Each spring, roughly 3.5 billion wild birds migrate from their warm winter havens to their breeding grounds across North America, eating insects, distributing plant seeds and providing a variety of other ecosystem services to stopping sites along the way. Some also carry diseases like avian influenza, a worry for agricultural, environmental and public health authorities. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign professor of natural resources and environmental sciences Michael P. Ward, an expert on wild bird migration and conservation, spoke with U. of I. News Bureau life sciences editor Diana Yates about how H5N1 affects wild birds and how they contribute to its distribution across the U.S.

Read the full discussion.