Highly pathogenic avian influenza in wild birds in the United Kingdom in 2022: impacts, planning for future outbreaks, and conservation and research priorities. Report on virtual workshops held in November 2022

The Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) / British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) organised a virtual workshop to develop thinking to support ongoing efforts to manage the avian influenza outbreak and also to consider longer-term evidence requirements to enable positive conservation actions and species recovery. The UK workshop on wild birds sought to bring practitioners and experts together to: (i) identify whether there are any short- or medium-term (conservation) management interventions that could be beneficial; ii) consider whether there are novel longer-term management interventions that could be prioritised to address HPAI impacts and increase population resilience in impacted species; (iii) share experiences in collecting data on mortality in different species groups and consider what future mortality monitoring could look like; (iv) discuss what developments would be beneficial for UK bird monitoring schemes for improving understanding of impacts, including demographic parameters, and identify where these schemes are unlikely to meet these needs; (v) assess the impact of loss of data, resulting from restrictions to field work in 2022, from national monitoring schemes and research on species assessments, indicators, and marine management and, (vi) outline what new research areas could help us understand the effects of HPAI on populations, improve risk assessments, and how it could improve management for species conservation and recovery in future.

• Please visit our campaign page if you would like to donate to our AI Appeal.