BANGOR DAILY NEWS • January 3, 2023
Wild turkeys brought along a potentially deadly pathogen when they were reintroduced into Maine in the 1980s. That could be bad news for flocks of domestic turkeys and other poultry in the state that already are on watch for avian flu. Stephanie Shea, associate director and diagnostician at the Northeast Plant Diagnostic Network at the University of Maine, has been researching the Lymphoproliferative virus — LPDV for short — with a team of fellow scientists in Maine’s wild turkey flocks. What they found was that 59 percent of the nearly 700 turkeys tested for LPDV over a three-year period ending in 2020 tested positive for the disease. In the 1980s, wild turkeys were reintroduced in Maine. In four decades, the 100-member original flock has grown to 60,000 birds spread into all 16 Maine counties.