Eagles Are Falling, Bears Are Going Blind

“People were saying they were literally dropping down dead,” Stallknecht told me. The virus has been steadily trickling into mammalian populations—foxes, bears, mink, whales, seals—on both land and sea, fueling fears that humans could be next. American scientists have detected the virus in more than 150 wild and domestic avian species and at least a dozen different types of mammals. I think that’s the key thing,” Stallknecht told me. As climate change alters migration schedules, and pushes certain avian species into more frequent contact with one another’s contaminated scat, the risks of intermingling are only growing.