Livestock and pets may be at risk due to poor air quality from Canadian wildfire smoke, according to animal welfare expert Angela Green-Miller at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Green-Miller is an associate professor in the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, part of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) and The Grainger College of Engineering at Illinois.
Polluted air is an uncommon occurrence where Green-Miller is located in Central Illinois. She said the areas currently affected are likely ill prepared to cope with smoky conditions for animals.
“In this region, we’re not used to dealing with polluted air,” she said. “We don’t typically have filtration in our houses or commercial indoor animal production facilities, although some poultry and pig facilities have implemented air filtration systems to control the spread of airborne diseases. These filtration systems should help mitigate some of the air quality issues, putting them in a slightly better position. But for everyone else, we're not equipped to handle this situation.”
Read more at: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Photo Credit: Fred Zwicky, University of Illinois