As autumn 2025 sweeps across the Northern Hemisphere, a resurgence of highly pathogenic avian influenza—commonly known as bird flu—is rattling farmers, wildlife experts, and public health authorities. The culprit: a virulent clade of H5N1, a strain that has haunted bird populations for decades but now appears more entrenched and widespread than ever before. This season’s outbreaks, marked by mass culls and shifting migration patterns, are sparking urgent measures across Europe and beyond as officials scramble to contain the disease and shield both agriculture and consumers from its fallout.
According to DW, bird flu cases are rising sharply as migratory birds begin their annual journeys to the Southern Hemisphere. This year, the migration started earlier and involved more species, including cranes that previously had little to no exposure to the virus. These birds, often stopping to rest in farmlands, have inadvertently brought H5N1 into closer contact with domestic poultry, escalating the risk of infection. The result? Outbreaks have erupted from Germany to Spain, Belgium, France, and as far as the UK and Slovakia, with authorities forced to take drastic action.
Germany stands at the epicenter of the crisis. By late October 2025, more than half a million chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, and thousands of other livestock had been culled in a desperate bid to halt the virus’s advance. The Friedrich Loeffler Institute (FLI), the country’s federal animal health authority, described the situation as rapidly evolving. “Current figures reflect only a momentary picture,” a representative cautioned, underscoring the challenge of keeping up with the disease’s relentless spread. Since early September, Germany has identified 31 new outbreaks at poultry farms, with most cases clustered in Lower Saxony but also cropping up in Brandenburg, Mecklenburg, Thuringia, Schleswig-Holstein, North Rhine-Westphalia, Baden-Württemberg, and Bavaria.
But it’s not just poultry at risk. In Brandenburg, eastern Germany, over a thousand cranes were found dead within days—an event the EU food safety watchdog (EFSA) called “a special event.” Estimates suggest more than 1,500 cranes may have perished in the region, a sharp departure from previous years when cranes were largely unaffected. German Agriculture Minister Alois Rainer brought the matter before his European counterparts, noting a “shift with regard to the species affected” and attributing it to changes in migration routes and timing. “Previously, bird flu was only to be expected in winter, but now there are cases all year round, at least in wild birds,” said Ursula Höfle, a veterinary scientist at the University of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain, in comments to DW.
Other European countries have not been spared. Denmark and the Netherlands have also culled thousands of birds, while Belgium and France have responded by raising their alert levels to “high,” forcing poultry to be kept indoors and tightening rules on animal transport. Spain, facing its own surge in cases, has culled more than 2.3 million laying hens—a move with “serious economic consequences, including repercussions for the distribution of eggs for human consumption,” Spanish Agriculture Minister Luis Planas told the Council of the European Union this week. The economic toll is already being felt: Robert Schmak, chairman of the Bavarian Poultry Farms Association, warned that egg prices may rise and poultry products could become scarcer in stores. The German Poultry Industry Central Association echoed these concerns, calling on the federal government to mandate the confinement of all birds indoors to curb the epidemic.
Why is this season proving so difficult? Experts point to the earlier and broader migration of wild birds, which increases the likelihood of contact with domestic flocks. Additionally, the current H5N1 clade is highly pathogenic, causing severe disease in both wild and domestic birds. The World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) has urged caution against alarmism, stating it is too early in the season to judge if the rise in cases is truly abnormal. Nevertheless, the sheer scale of mortality among cranes and poultry is raising eyebrows across the scientific community.
Avian influenza is notorious for its ability to jump species barriers. While it primarily affects birds, H5N1 is a zoonotic disease, meaning it can infect mammals—including humans—under certain conditions. Transmission typically occurs through direct exposure to infected birds, inhalation of viral particles, or contact with contaminated surfaces. The virus can be found in saliva, body fluids, and feces of infected birds, making farms with mixed animal populations particularly vulnerable.
So far, the number of human infections remains low, mostly limited to agricultural workers with close, repeated exposure to sick birds. Farm workers are being reminded to wear protective clothing, including disposable gloves, safety goggles, and FFP3 respirators, as Timm Harder, a viral diagnostics laboratory manager at the FLI, explained to DW. “In addition to a protective suit, this also includes disposable gloves, safety goggles and an FFP3 respirator,” Harder said. Thankfully, most infected people have survived, and crucially, there have been no documented cases of person-to-person transmission.
Still, the specter of a pandemic looms. Meghan Davis, an environmental health researcher at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, warned, “The more times this virus has an opportunity to infect a human, to infect an animal, the more chances it has—if there is a shift in the genetics that makes it easier—for it to transmit human-to-human.” The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control currently rates the risk of H5N1 as low for humans, but authorities remain vigilant, especially as the virus continues to circulate in livestock such as cows and pigs. California, for example, imposed restrictions in 2024 on the consumption of raw milk products to reduce the risk of influenza virus exposure.
The broader impact on food supplies is becoming harder to ignore. Large-scale culling is already causing shortages of eggs and meat products in affected areas. In the United States, concerns are mounting that turkey shortages could hit consumers especially hard around Thanksgiving. “It’s definitely having an impact on our food supply,” said Kristen Coleman, an airborne infectious disease researcher at the University of Maryland, as reported by DW. Coleman noted that while culling is devastating, it remains the most effective way to prevent the disease from spreading to other farms, wild bird populations, and even mammals. The consequences of failing to contain outbreaks can be dire: an H5N1 outbreak in Argentina in 2023 wiped out more than 24,000 sea lions along the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of South America.
With the season still unfolding, epidemiological services across Europe are racing to develop additional measures to limit the virus’s spread. The situation remains fluid, and while experts caution against panic, the ongoing outbreaks serve as a stark reminder of the interconnectedness of wildlife, agriculture, and public health. As the world watches and waits, the hope is that swift action and vigilant monitoring will keep this avian adversary in check.
