A local resident discovered the infected bird on Luke Road near Glass Factory Road, about two miles west of Route 12. It was sent to the state health department Aug. 7 to be tested and was confirmed infected last Wednesday. Oneida County will begin spraying the area Tuesday for mosquitoes within a two-mile radius of where the crow was found, hoping to kill any mosquitoes that might be carrying the disease. Birds and mosquitoes can act like a canary in a coal mine because certain types of mosquitoes can carry the virus and the birds contract it. Finding an infected animal in an area tips local health officials off to the virus' presence.
Cities can then decide whether to roll out insecticide-spraying trucks or to take other precautions.
There have been a lot of warnings this summer, especially with birds. Most of these birds were crows and most were found in the New York City metropolitan area. But infected birds are now turning up around Upstate New York, indicating the virus is present statewide. At the urging of state health officials, counties and private citizens have been shipping dead birds for months to the state Department of Environmental Conservation's wildlife pathology lab. Stone and his small staff perform triage on the hundreds of bagged and boxed birds arriving daily.