Avian influenza outbreaks result in mass culling of poultry flocks through methods that raise serious welfare concerns, affecting billions of birds globally.
Birds infected with highly pathogenic avian influenza suffer severe respiratory distress, neurological symptoms, hemorrhage, and rapid death. Mass culling methods used to prevent spread raise profound welfare concerns: ventilation shutdown causes heat stress and suffocation over hours; some other methods have inadequate validation for effective stunning. The factory farming system that concentrates millions of birds in close proximity creates conditions for catastrophic outbreak spread and the welfare harms that follow.