Nevada
Indy Explains: As egg prices soar, how bird flu is affecting Nevada – Carson Now
By Amy Alonzo — As states across the nation grapple with a highly contagious strain of bird flu infecting livestock and commercial poultry facilities, Nevada has thus far remained largely safe from infection, according to state officials.
Bird flu is a highly contagious virus that can lead to illness in livestock and death in poultry.
There are two strains of the virus — one affecting wild birds and another affecting livestock and domestic birds.
Earlier this month, the Nevada Department of Agriculture (NDA) confirmed the state’s first case of bird flu at a dairy operating in remote Nye County.
In 2022, the NDA confirmed the state’s first case of the virus in a backyard flock of chickens in Carson City. There are no commercial egg producers in the state.
The strain affecting wild bird populations has been found in geese and ducks in Reno and birds of prey and waterfowl in western Nevada.
The virus can spread multiple ways, including through contact between birds, contact between humans and birds, contact between livestock and through contaminated feed, manure and bird droppings. Occasionally it spreads to humans, leading to mild respiratory symptoms and pink eye, although the risk to people is low, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It most often sickens those who work with poultry and livestock.
The rampant spread of the virus has led to increasing commercial egg prices, a declaration of emergency in a neighboring state and extra safety precautions in Nevada.
Near-record high egg prices
The virus has led to near record-high egg prices as commercial producers struggle to meet demand for eggs with decreasing flocks.
The virus can have very high mortality rates in birds — as high as 95 percent in domestic chickens. More than 6 million birds were slaughtered in November because of the bird flu, The Associated Press reported.
At the end of 2022, there were 308 million commercial laying hens, down 4.5 percent from the year prior. Conversely, egg consumption in the nation has increased nearly 5 percent since 2000 and, as commercial producers battle deaths from bird flu, they are also adapting to changing consumer demands and law changes that unintentionally can increase infections.
In 2021, Nevada became the ninth state to ban the sale of eggs that come from hens in cages, as well as the keeping of egg-laying hens in cages in the state.
The bill, introduced by Assemblyman Howard Watts (D-Las Vegas), requires all eggs sold in the state come from cage-free facilities. Nevada sources its eggs from other states, many of which also have cage-free laws, including California, Oregon, Washington and Colorado.The nation’s top 10 egg-producing states, producing two-thirds of the nation’s eggs, are all east of the Rockies.
Hens raised in cage-free facilities can interact in ways they wouldn’t if they were isolated in cages, potentially allowing the virus to spread more easily, the AP reported. And, with more Western states requiring cage-free eggs, demand is limiting supply and raising costs.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average price of a dozen grade A large eggs in November was $3.65, up from $2.14 a year ago. Prices have fluctuated throughout the years, reaching record highs of around $5 a dozen in late 2022 and early 2023 as avian flu decimated commercial poultry populations. According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), more than 43 million egg-laying hens died from avian flu during that time, and egg inventories were down nearly a third.
Some states have suspended their cage-free requirements during the outbreak of the virus; Nevada cannot, said J.J. Goicoechea, director of the NDA, because the cage-free requirement is written into state law.
“We are looking at a legislative fix” to see if a variance can be granted to suspend the law during extreme egg shortages, he told The Nevada Independent.
California’s response and Nevada’s precautions
Just days ago, California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency as the state battles the spread of the virus.
Since March there have been 61 confirmed cases of bird flu infections in humans across seven states; more than half of those (34) were in California, primarily among poultry and dairy workers in Tulare County, the nation’s largest milk producer. The virus has also shown up in at least 17 of the state’s wastewater systems.
Nevada isn’t likely to see the same effects as California because of its more remote nature, Goicoechea said. The outbreak at the dairy in Nye County was at an isolated facility, he said, and has been contained thus far.
“We’re very comfortable with our response [that] we will be able to keep it there,” he told The Nevada Independent. The contaminated herd is under quarantine until it tests negative for three weeks.
Pasteurized milk will not transmit the virus to humans, according to the USDA, and selling raw milk is illegal in Nevada. Dairy and meat products remain safe for consumption.
If the virus does reach Northern Nevada, it could spread more quickly because of the proximity of production facilities, Goicoechea said.
“My goal is to snuff this out and prevent it from getting to Northern Nevada,” he said.
— This story is used with permission of The Nevada Independent. Go here for updates to this and other Nevada Independent stories.
Related
Nevada’s leading authorities in preventing and treating problem gambling are joining state regulators and the casino industry to combat prediction markets, which, they contend, threaten to cut into the action of Nevada’s gambling enterprises and worsen the nation’s addiction to betting, especially on sports.
In less than a decade, legal sports betting, with the help of a U,S. Supreme Court ruling and the omnipresent smart phone, has morphed from a Nevada-centric novelty to a ubiquitous national pastime, with a slew of harmful side effects.
Nevada, once the only player in the legal sports betting game, has been relegated to the minor leagues in terms of revenue generated.
The American Gaming Association projects wagering on the 2026 NCAA tournament, excluding prediction market betting, which has not been officially estimated, will reach $3.3 billion, up 54% in the last three years.
Nevada’s 2025 March Madness betting was estimated at $466 million.
ESPN reports bettors wagered $1.9 billion on college basketball games in February on Kalshi alone.
In late December, the Financial Times reported trading volume on sports bets on Kalshi since its inception reached $16.8 billion, compared with $4.9 billion on other topics. By comparison, Nevada’s sports betting handle for 2025 was $8 billion, down 9% from the previous year.
Prediction platforms, critics argue, threaten to upend Nevada’s nearly 100-year history of profitable, regulated gambling.
Two betting sites, Kalshi and Crypto.com, are wrangling with Nevada gaming regulators and the Nevada Resort Association in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The platforms are challenging the constitutionality of state law, which requires that gambling enterprises have a state gaming license.
The Ninth Circuit last week denied Kalshi’s emergency motion to stop Nevada from enforcing its regulations pending the outcome of the appeal, according to Nevada Current. The ruling allowed Nevada to obtain a temporary injunction in state court prohibiting Kalshi from taking bets from gamblers in Nevada, at least until an April 3 hearing.
The Nevada Council on Problem Gambling, which specializes in prevention, and The Dr. Robert Hunter International Problem Gambling Center, a leading treatment center, filed amici, or ‘friend of the court’ briefs in the Ninth Circuit case, where a hearing is scheduled for April 16.
“Kalshi and similar prediction markets are the newest craze in sports betting and have exploded into the cultural zeitgeist,” the NCPG’s brief asserts.
The council rejects the argument that prediction platforms engage in commodity trades. “If it behaves like gambling, it should carry the same guardrails, accountability, and public health obligations — otherwise you create a parallel market with fewer protections and higher risk,” says NCPG’s Executive Director Trey Delap.
Chief among Delap’s concerns is the speed at which prediction platform gambling moves.
“It eliminates ‘friction’ — virtually eliminating any sort of time delay in accessing money and breaks in play,” Delay, a recovering problem gambler, said Thursday. “These breaks allow for a moment of awareness where one may judge the impact of their play.”
State regulators argue Kalshi is subject to Nevada law when taking bets in Nevada. Kalshi and others contend their federal regulatory status under the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission exempts them from state oversight.
The CFTC “does not propound or enforce gaming regulations, especially those related to preventing and addressing problem gambling,” NCPG’s brief argues. “To allow Kalshi’s sports betting to be regulated only by the CFTC is effectively to allow it to be unregulated with regard to problem gambling risk.”
The CFTC recognizes its regulatory limitations, the brief notes, citing a 2024 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would have prohibited betting on political and sporting events.
Commission regulations, the proposed rule said, are “focused on regulating financial instruments and markets, and do not include provisions aimed at protecting gambling specific risks and concerns inherent to gambling. …Gambling is a rapidly evolving field, and the Commission does not believe that it has the statutory mandate nor specialized experience to oversee it.”
The proposed rule was withdrawn in January.
“Nevada’s model works because of proximity — regulators, operators, and support systems are integrated,” says Delap. “Removing that structure weakens protections for consumers.”
Unlike casinos or sportsbooks “where the gambling nature of the activity is explicit — Kalshi downplays or omits warnings related to addiction, loss of control, or financial harm,” NCPG argues in its filing. “Instead, Kalshi famously portrays itself as intellectually rigorous, socially valuable, and skill based.”
The filing contends that “Kalshi’s slick, easy to use platform mimics traditional gambling, meaning that the risk associated with the use of the platform is high.” Without safeguards, it asserts, “the use of Kalshi in the state of Nevada is a public health crisis waiting to happen.”
Nevada gambling regulation for in-person and on-line wagering includes a number of safeguards, including age and identity verification, advertising standards, mechanisms for self-exclusion from play, and funding for problem gambling programs. Online operators are responsible for additional measures, including limits on deposits, bet amounts, and time playing.
“These safeguards do not eliminate all risk. They manage it,” says the NPGC’s brief.
Almost half of digital sports betting ads viewed in the U.S. this year are from prediction market platforms, which are not subject to responsible gambling advertising requirements that apply to state and tribal gambling operations.
Kalshi is the most visible sports betting advertiser in the U.S., with about 5.2 billion digital ad impressions this year, according to research from the American Gaming Association. The second most prolific advertiser, Fan Duel, generated 2.9 billion impressions.
In January and February, nearly half of digital sports betting ads in the U.S. were for prediction platforms, and did not include responsible gaming messaging, as required by states.
In addition to lacking safeguards, the brief notes a dearth of national policy dialogue amid the explosion of betting on prediction platforms.
Gambling disorder, it notes, is “a clinical condition that can be diagnosed in individuals. Public health policy, by contrast, focuses on population-level exposure, accessibility, and environmental risk.” Public health policy examines not only “who develops a disorder, but how many people are exposed to risk, how frequently, and under what safeguards.”
“Increased access, speed, and normalization of wagering-like products are associated with higher risk of harm at the population level,” says Delap of the NCPG.
Strange bedfellows?
Critics of the multi-state effort to rein in prediction platforms blame anticompetitive state and tribal licensees, some of which have been known to stray outside the regulatory boundaries they now seek to impose on the platforms.
Consumer protection, prediction market advocates argue, is a priority for licensees only when faced with a new form of competition, such as tribal or internet gambling.
“This isn’t about protecting consumers,” Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour wrote on X this week of the effort to ban sports betting on prediction platforms. “It’s about protecting monopolies.”
An analysis by the National Council on Problem Gambling found that on average, states with legal gambling met only 32 of its 82 recommended player protection standards. Nevada aligned with 24 of the NCPG’s standards, landing it in the bottom tier of compliance with ten other states.
A University of Nevada Las Vegas Institute of Gaming study published last year found 15% of Nevada adults are defined as problem gamblers, meaning they’ve experienced harm from their gambling “many times” in the last year. The national average is 2%, according to the National Council.
Yet, the state’s commitment to adequately funding problem gambling prevention and treatment has long been lacking.
Problem gambling organizations in Nevada have historically declined to opine on whether betting is inherently good or bad. Their prevention and treatment efforts are often supported by casinos, financially and in other ways, such as making promotional material about problem gambling accessible to gamblers.
Delap contends the council’s brief does not signal alliance with the gaming industry.
“In informing the court on the public risk and harm, our position would be the same regardless of gaming’s position,” he said, adding that “since the harm of problem gambling is felt at the community and state level, we should have authority to protect the public.”
I was disappointed this week watching the daffodils fade already. It seemed they only lasted a week. I had expected them to bloom longer. Fortunately, the ones in the shadier areas of the yard are just coming into bloom, so I should be able to enjoy them for another couple of weeks.
My grape hyacinths are blooming, and the regular hyacinths may bloom next week. After the vole infestation of a couple of years ago, I don’t have many hyacinths left. They didn’t eat them, but their tunneling destroyed the bulbs.
The crabapples have really come into color in the last couple of days. Unfortunately, high winds are expected, and the blossoms may get blown away. The red delicious apple doesn’t seem to have any blooms at all, while the old-fashioned apple has just a few. It may be that the flower buds were pruned off when I had the trees done. Other than missing their lovely display, I really don’t mind the lack of flowers. Less flowers means less fruit, which means less work picking apples. This may also mean fewer yellowjackets on rotting fruit on the ground.
Lovely to see are the purply-blue violets taking over the lawn. They grow so low that my husband can mow right over them without hurting them. All the violets in my yard reseeded from one or two volunteer plants of many years ago. Now there are hundreds. While some people want a pristine green velvet turf, I’m not one of them; not when I can enjoy violets. I even welcome dandelions because their color is so happy.
I spent the morning trimming back the dead leaves on the crocosmia. I wait until spring before doing this to remind me where the new shoots are so I don’t step on them. After I cleaned them up, I marked their location with flags. They are still too small to see above the sedum they are growing in. I also cut off the declining daffodils.
Then, I got out my watering can and the water-soluble blue fertilizer made famous on TV, which shall remain nameless, and gave all my flowers, including the daffs, a good feed. It is definitely time to fertilize the lawn too.
With the hotter weather, I have been irrigating every other day with both the high pressure in-ground system and the low pressure drip system. I read that rain and snow may be coming, but the probability of significant precipitation is minimal.
Hurrah for Spring!
— JoAnne Skelly is an Associate Professor and Extension Educator, Emerita, University of Nevada Cooperative Extension. She can be reached at skellyj@unr.edu.
Related
HENDERSON (FOX5) — More than 8,700 customers were without power in a Henderson neighborhood Saturday night.
The outage affected an area on Water Street near Lake Mead and Boulder Highway, impacting a shopping center.
NV Energy reported the outage at 8:02 p.m.
The utility company said the outage was caused by a mylar balloon.
Details around how the balloon caused the outage is still unknown.
FOX 5 has reached out to NV energy for more information.
You can keep track of when power should be restored by looking at NV Energy’s power outage map here
Copyright 2026 KVVU. All rights reserved.
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