![Reaching out. Christopher Lesh, student at Central Catholic High School, serves ice cream during the event on March 2, 2025, at the Portland waterfront. Central Catholic was just one of the schools that sent student volunteers out to cook, prepare, dish, and serve food. Interact club’s co-president Rachel Gerber, junior, plated the food during the event. “I like how direct the contact is,” Gerber said. “You’re there [and] you’re just doing something good. It’s simple, it’s easy, you can feel good about it.”](https://wlhsnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/interact-1-edited-1200x744.jpg)
The first-ever bird flu outbreak occurred in 1997 and has come back at different times since then. The Highly Pathogenic Avian Virus (H5N1), bird flu, is a global issue that has caused flu outbreaks in poultry and dairy cows. The disease has forced farmers to kill whole flocks so they won’t spread the disease further. 145 million chickens have been killed since the beginning of the flu. This has led to a decrease in the amount of poultry and eggs.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), various states such as Oregon, California, and Colorado have been affected by this virus. Addison Woebke, junior, is a ninth-grade advocate in the Associated Student Body (ASB). She has chickens of her own in her backyard.
“When I first heard about the bird flu I was a little sad, because I really like chickens. [But] I personally wasn’t all that worried about my backyard chickens,” Woebke said.
In the Portland area, at least seven cats have been diagnosed with the disease since December. The disease could be spread by raw food, but this is still not confirmed as of now.
“It has not affected my family [since] we don’t go to the store to buy eggs. So it’s not like the price has increased for us,” Woebke said.
Unlike Woekbke’s family, restaurants have seen a spike in egg prices when buying stock; it has been the highest ever in the last year.
Pens can be bad for chickens because places tend to cramp chickens into one area, and that can lead to unstable living conditions. This makes the chickens ill, but still usable.
“I think the media has been doing a good job of bringing the [bird flu] up. Besides the bird flu, they bring up the conditions of pens and how they are bad. It’s good they are bringing awareness,” Woebke said.
In the nation, there have been a total of 70 cases, including one death so far. This includes 41 dairy herds, 24 poultry farms, two other animal exposers, and three with unknown sources. A significant number of poultry and wild birds have been affected by the flu, but the major effect that citizens have seen is the price, and it’s only continuing to rise. The most recent outbreak was on March 4, 2025 in Multnomah county with it being Poultry in a backyard. Other cases in February were Cat problems. Since then there haven’t been more outbreaks and it’s not a big risk to people and their food.
