On Mar. 24, 2025, As bird flu ravages poultry farms across the country – including in South Dakota – fears are growing that the highly contagious avian influenza virus could mutate and begin to spread widely among the world’s human population.

The virus already has caused devastating effects in the state, which has seen the second-highest number of outbreaks in commercial poultry flocks in the nation. The 114 commercial outbreaks in South Dakota, along with another 26 backyard flock infections, have led to the death or intentional killing of more than 6 million turkeys, chickens and other birds, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Many of the outbreaks in the state, the latest coming in January, have been at turkey farms operated by Hutterite colonies in the eastern half of the state, including at the Oaklane Hutterite Colony near Bridgewater.

But in 2024, the virus was detected in a flock of farm-raised pheasants in South Dakota, leading to the killing of about 30,000 of the birds that draw hunters from around the world each fall. As in other states, the virus has also spread to mammals in the state, causing the death of a handful of cattle and more than a dozen domestic cats.

The current outbreak of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, or H5N1 virus, began in the U.S. in February 2022. Since then, the virus has been detected in all 50 states, causing more than 1,600 individual outbreaks in commercial and backyard poultry flocks and leading to the death or euthanasia of 166 million chickens, turkeys and other birds.

There has been no known human-to-human spread of bird flu so far in the U.S, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And yet, numerous scientists are becoming concerned that bird flu could become the next pandemic and potentially cause devastating consequences to human populations across the world.

The USDA in February gave conditional approval to a bird flu vaccine for poultry, made by the firm Zoetis. But to date, the U.S. has not followed the path of other countries such as China, Mexico and some European countries where use of poultry vaccines is widespread.