Dozens of dead geese found in parts of a New Jersey borough’s parks have tested positive for the avian flu, leading local officials to keep the properties closed and ask that a popular event be moved.

Allentown Borough officials posted a notice to their website on Thursday that Dr. Farmer’s Park, Pete Sensi Park and a portion of Heritage Park will remain closed after some 30 dead geese were removed earlier this month.

Local officials were informed Thursday by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection that the birds removed by a contractor tested positive for H5N1, the virus that causes the illness, said Borough Administrator Laurie Roth. The decease was suspected in the deaths earlier this month.

The virus was suspected in the deaths in Allentown, as well as several other municipalities in Monmouth County, where dead geese have appeared over the past weeks.

The parks will remain closed indefinitely, Roth said.

“We’re hoping that when it gets warmer, we’ll be able to (reopen the parks), but at this time, right now, we want to be cautious and keep the parks closed,” Roth said in a brief phone call with NJ Advance Media on Monday.

The birds were removed Feb. 4 by a contractor. The borough spent about $6,000 on removing the dead waterfowl, the lowest cost from all of the entities borough officials contacted, Mayor Thomas Fritts previously said. About 50 animal control-type businesses were contacted, he said.

Since the removal, at least three more dead birds were found and collected, Roth said.

Meanwhile, the borough asked the local Lions Foundation to relocate its popular Easter egg hunt, an annual event scheduled this year for April 12. The organization did not immediately return an emailed request for comment on the relocation.

Most of all three parks are affected by the shutdown, keeping the public from recreational activities from canoeing and fishing.

The dead birds are tied to the Conines Millpond, a body of water in the borough’s center. Geese have increasingly occupied the millpond after a habitat at Mercer Corporate Park, in nearby Robbinsville, was destroyed.

For about three weeks, dead geese gradually appeared in the park, particularly at the dam spillway, which deposits water from the millpond into a smaller body of water on the opposite side of Old York Road. The mayor estimated that upward of 20 dead geese accumulated at the spillway’s top, preventing them from going down the waterfall.

The outbreak, which began in January 2022, has led to the deaths of thousands of commercial poultry in the U.S. This trend, along with culling to curtail the virus, has contributed to higher egg prices in recent months.

New Jersey’s first case of avian influenza was found last week at a Union County market, NorthJersey.com reported. No human cases have been reported in the state, officials told the news outlet.

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Eric Conklin may be reached at econklin@njadvancemedia.com.

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NEPTUNE -- Last week the Asbury Park Press reported on two dozen dead geese in Allentown. Since then, the press has learned of two more locations that wild birds have been found dead: along the Shark River in Neptune and also along the beach in Lavallette.

Fear of bird flu has caused officials to have a number of the wild fowl tested for the H5N1 strain of the avian flu, but no results have come back yet.

After a report of dead birds on the Shark River, the Asbury Park Press went there on Tuesday and observed three deceased swans and two dead geese. Gina LaPlaca, Neptune's business administrator, said the township's Office of Emergency Management is handling the response. It's unclear how many wild fowl have been found dead on the river.

The birds been found in the Shark River Hills section of the river. The OEM said the town doesn't pick up the birds, instead the state Department of Environmental Protection sends out Fish & Wildlife staff to pick up the birds for testing and/or disposal. The NJDEP sends the test results to Monmouth County Health officials.

Allentown's Mayor Thomas Fritts said the his town has not gotten back the results of the autopsies on the geese picked up from three of their parks. Fritts said he was told by state officials it would take a couple of weeks to get answers. In the meantime, last week the town closed two parks and a portion of a third for public safety.

At Lavallette, beachgoers have observed several dead sea gulls. Jennie Weeks, owner of the Happy Belly health foods store in town, said she's seen about seven or eight dead sea gulls during her daily walks over the last three weeks. The Asbury Park Press observed four dead sea gulls on Tuesday.

"Let's get to the bottom of this. Why is it happening and what can we do to address it?" said Janet Tauro, board chair for Clean Water Action NJ, a national nonprofit with chapters across the country, including New Jersey, that advocates for clean water.

Tauro said they have concerns of the virus getting into the water supply. They are also concerned about the safety of pets contracting the bird flu while on walks to the park or by streams that have wild water fowl.

While the bird flu is more common in fowl and dairy cows, it has also infected some mammals, including but not limited to stray or domestic animals such as cats and dogs.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, has been monitoring an outbreak of the bird flu that so far has seen over 157 million cases in domestic poultry 968 in dairy cows since it was detected in 2022. In the current outbreak, the virus in cows was first detected on March 24, 2024. Just under 12,000 cases of bird flu have been detected in wild birds, including 93 cases in New Jersey.

However, as of Feb. 14, there has been no H5N1 detected in New Jersey's domestic poultry or cattle, according to the state. There are also no reported cases of human infection of H5N1 in New Jersey.

Both the CDC and the state of New Jersey said the current public health risk is low. There have been 68 cases, including one death, reported in humans since April 1, 2024. Most of those cases, 36, came from dairy farms in California. The one death occurred Jan. 6 of this year in Louisiana.

According to the American Veterinary Medical Association, tips for preventing bird flu infection in dogs and cats are the same as for many other infectious diseases:

When Jersey Shore native Dan Radel is not reporting the news, you can find him in a college classroom where he is a history professor. Reach him @danielradelapp; dradel@gannettnj.com.

Health officials in New Jersey are warning residents after H5N1 avian influenza -- or bird flu -- was found in dead wild Canada geese in Burlington and Monmouth counties recently.

In Burlington County, officials said bird flu was found in a dead goose that was recovered from a location in Pemberton.

Here, officials said, the bird was found with other dead geese and it was tested as part of a monitoring program.

Officials said that this positive test marks the first confirmed case of highly pathogenic avian influenza in Burlington County since the nationwide outbreak started in 2022.

Earlier this month, in Monmouth County, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection closed Dr. Farmer's Park, Pete Sensi Park, and Heritage Park until further notice after dead geese found at the millpond and surrounding areas in Allentown Borough tested positive for bird flu.

According to officials in New Jersey, clusters of sick and deceased wild birds have also been discovered in several other counties, including Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland, Salem and Warren.

In a statement, New Jersey health officials stressed that the respiratory disease is still primarily an animal health issue and the risk to humans is still low.

"Humans with close or prolonged contact with infected animals can become infected, but the virus is not known to be transmitted from human to human at this time," officials said in a statement.

Also in a statement, Burlington County Health Department Director, Dr. Holly Funkhouser Cucuzzella, said the county had expected bird flu would eventually make its way to the community and preparations to handle this discovery were already underway.

“Our Health Department was expecting H5N1’s eventual arrival and we had already started making preparations,” said Funkhouser Cucuzzella. “The risk to public health in Burlington County is still low but we want residents to be informed and vigilant. Residents should avoid all contact with dead or sick birds and those keeping poultry flocks should take special precautions. We are also asking residents to report deaths of wild or domestic birds, especially large groups of them.”

The Burlington County Health Department has created a special H5N1 Avian Influenza webpage with the latest information and guidance about the outbreak at https://www.co.burlington.nj.us/2115/H5N1-Bird-Flu.

For more information on the bird flu cases in Monmouth County, click here.

Toni Yates has the latest from Allentown, New Jersey.

ALLENTOWN, New Jersey (WABC) -- Officials in Allentown, New Jersey are awaiting test results to determine if they have a bird flu outbreak on their hands following the discovery of a dozen dead geese at three separate parks.

Dozens of geese still flock to the pond at Sensi Park, but there is alarming concern after almost two dozen geese were found dead.

As a result, Sensi Park, Heritage Park and Dr. Farmer's Park are now off limits for use while the town looks into the possibility that the deaths were caused by bird flu.

"My family used to feed the geese here when we were growing up. It's a nice memory," said former Allentown resident Anne Burgess.

Allentown spent thousands of dollars to have the carcasses professionally removed.

"They were taken away to a specialty facility, where they either buried them or incinerate them," said Allentown Mayor Thomas Fritts. "We are told that they were infected with the virus as we pushed back to find out if it was our specific geese tested. We were told that they have various sites that they do testing and didn't confirm our location as one of them."

"It was horrible when I first heard about it. When I walked by the dam and saw a dozen by the dam," said Borough Council President John Elder.

New Jersey's Department of Environmental Protection and Fish and Wildlife are providing backup to the town to figure out if the HSN1, or avian flu, is responsible, and what remediation might be necessary.

For now, they want everyone to stay out of the affected parks because the virus can spread to more than just birds.

"It's the droppings of the geese that people can get infected by. Their pets can infected by this as well," Mayor Fritts said.

Allentown officials say that if you do see a dead bird, do not touch it, but call officials at Borough Hall and let them know about the bird so it can be removed.

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