The owner of Long Island’s last remaining duck farm is pressing federal regulators to allow currently available vaccines to help protect U.S. poultry farms in the wake a devastating bird flu outbreak on his farm last month that led to the euthanization of his entire flock.
"We need a vaccine!" Doug Corwin, owner of Crescent Duck Farm in Aquebogue, wrote in a letter to newly named EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin on Wednesday.
Current federal policies for dealing with the disease — killing large numbers of birds — at the farm level have been ineffective, Corwin wrote, necessitating consideration of vaccines.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture "policy of euthanizing flocks is not working," Corwin wrote to Zeldin. "Vaccines are available and being used in Europe for Avian Flu. We must start allowing farmers this protection." The letter also will go out to other federal, state and local officials, Corwin said. Mark Harrington reports in NEWSDAY that Corwin said resistance to vaccines has come chiefly from large-scale "corporate agriculture" concerns, which are "hugely worried about losing exports. This has led to the prolonging and spreading of this outbreak."
Corwin last month was forced to lay off 48 workers, some of whom had been with the farm for decades, and euthanize his entire flock of 99,000 birds after tests confirmed a bird flu outbreak there. The farm was able to save upward of 10,000 sanitized eggs that will be hatched off the farm in the hopes of reviving the operation, which has been in business since 1908.
Ducks euthanized at Crescent Farm are being composted on site, Corwin said this week, with temperatures high enough to eradicate the disease. It’s all under the supervision of the USDA.
Corwin told Zeldin that Crescent Duck Farm, with community and other support and successful hatchings of salvaged duck eggs, could be back producing ducks for the marketplace by 2026.
***
On the eve of a court hearing on whether the Southampton History Museum can evict the Conscience Point Shellfish Hatchery from the corner of a dirt parking lot that the hatchery has leased for the past decade, the Southampton Town historian revealed that she has found century-old deeds and documents that would seem to indicate the museum may not, in fact, own the land the hatchery sits on.
Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that the land that has since the late 1980s been considered to be one single parcel, owned by the museum, appears in deeds that Town Historian Julie Greene uncovered recently to have historically been two separate parcels — one owned by the Southampton Colonial Society, and the other by the Town of Southampton. The land where the Southampton Town Trustees’ boat ramp and the hatchery shed are today is one parcel. The second, immediately to the north, comprises the spit of land known as Conscience Point, where a trail through marshlands leads to the rock dedicated by the Southampton Colonial Society in 1910, memorializing the nearby arrival of English settlers on Long Island in 1640. In January, the museum filed a petition to the court to eject the hatchery from the property. The first hearing in court this Wednesday was expected to be adjourned considering the recent revelations.
***
HarborFrost, Sag Harbor’s annual celebration of winter, returns to the village this Saturday with a packed schedule of events culminating with a Grucci fireworks display off Long Wharf on Saturday night. “Like most chamber events, HarborFrost was conceived and is organized annually to support businesses in Sag Harbor and attract foot traffic during the offseason months,” said Ellen Dioguardi, the president of the Sag Harbor Chamber of Commerce. “This year, there’s something for everyone: live music, ice carving, fire dancers, children’s activities inside several shops, and world-famous fireworks by Grucci off Long Wharf at...
