H5N1: 160 Million+ Wild/Domestic Birds Sick, Dead Or Culled Since Outbreak Began; Warming Also Powering Epidemic [View all]

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“Since 2021, we’re down 7 percent of our supply” of egg-laying hens, said Jada Thompson, an associate professor of agribusiness at the University of Arkansas with a focus on poultry economics. “That’s a huge amount of supply being down — and growing — right now.” Over 160 million farmed and wild birds have gotten sick, died, or been slaughtered after exposure to the H5 strains of avian influenza, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The number of wild birds that have succumbed to the disease are likely severely undercounted, since birds in the wild are monitored far less closely than birds raised for profit. The last six months of the spread of the disease have been particularly brutal for farmers. In just the first two months of 2025, 22 million egg-laying hens have been impacted, said Thompson, already more than the number affected in the last quarter of 2024.

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Climate change is also playing a role in rising egg prices — albeit differently from how it’s increased the price of other kinds of food. In recent years, extreme weather events like drought and flooding have disrupted food supply chains and sent shock waves through the economy that end up hitting grocery shoppers. In 2022, the Mississippi River entered a period of such extreme drought that ships transporting crops for cattle feed couldn’t navigate its channels. Meanwhile, in California, flooding and extreme heat hit some of the nation’s biggest suppliers of lettuce. As a result, the price of salad greens and some dairy and meat products rose. A study published last year projected that extreme heat driven by climate change will exacerbate overall inflation in nearly every country in the world by 2035.

When it comes to eggs, climate change is affecting supply more indirectly — by changing the migratory patterns and nesting habits of birds that carry avian influenza. As global average temperatures rise and extreme weather events scramble animal migration patterns and force some species north toward increasingly temperate climes, animals are crossing paths in entirely new configurations, making it easier for them to swap diseases.

Because bird flu evolves quickly and mostly in the wild, it’s hard for researchers to pinpoint exactly where and how climate change may be affecting its spread. What the handful of scientists who work on this topic can say for certain is that warming temperatures and rising sea levels are changing when and how birds move across continents, which may be influencing the unusually fast-paced and large outbreaks of bird flu that have been occurring for the past half decade or so. On average, birds are embarking on their migratory journeys from south to north earlier each season due to warmer spring temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere, extending the season for bird flu. Sea birds are building their nests further from the coastline as sea levels inch higher, forcing these birds into closer contact with other species. The fact that these outbreaks are affecting not just birds but also grizzly bears, seals, sea lions, dolphins, foxes, and ferrets — not to mention dairy cows, household pets, and humans — is also an indication that the virus is getting better at hopping between different types of animals.

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https://grist.org/food-and-agriculture/egg-prices-expensive-bird-flu-avian-climate-change/