According to the law, fur farms should take care of avian influenza control. However, according to inspection reports, there were significant shortcomings last year. Animalia-media investigated the results of inspections carried out in 2024.
Avian influenza spread in Finnish fur farms in the summer of 2023, and a total of 73 animals in fur farms had to be killed due to infection. The main reason for the outbreak was considered to be the lack of control measures preventing birds from coming into contact with the farmed animals and their feed. The spread of avian influenza in farms cost the state a total of €40.8 million, of which €40.1 million was compensation to farms that had culled all their animals.
To combat the spread of the disease, a decree specifying the requirements to protect farms from avian influenza was adopted in the Autumn of 2023. The deadline for meeting the new requirements was mid-April, 2024. According to information from Regional State Administrative Agencies, inspections were carried out at 261 fur farms to check for compliance with the regulation last year. Three fur farms were not inspected.
Inspections by control veterinarians and municipal veterinarians revealed deficiencies in about 35 % of the fur farms, which led to a correction notice or order. The deficiencies most commonly concerned general hygiene and rodent control.
In some farms, birds came into contact with fur animals despite the protections at the facilities
Animalia-media asked the Regional State Administrative Agency for the individual inspection reports of the farms with the highest turnover. Animalia-media was received 17 inspection reports, covering eight different fur farms. Some farms were visited several times.
The most common observation was that there was too much vegetation between the animal sheds. Too much vegetation was observed on five occasions, at the premises of three different companies. According to one farmer, the reason for the height of the vegetation was the lack of time to mow it. He also claimed that the vegetation cannot be shortened near cages housing females with their young, because when stressed, the females may bite their young to death. It was also common to find hiding places for pests in the enclosures. This was observed three times.
One farm did not keep the shelter doors closed during the day. In their reply to the authorities, the fur farmer argued that because the doors are passed through so often, closing them each time would take too much working time. In this case, the local veterinary inspector issued an order under the Animal Diseases Act requiring the doors to be kept shut whenever they are not being used, in order to prevent birds from entering through the doorways. The same farm had also failed to ensure that there were no hiding places for pests in the enclosure.
On another farm, birds were able to get under the bird nets to eat food that had fallen to the ground from the cages of the fur animals. The enclosures of this farm were inspected twice: in June and October. In October, no more birds were found under the nets. A third farm was warned about holes in the netting that could allow birds to enter the cages of the fur animals.
The first inspections were carried out in June, three in August and four in October. The inspections were therefore concentrated in the autumn, when the number of birds around the enclosures had already decreased.
Avian influenza infections spreading again in Europe and the USA
In 2024, avian influenza viruses expanded their range, infecting species that had not previously been infected. In the US, cases were found in goats and cattle and in people working with cattle. In the US, avian influenza infection has been found to have spread from a cattle farm to a poultry farm. In Norway, the virus was also found in chickens raised as hobby.
Currently, avian influenza is spreading in chickens in the USA. According to the US Department of Agriculture, more than 34 million chickens have been culled since last December because of avian influenza. Bird flu is also spreading in Europe: in the UK, for example, more than a million chickens were culled in January after bird flu spread to one of the country’s largest poultry farms. In Lithuania, 250,000 chickens were culled at the end of January after birds in an egg-laying henhouse became infected.
At the end of January, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) warned that avian influenza viruses are a growing threat as they can mutate into human strains and cause future pandemics.
In an interview with the Finnish Public Broadcaster Yle on 27 February 2025, Tuija Gadd, Research Professor at the Finnish Food Authority, also estimated that Finland could see more cases of bird flu than last year. In central and northern Europe, a high number of cases have already been found during the first part of the year, although in Finland only two wild birds carrying the infection have been found January and February.
Read more
Yle 27.2.2025. Food and Veterinary Office research professor: avian influenza may return to Finland with renewed intensity after a year’s break
EFSA 29.1.2025. Avian influenza: EU agencies track virus mutations and analyse response strategies
Maaseudun Tulevaisuus 25.1.2025. Severe outbreak strikes Britain’s largest henhouse: more than a million birds to be killed
Yle 18.11.2024. Bird flu kills gulls in northern Norway – same virus variant found in chicken.
Food and Veterinary Office. Avian influenza surveillance in fur farms 2024
Photo by Salla Tuomivaara
