The State Board
of Animal Health voted 8-0 Thursday in favor of a package of changes to
the ban. One change, which took effect Friday, means parrots, canaries and
other songbirds as well as doves and pigeons can once again be part of
exhibitions, sales and other events where the animals are commingled.
Board of Animal
Health spokeswoman Denise Derrer said the panel also voted to end on Sept.
17 Indiana's ban on poultry shows, which has kept chickens, ducks and
other birds from summer county fairs and the Indiana State Fair in August.
That ban prompted
officials of agricultural youth group 4-H to adopt alternative plans,
including using photos and toy chickens as stand-ins for the real thing,
to allow youngsters who raised poultry through 4-H programs to make
presentations on their animal-raising skills at their county fair.
"This change
isn't really going to impact the county fair season because most of them
are done by the first week of August. So they'll pretty much stay the
course under the poultry ban for the county fairs," Derrer said Friday.
She said the only
county fair held after Sept. 17 is northeastern Indiana's DeKalb County
Free Fall Fair, which runs Sept. 28-Oct. 3.
Lynne Wahlstrom,
that county's Purdue Extension educator for 4-H youth development, said
local 4-H officials are still assessing the change that could potentially
allow youngsters to show their poultry at the fairgrounds in Auburn.
"We're going to
get that figured out, probably next week, when everybody has time to get
together and talk," she said.
Derrer said the
plans to lift the poultry show ban in September could change if more avian
flu cases emerge. She said there have been no new U.S. cases of the
disease since June 17, but officials are keeping watch for additional
cases.
She said the
board relaxed the ban largely based on epidemiological data on how the
avian flu is spread and what species it afflicts.
That illness
killed nearly 50 million birds, primarily chickens and other commercial
poultry, mostly in the Upper Midwest. Indiana's only confirmed case was in
early May in a single backyard flock of mixed poultry in northern
Indiana's Whitley County.
Bill Wulff,
treasurer of the Indiana Poultry Breeders Association, said the board's
tentative move to end the poultry show ban on Sept. 17 is great news for
breeding groups in Bloomington, Connersville, Lebanon and Spencer that
hold poultry exhibitions in the fall and winter.
"We are elated to
get our state opened back up. There's a lot of revenue that comes into
those communities through those shows, from the hotel rooms, the food and
gas," he said.