NEW YORK (AP) — New York’s Long Island was once synonymous with “duck” in the culinary world. Now it may lose its last commercial farm. The avian flu outbreak that has led to the slaughter of millions of birds at U.
S. poultry farms and driven up the price of eggs struck the Crescent Duck Farm this week, leading federal officials to order the destruction of the operation’s entire flock. Crescent Duck Farm owner Doug Corwin, whose family has owned the roughly 140-acre property since the 1640s, said Friday that a multiday culling of about 100,000 birds has been completed at the now-quarantined site in Aquebogue.
He said his remaining staff will then thoroughly sanitize the facility, a process that could take months. “We’re just stunned right now,” Corwin said Friday by phone. “It’s a very, very sad time.
We’re trying our best to work our way through this, one step at a time.” The 66-year-old acknowledged the family will also have to reckon with the future of the fourth-generation business, which was established in 1908 and is tucked among the North Fork’s vineyards and agricultural lands. Corwin said he was forced to lay off 47 of the farm’s 75-member staff, including many who had worked there for decades as the farm’s revenue cratered.
“If duck farming isn’t an option, I’m not sure what we’d do,” he said. “We’re not really set up for anything else.” Long Island had once been a center of duck production in the U.
S., thanks to its abu.
