Environment Climate & Health
News and guidance on avian influenza is scattered across government and state agency websites, and rampant misinformation is spread across the internet. In response, Cornell has launched a comprehensive resource that offers a one-stop clearinghouse for the most current and trustworthy information on bird flu. A new online Avian Flu Resource Center provides reliable and accessible information for members of the general public, farmers, wildlife professionals, state and public health agency partners, and veterinarians…
Most pandemics in the past century were sparked by a pathogen jumping from animals to humans. This moment of zoonotic spillover is the focus of a multidisciplinary team of researchers led by Raina Plowright, the Rudolf J. and Katharine L. Steffen Professor in the Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine’s Department of Public and Ecosystem Health. Their research is one of three projects that make up Cornell’s new Global Grand Challenge: The Future. The three-year challenge from Global Cornell aims to apply advances in our understanding of the social, digital and natural worlds to meet global communities’ emerging needs…
On Feb. 7, New York Governor Kathy Hochul issued an order to temporarily close live bird markets after cases of avian influenza, or bird flu, were detected in seven markets in Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx in the past week. The closures apply to all bird markets, including those that didn’t report any cases, in New York City, Westchester, Suffolk, and Nassau counties. The order requires market owners to sell or otherwise remove all live birds and conduct a thorough cleaning and disinfection of their facilities—even if bird flu wasn’t detected there. All markets must remain closed for five days after the cleaning to confirm they are free of the H5N1 bird flu virus so that the virus won’t spread again when live animals are…
The bird flu that has rapidly spread across the United States has now been identified in the Finger Lakes. While bird flu was first identified in North America in 2021, and in New York in 2022, Director of Cornell University’s Wildlife Health Lab, Dr. Krysten Schuler, said an outbreak of this scale has not been seen since 2014/2015. “In New York State it was very quiet over the summer, but with the fall migration of birds, we’re seeing an uptick in the number of cases,” said Schuler. “We’ve had reports of mortality events on local waterfowl on Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca Lakes…
Researchers tested five species of commonly hunted waterfowl in the northeast Atlantic Flyway and, in every sample, found contaminants that could impact the health of the birds, as well as the hunters and others who consume them. The study, published Jan. 15 in Science of the Total Environment and conducted in collaboration with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) and other state agencies, found detectable levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and at least one organochlorine pesticide (OCP) and per- or polyfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS) in each bird sampled…
Smaller fish species are more nutritious, lower in mercury and less susceptible to overfishing, a Cornell-led research team has found. The team’s study was conducted in the Amazon River, but the findings have implications for biodiversity conservation and public health across the globe as large fish species populations are declining worldwide. The study, “Accessible, Low-mercury and Nutritious Fish Provide Win-Wins for Conservation and Public Health,” published Jan. 17 in One Earth. It was authored by four Cornell researchers and colleagues from Brooklyn College and the Wildlife Conservation Society, a nongovernmental organization…
The explosion of smoke and ash that erupted from two wildfires was beyond belief. In the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, as the Eaton fire engulfed homes and businesses, a thick blanket of smoke rolled over the horizon, blocking out the sun. The wildfires produced the heaviest smoke and soot the region has seen in recent memory. On Jan. 8, an air monitor in Chinatown — about 10 miles downwind of the Eaton fire — recorded 483.7 micrograms per cubic meter of fine particulate matter, according to preliminary data from the California Air Resources Board. It was the highest hourly reading by an Environmental Protection Agency-sanctioned air monitor in Los Angeles County in more than four years — only outmatched by clouds of smoke from Fourth of July fireworks in 2020…
Wildfires have been raging across Los Angeles County since Tuesday morning, but only in the past 24 hours or so has the city’s air quality begun to suffer. That’s because of the classic path of the Santa Ana winds, Alistair Hayden, a public health professor at Cornell who studies how wildfire smoke affects human health, told me. “Yesterday, it looked like the plumes [from the Palisades fire] were all blowing out to sea, which I think makes sense with the Santa Ana wind patterns blowing to the southwest,” Hayden said…
Despite clear benefits to children’s physical and mental health, focus, academic success, and encouraging sustainability behaviors, integrating consistent outdoor time into school activities can be challenging. In a research project following 17 teachers from upstate New York, a Cornell team explored if and how teachers were able to use the green space in their elementary schoolyard, generating results that could help provide children with consistent access to natural spaces…
Despite the danger and death toll of heat-related disasters in the U.S., the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has never declared a heat wave an emergency. The reason is twofold: a lack of real-time data on the impacts of extreme heat, and a lack of clarity on how to mitigate those impacts. “When extreme heat events happen, they are acute emergency disasters,” says Dr. Amie Patchen, Lecturer and Chief of the Environment, Climate & Health Concentration for Cornell Public Health. “These disasters cause at least hundreds of deaths each year,” adds Dr. Alistair Hayden, Assistant Professor of Practice. “More deaths annually than hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods combined…
Bird flu has crept uncomfortably close to home in recent months. Public health experts have detected nearly five dozen known infections of the H5N1 avian influenza virus in people in the U.S. Dairy farmers are approaching a full year of exposure to the virus in their herds. And more than 100 million birds in U.S. poultry farms have been lost to the pathogen or killed in attempts to stop its spread since February 2022. Meanwhile the type of H5N1 virus that has been spreading, known as clade 2.3.4.4b, has also infiltrated ecosystems around the world, wreaking devastation that has mostly gone overlooked…
Research from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and universities across the state have found manmade chemicals known as PFAS are being found in our ecosystem and hurt public health. “PFAS are a whole category of thousands of different types of chemicals and they’re known as forever chemicals because they are really hard to break down,” said Professor of Public Health at Cornell University Alistair Hayden. “We use them in many different processes, a lot of plastics manufacturing…