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The French government has announced measures to protect French flocks and producers from bird flu outbreaks, which are affecting neighbouring countries.

On Thursday, the France’s agriculture ministry announced new measures to tackle bird flu, and raised the country’s risk level from ‘low’ to ‘moderate’ in response to a recommendation from public health watchdog ANSES. The department said wild birds have been implicated in outbreaks in other European countries, and added that these have occurred around wetland habitats; wetlands which host migratory birds are now being treated as ‘special high-risk zones’ by disease surveillance officials.

The new biosecurity measures mandated by the heightened risk level in France - Europe’s top poultry producer - include ensuring all poultry are housed or kept under netting to prevent contact with wild birds, unless farms have special derogations (high welfare farmers will have to prove they are observing stringent biosecurity conditions in other ways). Constraints have also been placed on waterfowl hunting, game shooting and pigeon racing. In the highest risk areas these activities are prohibited, and gatherings like bird fairs or racing pigeon events will be subject to restrictions throughout the whole country.

Since November last year, France has been hit with a number of cases of bird flu, most prominently a spate of outbreaks in the South-West of the country in the spring of this year. The outbreaks in different parts of the country have been of different strains of bird flu, some highly pathogenic to birds, others less so. The series of outbreaks in the South-West earlier this year forced the government to adopt a strict biosecurity regime in the region, which is a major producer of foie gras.

However, the government is now concerned by outbreaks of highly pathogenic H5N8 flu, which have been detected in Germany and Switzerland along France’s eastern border. Outbreaks have also occurred in Hungary, Denmark, Poland (which now rivals France in terms of poultry production), Austria and the Netherlands. Wild birds have mostly been affected, but there have been outbreaks on farms in the past few weeks.

In a statement on Thursday, the agriculture department said the preventative measures “Emphasize the importance for the poultry sector… [and] are intended to protect against the introduction of this novel avian influenza virus into France.”

The department is also asking for anyone to report deaths of wild birds, and appealing for vigilance amongst poultry farmers and bird keepers.