New federal records show that taxpayers have paid hundreds of millions of dollars to bail out repeatedly infected commercial operations

Washington, DC (March 11, 2025)—The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) appreciates that the US Department of Agriculture has developed a revised strategy to address the staggering impacts of the current bird flu outbreak, yet the five-point plan continues to incentivize producers to maintain massive flock sizes and overcrowded conditions that encourage disease transmission while undermining animal welfare.

"While the USDA's strategy shows some potential, it remains fundamentally misguided and a disservice to higher-welfare farmers, animals, and public health," said Zack Strong, director of AWI's Farmed Animal Program. "We would welcome an opportunity to work with the administration to ensure its approach is as effective and humane as possible."

The current outbreak, involving a highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus, is the largest and most expensive animal health crisis in US history. It has sickened or killed thousands of wild animals, infected hundreds of dairy herds, and led to the deaths of more than 166 million domestic chickens, turkeys, ducks, and other birds. Seventy humans have also been infected, and one has died.

According to the USDA, from February 2022 through November 2024, poultry producers have received $1.25 billion in taxpayer-backed indemnity and compensation payments in response to HPAI infections. Department records also reveal an alarming trend of reinfections on commercial operations. Through January 2025, 79 commercial poultry operations have been infected at least twice, including 17 that have been infected three times and six that have been infected four times. On these 79 operations—which alone have received nearly $337 million in indemnity payments—nearly 40 million birds have been killed in flocks that have been "depopulated" (killed en masse) in response to HPAI infections.

AWI generally supports some aspects of the department's revised HPAI response plan and strategy, such as bolstering farm biosecurity and devising ways to reduce depopulations. We also appreciate the USDA's hyper-focus on HPAI vaccines for poultry, and strongly encourage the department to research and develop a safe, effective vaccination and surveillance program. In other areas, however, the department's strategy is deeply flawed, because it fails to consider certain prevention and response measures that could more effectively mitigate disease spread and dramatically improve the welfare of affected birds.

Inadequate prevention measures

One key prevention measure that the USDA's strategy neglects to address is conditioning indemnity payments on reduced flock sizes and stocking densities. As AWI raised in letters to a National Academies of Science planning committee and the USDA's Animal Health and Plant Inspection Service (APHIS), research suggests that larger flocks (such as those housing 100,000 or more hens in a single barn) and more crowded conditions generally raise the risk of HPAI infection and transmission.

"Dozens of commercial operations—usually housing tens of thousands to several million birds—continue to become infected, use cruel methods to depopulate flocks, receive millions of dollars, restock at high rates, and go through the cycle all over again," said Allie Granger, policy advisor for AWI's Farmed Animal Program.

The department's approach to biosecurity audits also falls short. The USDA promises to expand its auditing of biosecurity measures that poultry farms are supposed to have in place to be eligible for depopulation indemnity payments. However, the department recently published an interim rule explaining that the only operations subject to virtual or in-person audits—not just paper audits—are those that exceed certain size thresholds (e.g., commercial operations where more than 100,000 meat chickens or 30,000 turkeys are raised annually) and have either already been infected or are located near recently infected premises. This might help reduce repeat outbreaks on the same property, but it does nothing to incentivize other facilities to enact protocols to prevent or help contain infections in the first place.

No mention of inhumane depopulation methods

Regarding HPAI infection response, conspicuously absent from the USDA's strategy are any restrictions on how infected flocks will be depopulated. In June 2023, AWI petitioned APHIS to require producers to develop, as a prerequisite for indemnity payments, written plans explaining how they intend to kill their birds as quickly and humanely as possible should an infection occur. HPAI infections are no longer an unforeseeable or unlikely occurrence and must be planned for accordingly. Incentivizing producers to plan ahead would not only improve animal welfare but also speed up response times and help the USDA meet its goal of carrying out depopulations of infected flocks within 24 to 48 hours to prevent further viral spread.

AWI has also called on the USDA to research, fund, and make more readily available depopulation methods that use nitrogen gas. These methods are far more humane than the increasingly ubiquitous practice known as ventilation shutdown plus (VSD+) which involves raising the temperatures inside poultry barns until the animals die of heatstroke—often enduring pain and distress for hours or even days. Unlike many higher-welfare depopulation methods, VSD+ requires little or no advance planning or preparation, making its use far more likely if it is not expressly prohibited—or at least disincentivized—by USDA policy.

By mid-January 2025, approximately 143 million birds had been killed in bird flu-related depopulations. According to AWI's analysis, about 103 million (72%) of these were killed on commercial operations in which VSD+ was used either alone or in combination with other methods. Of the 79 operations with multiple infections, more than half (42) repeatedly used VSD+ to depopulate their flocks; many received multimillion-dollar indemnity payments each time.

"It is critical that the USDA end its policy of compensating producers who rely on VSD+ to slowly kill tens of millions of infected animals," Strong said. "The department must instead incentivize more humane alternatives."

Neglecting farmers and disregarding states' prerogative to protect animal welfare

One component of the USDA's strategy commits to removing "regulatory burdens" on the poultry industries. Speaking to reporters recently, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins cited California's Proposition 12 as an example of state legislation that could be rolled back. Proposition 12 is an initiative approved by a wide margin of the state's voters that established minimum space requirements for egg-laying hens and other farmed animals and prohibited the sale of noncompliant products. Undermining such laws would jeopardize the livelihoods of thousands of farmers who have already adapted to these requirements. Further, it would disrupt states' centuries-long tradition—recently recognized by the US Supreme Court—of enacting laws designed to protect animal welfare. Moreover, overturning democratically enacted state protections would do nothing to mitigate the spread of HPAI or increase the supply of eggs.

The Animal Welfare Institute (awionline.org) is a nonprofit charitable organization founded in 1951 and dedicated to alleviating animal suffering caused by people. We seek to improve the welfare of animals everywhere: in agriculture, in commerce, in our homes and communities, in research, and in the wild. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, and LinkedIn for updates and other important animal protection news.