Fewer turkeys for Thanksgiving

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Area food pantries in Oceanside and elsewhere say they are facing a shortage of turkeys this year, attributed to avian flu that has decimated the American poultry industry since January.

The shortage has trickled down from farms to local supermarkets, and now, with the holidays looming, charitable organizations with food pantries say they are facing a poultry deficit.

Bob Transom, president of Oceanside Community Service, said his group is anticipating the need for 350 turkeys to donate to needy families for Thanksgiving and Christmas, but this year he is afraid the agency will come up short. “Our needy family numbers are slightly up,” Transom said. “I priced BJ’s Wholesale Club and [turkeys] were 89 cents a pound, but Stop & Shop had turkeys at $1.89 a pound.” The agency used to buy some of the birds, but after reviewing its budget, Transom concluded that it doesn’t have the means to purchase all the turkeys it will need.

Marion Toby, who runs the holiday turkey basket program in Island Park, said that it would need 21 turkeys to distribute to families this holiday season. The Island Park Kiwanis Club pays for those birds, and members of the Kiwanis-sponsored Builder’s Club hold a food drive at a local supermarket to fill the food baskets that are distributed before Thanksgiving and Christmas.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, “highly pathogenic” avian influenza has forced the poultry industry to destroy 48 million birds — chickens as well as turkeys — in 21 states, and disrupted the egg trade as well.

The Agriculture Department explained that infected wild migratory birds use the Mississippi River as a travel route, and the flyway takes them over Minnesota, the nation’s top turkey-producing state. There the pathogen is transmitted to domestic turkeys. There are two other major flyways, the Pacific and Central, and other outbreaks of avian flu, which was at its worst from January to June, were concentrated in the Midwest as well as Washington state, Oregon and California. The USDA is gearing up for a return of the flu this fall as migratory birds fly south.

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