Bird flu is rampant in animals. Humans ignore it at our own peril [Video]

Mark Naniot remembers 2022 as the summer from hell.As the co-founder of Wild Instincts animal rescue in Wisconsin’s Northwoods, Naniot and his team spent the season sweating in gloves, gowns, smocks and masks and going through what felt like endless rounds of disinfection as they moved between the cages of the sick and injured animals they cared for.The precautions were necessary for a trio of infectious diseases occurring with some frequency in wild animals that summer — COVID-19 was still making life difficult, and a devastating contagion called chronic wasting disease was showing up in deer in the area.Then, there was H5N1 bird flu to contend with. “It’s highly, highly transmissible,” said Naniot, who has been involved in animal rescue for 35 years.Since it was first discovered in birds in 1996, H5N1 has shown itself to be a Swiss Army Knife of a virus, evolving the necessary tools to break …