Minnesota bird flu news: Early arrival of fall migration cases along Mississippi Flyway

 

Flyways map:  Facebook

Headline:  Brownfield, 9/22/2026

Minnesota is seeing an early onset of highly pathogenic avian influenza cases heading into the heart of fall migration. M 

Minnesota Turkey Growers Association executive director Ashley Kohls says a resurgence of the disease is not surprising.

“But what is happening that’s unexpected is how early it surfaced this fall. We saw our first case of the fall in mid August, and have kind of seen a little bit of a blip again now here in the last week.” 

She tells Brownfield in year five of the current outbreak, trends are emerging. 

“Every other year based on bird populations and new hatches and age of birds that do migrate, they’re finding that waterfowl that migrate that are younger that maybe haven’t been exposed to disease and don’t have immunity to disease may be a bigger vector, if that makes sense.”

Other Minnesota bird flu posts:

September 2026

Minnesota reports another case of bird flu in turkeys.  (9/19)

Minnesota reports two cases of bird flu in turkey flocks.  (9/15)

Minnesota reports outbreak of bird flu in turkey flock.  (9/8)

January-May 2026

Two more outbreaks of bird flu reported in Minnesota.  (5/19)

Minnesota reports first case of bird flu in nearly a month.  (5/15)

Minnesota reports case of bird flu in turkey flock.  (4/23)

Minnesota bird flu dashboard.  (3/6)

Bird flu outbreaks in Minnesota.  (1/15)

2025

Minnesota reports 22nd case of avian flu in 2025.  (12/15)

Minnesota boosts its 2025 avian flu tally to 20.  (10/23)

Yet another case of avian flu confirmed in Minnesota, bringing total to 19 so far in 2025.  (10/22)

Three more Minnesota turkey flocks affected by avian flu, bringing 2025 tally to 18 .  (10/16)

Minnesota reports 55,000 cases of avian flu in 3 turkey flocks.  (9/26)

Minnesota reports avian flu in flock of tom turkeys.  (9/19)

Avian flu hits two more turkey flock in Minnesota.  (10/10)