25,000 birds in a short time from a flock of 114,000. Birds tested negative for HPAI; it was determined they died of a septic condition.

"Finding it has devastating consequences, but not finding it is even more devastating," she noted.

If HPAI is detected again in Indiana, BOAH is working on a plan to respond as quickly as possible, learning from other states. For example, Iowa producers had to wait 42 days before the state could find a landfill owner willing to accept carcasses for safe disposal.

BOAH has been consulting with other state agencies and landfills to arrange for immediate disposal options.

One aspect of response to HPAI that remains a challenge is depopulation, killing flocks that could be or become contaminated from infected birds. Cooper said the USDA has a 24-hour depopulation goal once a case is found, but she doesn’t think that’s realistic for very large operations, like layer houses where birds have to be removed from so many cages.

Another problem for layer operations in an HPAI "control zone" – surrounding a case area, in which poultry/products may not need to be destroyed, but quarantined for a while. Meat poultry doesn’t have to be slaughtered daily, but hens don’t stop laying eggs for a federal order. Storing 2-3 days’ worth of fresh eggs is a big task for places used to shipping out every day.

Marsh said to this end, BOAH and industry are still looking at ways to streamline this kind of depopulation if needed, and will be meeting Oct. 19 to go over their choices.