Hundreds of chickens are squeezed into rows of tiny stacked wire cages, urine and feces dribbling onto the ducks, the geese and the rabbits confined below. The stench spreads even outside, to the sidewalk, where a mixture of feathers and blood sticks to the shoes of children walking to school.
This is a live animal market in Queens. There are about 70 such establishments in New York City’s bustling neighborhoods, some disturbingly close to schools and residential buildings. Most markets butcher and sell chickens, ducks and quail. About one in four also slaughters larger animals, like sheep, goats, cows and pigs.
As bird flu spreads to every corner of the globe, so-called wet markets like these are worrying public health experts. They are the petri dishes in which the next pandemic virus might emerge, jumping from bird to bird, or to other animals held just a few feet away, until finally adapting to humans.
A leading theory suggests that the coronavirus pandemic began in a live animal market in Wuhan, China. If a similarly contagious virus were to evolve in a New York wet market, some experts fear there would be little to stop it from marching rapidly through the city. Tourists from all over the world might carry it back to their homes.
Indeed, some animal markets in the city already have experienced bird flu outbreaks, and operators have had to kill hundreds of birds. New York State inspectors closed seven establishments that were hit by bird flu in 2022 and 2023 for five days on average, but allowed them to reopen after cleaning and disinfection.
In the Northeast alone, about 25 million birds are sold at live markets each year, said Ann Linder, an associate director at Harvard Law School’s Animal Law and Policy Program.
“We use and consume animals here at higher levels than almost any other country on Earth,” she said. Yet there is little awareness of the dangers these markets may pose, even among federal officials, she added.
Ms. Linder and her colleagues recently analyzed live animal markets in 15 countries, including the United States. Their study concluded that the markets posed “a serious and pressing threat to global health security” and that the regulations in place were “not proportional to risk.”
“There is a real failure to look inwardly and really candidly at our own risk here in the U.S.,” she said.
The ongoing bird flu outbreak in dairy cattle, which has sickened nearly 200 herds in 14 states and at least 13 people, has shown that viruses can jump from birds to other animal species, and then to people. Feathers swirling through live markets and barns are efficient carriers of viruses, scientists have found.
Since April, the bird flu virus, called H5N1, has struck 35 commercial flocks and 20 backyard flocks, contributing to the deaths of nearly 19 million birds in the United States. As of late February, New York State had identified 27 flocks with avian flu, affecting nearly 26,000 birds.
Superficially, markets in New York City may look different from ones in Beijing or Bangkok. They tend to be in permanent storefronts, rather than itinerant tents or stalls. They often focus on poultry and a few other kinds of birds and animals, rather than dozens of exotic animal species, from snakes and turtles to pangolins and wild boars.
But markets all over the world are similar in the limitless opportunities they offer for human-animal interaction.
“Any time that there are multiple species housed together, there’s a chance for, potential for, zoonotic disease transmission,” said Dr. Colin Basler, deputy director of the One Health Office at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Yet most consumers and even workers in the markets are unaware of the risks and take few precautions. Most poultry markets in New York City slaughter birds on site. Maskless workers and customers are close enough to the birds to inhale pathogens. Some may touch diseased birds.
Some customers wheel in strollers and shopping carts, ferrying whatever may be on the ground to their next destination. What’s on the ground may be claws, severed heads and other body parts.
In theory, live bird markets are required to comply with federal, state and local laws, although states have much of the responsibility for enforcement.
Live markets in New York are supposed to test samples from poultry for bird flu routinely. Four times a year, operators must sell all of their poultry and thoroughly clean and disinfect the premises.
Markets that violate regulations are required to pass follow-up inspections, and repeat offenders could lose their licenses — but rarely do.
One day in May, workers at Kikiriki Live Poultry in Brooklyn sidestepped a dead chicken on their way to the kill room. Unperturbed by the foot traffic, a loose chicken pecked at the dead one.
Kikiriki was found in February 2022 to have ducks, chicken and guinea fowl infected with a type of bird flu, and was closed briefly for cleaning and decontamination. For at least seven months afterward, inspectors found dirty equipment, standing water and cockroaches, spiders and flies, records show.
The management did not respond to a request for comment.
At Al-Medina Halal Live Poultry in Jamaica, Queens, chickens are delivered early in the morning. But in May, crates with birds were waiting at the door for space inside to become available, prompting workers to offer a “buy 10, get five free” deal.
The city requires that birds be moved from crates to cages right away. While these chickens may have been healthy, “operators have a revolving door of risk, with a constant influx of new animals potentially carrying new pathogens,” Ms. Linder said.
A shopping cart in the store contained three scrawny chickens with broken wings. Some birds become injured when they are tossed into crates in the transport trucks or from the crates into the cages at the destination, a worker explained with a shrug.
Reached by phone, a man identifying himself as the manager did not provide his full name and denied that there were birds left in crates by the front door or injured birds in shopping carts.
John Di Leonardo, executive director of Humane Long Island, an animal advocacy group, and a licensed wildlife rehabilitator, sometimes rescues abandoned or escaped birds, or receives them from markets as a good-will gesture.
“Every single bird we get is deathly ill, has necrotic wounds, respiratory infections, staph infection — just, you name it, they have it,” he said. Many die soon after he receives them.
At most markets that sell both birds and larger animals, birds are delivered every day, but the other animals are brought in only twice a week and kept for days, providing ample time for them to acquire and pass on viruses.
Tiba Live Poultry Market in Ridgewood, Queens, was hit by bird flu in early 2022, and has been cited multiple times for “heavy accumulation of feathers,” bird droppings and other unsanitary conditions.
The market also holds about 20 sheep, goats and calves just a few feet from the birds. On delivery days for live animal markets, “the streets are coated with animal feces, blood, body parts,” said Edita Birnkrant, executive director of NYCLASS, an animal rights organization.
“I was stunned that these kinds of markets are smack dab in the middle of residential areas, literally wedged in between apartment buildings,” Ms. Birnkrant said. Her organization and others have documented the extent of the violations.
The Food Safety and Inspection Division for New York State conducts unannounced inspections of markets for sanitary conditions three times a year. And the Division of Animal Industry evaluates the health of animals — including infections — at least eight times a year, said Jola Szubielski, director of public information at the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets.
Each year, New York City markets rack as many as 100 “critical deficiencies” that are likely to lead to food contamination, illness or environmental health hazards, and up to 1,500 “general deficiencies” — unsanitary practices that are not severe enough to be considered an immediate hazard to public health.
The violations run the gamut, from unsterilized equipment and missing records to infestations of cockroaches, mice and flies. Reports from inspections conducted over 18 months, obtained by animal rights advocates and lawmakers, show some markets with repeat violations.
In very rare instances, officials have taken action against egregious offenders. More often, violators are fined $600. “The oversight is paltry at best,” said Assemblywoman Linda B. Rosenthal, who represents the West Side of Manhattan.
In May 2020, she and State Senator Luis R. Sepúlveda sponsored bills that would shut down the state’s live animal markets to help prevent zoonotic diseases. Neither bill has advanced.
Ms. Rosenthal’s bill proposes a task force that would include epidemiologists and other experts who could help determine where and how the markets should be allowed to operate.
New York City, too, has options to regulate markets: The police could respond to complaints about animal cruelty, the sanitation department to reports of unclean sidewalks and the health department to possible illnesses in people, said Shari Logan, a spokeswoman for the city’s health department.
Councilman Robert Holden, who represents Glendale, Middle Village and surrounding areas in Queens, visited live animal markets in his borough and in Brooklyn on a very cold day in January and observed “horrendous conditions,” he said.
“They were treating the chickens like they were not living things,” Mr. Holden said. “These are very bad places, and I think they should be outlawed.”
But efforts to regulate the markets typically run up against deep political and religious opposition. Some Asian, Latino, Jewish and Muslim communities require certain animals to be slaughtered in specific ways.
“I respect people’s faith,” said Mr. Sepúlveda. “But sometimes you have to protect society from these kinds of illnesses,” he said, adding that he planned to reintroduce his bill in the next legislative session.
Even if the markets are allowed to operate in the city, adopting certain regulations could minimize risks, Ms. Linder said. Businesses could be required to house and sell a single species, or to process different species on different days with rigorous disinfection in between.
They could install more barriers between customers and animals, and require staff to wear protective equipment.
The stakes are too high not to change regulations, Ms. Rosenthal said: “You never know, we could have another Wuhan market here, and God knows what could happen.”
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