Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) monitoring in wild birds

The purpose of this contract is to retain a technician to support our public response and communication capabilities as well as opportunistic field monitoring of HPAI in wild bird populations, and collection of sick and dead wild birds. For HPAI, support would extend to euthanasia of sick wild birds, retrieval of wild bird carcasses for the purpose of maintaining public safety and facilitate laboratory sampling of carcasses for geographic and temporal monitoring of HPAI spread.
The Contractor will work with the Technical Authority (TA), BC Wildlife Health Unit, and the Environment & Climate Change Canada Canadian Wildlife Service (ECCC-CWS) to respond to requests for wild sick and dead bird retrievals and laboratory testing of carcasses. This will require the Contractor to attend site, collect and package dead wild birds, and transport carcasses to the BC Agriculture Animal Health Lab (AHL) or ECCC-CWS PWRC freezer until submission to the AHL for sampling. The Contractor will conduct field assessments and monitoring of locations that are identified as large outbreaks / mortality events, as requested by TA.