A whole bunch of chickens are squeezed into rows of tiny stacked wire cages, urine and feces dribbling onto the geese, the geese and the rabbits confined beneath. The stench spreads even outdoors, to the sidewalk, the place a mix of feathers and blood sticks to the sneakers of kids strolling to high school.

This can be a stay animal market in Queens. There are about 70 such institutions in New York Metropolis’s bustling neighborhoods, some disturbingly shut to varsities and residential buildings. Most markets butcher and promote chickens, geese and quail. About one in 4 additionally slaughters bigger animals, like sheep, goats, cows and pigs.

As fowl flu spreads to each nook of the globe, so-called moist markets like these are worrying public well being specialists. They’re the petri dishes by which the following pandemic virus would possibly emerge, leaping from fowl to fowl, or to different animals held only a few toes away, till lastly adapting to people.

A number one principle means that the coronavirus pandemic started in a stay animal market in Wuhan, China. If a equally contagious virus had been to evolve in a New York moist market, some specialists worry there can be little to cease it from marching quickly by way of the town. Vacationers from everywhere in the world would possibly carry it again to their properties.

Certainly, some animal markets within the metropolis have already got skilled fowl flu outbreaks, and operators have needed to kill lots of of birds. New York State inspectors closed seven institutions that had been hit by fowl flu in 2022 and 2023 for 5 days on common, however allowed them to reopen after cleansing and disinfection.

Within the Northeast alone, about 25 million birds are offered at stay markets annually, stated Ann Linder, an affiliate director at Harvard Regulation Faculty’s Animal Regulation and Coverage Program.

“We use and eat animals right here at greater ranges than nearly another nation on Earth,” she stated. But there’s little consciousness of the risks these markets might pose, even amongst federal officers, she added.

Ms. Linder and her colleagues lately analyzed stay animal markets in 15 nations, together with the US. Their research concluded that the markets posed “a severe and urgent risk to world well being safety” and that the rules in place had been “not proportional to danger.”

“There’s a actual failure to look inwardly and actually candidly at our personal danger right here within the U.S.,” she stated.

The continuing fowl flu outbreak in dairy cattle, which has sickened almost 200 herds in 14 states and at the very least 13 individuals, has proven that viruses can leap from birds to different animal species, after which to individuals. Feathers swirling by way of stay markets and barns are environment friendly carriers of viruses, scientists have discovered.

Since April, the fowl flu virus, referred to as H5N1, has struck 35 industrial flocks and 20 yard flocks, contributing to the deaths of almost 19 million birds in the US. As of late February, New York State had recognized 27 flocks with avian flu, affecting almost 26,000 birds.

Superficially, markets in New York Metropolis might look completely different from ones in Beijing or Bangkok. They are typically in everlasting storefronts, fairly than itinerant tents or stalls. They usually deal with poultry and some other forms of birds and animals, fairly than dozens of unique animal species, from snakes and turtles to pangolins and wild boars.

However markets everywhere in the world are related within the limitless alternatives they provide for human-animal interplay.

“Any time that there are a number of species housed collectively, there’s an opportunity for, potential for, zoonotic illness transmission,” stated Dr. Colin Basler, deputy director of the One Well being Workplace on the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention.

But most customers and even employees within the markets are unaware of the dangers and take few precautions. Most poultry markets in New York Metropolis slaughter birds on web site. Maskless employees and prospects are shut sufficient to the birds to inhale pathogens. Some might contact diseased birds.

Some prospects wheel in strollers and purchasing carts, ferrying no matter could also be on the bottom to their subsequent vacation spot. What’s on the bottom could also be claws, severed heads and different physique components.

In principle, stay fowl markets are required to adjust to federal, state and native legal guidelines, though states have a lot of the accountability for enforcement.

Stay markets in New York are supposed to check samples from poultry for fowl flu routinely. 4 instances a 12 months, operators should promote all of their poultry and totally clear and disinfect the premises.

Markets that violate rules are required to cross follow-up inspections, and repeat offenders may lose their licenses — however hardly ever do.

Someday in Might, employees at Kikiriki Stay Poultry in Brooklyn sidestepped a lifeless rooster on their approach to the kill room. Unperturbed by the foot site visitors, a free rooster pecked on the lifeless one.

Kikiriki was present in February 2022 to have geese, rooster and guinea fowl contaminated with a kind of fowl flu, and was closed briefly for cleansing and decontamination. For at the very least seven months afterward, inspectors discovered soiled gear, standing water and cockroaches, spiders and flies, data present.

The administration didn’t reply to a request for remark.

At Al-Medina Halal Stay Poultry in Jamaica, Queens, chickens are delivered early within the morning. However in Might, crates with birds had been ready on the door for area inside to turn into out there, prompting employees to supply a “purchase 10, get 5 free” deal.

Town requires that birds be moved from crates to cages straight away. Whereas these chickens might have been wholesome, “operators have a revolving door of danger, with a continuing inflow of recent animals doubtlessly carrying new pathogens,” Ms. Linder stated.

A purchasing cart within the retailer contained three scrawny chickens with damaged wings. Some birds turn into injured when they’re tossed into crates within the transport vans or from the crates into the cages on the vacation spot, a employee defined with a shrug.

Reached by cellphone, a person figuring out himself because the supervisor didn’t present his full identify and denied that there have been birds left in crates by the entrance door or injured birds in purchasing carts.

John Di Leonardo, government director of Humane Lengthy Island, an animal advocacy group, and a licensed wildlife rehabilitator, generally rescues deserted or escaped birds, or receives them from markets as a good-will gesture.

“Each single fowl we get is deathly unwell, has necrotic wounds, respiratory infections, staph an infection — simply, you identify it, they’ve it,” he stated. Many die quickly after he receives them.

At most markets that promote each birds and bigger animals, birds are delivered every single day, however the different animals are introduced in solely twice every week and saved for days, offering ample time for them to accumulate and cross on viruses.

Tiba Stay Poultry Market in Ridgewood, Queens, was hit by fowl flu in early 2022, and has been cited a number of instances for “heavy accumulation of feathers,” fowl droppings and different unsanitary situations.

The market additionally holds about 20 sheep, goats and calves only a few toes from the birds. On supply days for stay animal markets, “the streets are coated with animal feces, blood, physique components,” stated Edita Birnkrant, government director of NYCLASS, an animal rights group.

“I used to be surprised that these sorts of markets are smack dab in the midst of residential areas, actually wedged in between condominium buildings,” Ms. Birnkrant stated. Her group and others have documented the extent of the violations.

The Meals Security and Inspection Division for New York State conducts unannounced inspections of markets for sanitary situations 3 times a 12 months. And the Division of Animal Trade evaluates the well being of animals — together with infections — at the very least eight instances a 12 months, stated Jola Szubielski, director of public info on the New York State Division of Agriculture and Markets.

Annually, New York Metropolis markets rack as many as 100 “vital deficiencies” which can be more likely to result in meals contamination, sickness or environmental well being hazards, and as much as 1,500 “normal deficiencies” — unsanitary practices that aren’t extreme sufficient to be thought of a right away hazard to public well being.

The violations run the gamut, from unsterilized gear and lacking data to infestations of cockroaches, mice and flies. Reviews from inspections performed over 18 months, obtained by animal rights advocates and lawmakers, present some markets with repeat violations.

In very uncommon situations, officers have taken motion towards egregious offenders. Extra usually, violators are fined $600. “The oversight is paltry at finest,” stated Assemblywoman Linda B. Rosenthal, who represents the West Aspect of Manhattan.

In Might 2020, she and State Senator Luis R. Sepúlveda sponsored payments that would shut down the state’s stay animal markets to assist stop zoonotic illnesses. Neither invoice has superior.

Ms. Rosenthal’s invoice proposes a process pressure that would come with epidemiologists and different specialists who may assist decide the place and the way the markets needs to be allowed to function.

New York Metropolis, too, has choices to control markets: The police may reply to complaints about animal cruelty, the sanitation division to stories of unclean sidewalks and the well being division to potential sicknesses in individuals, stated Shari Logan, a spokeswoman for the town’s well being division.

Councilman Robert Holden, who represents Glendale, Center Village and surrounding areas in Queens, visited stay animal markets in his borough and in Brooklyn on a really chilly day in January and noticed “horrendous situations,” he stated.

“They had been treating the chickens like they weren’t residing issues,” Mr. Holden stated. “These are very dangerous locations, and I feel they need to be outlawed.”

However efforts to control the markets usually run up towards deep political and spiritual opposition. Some Asian, Latino, Jewish and Muslim communities require sure animals to be slaughtered in particular methods.

“I respect individuals’s religion,” stated Mr. Sepúlveda. “However generally you must defend society from these sorts of sicknesses,” he stated, including that he deliberate to reintroduce his invoice within the subsequent legislative session.

Even when the markets are allowed to function within the metropolis, adopting sure rules may reduce dangers, Ms. Linder stated. Companies could possibly be required to deal with and promote a single species, or to course of completely different species on completely different days with rigorous disinfection in between.

They might set up extra obstacles between prospects and animals, and require employees to put on protecting gear.

The stakes are too excessive to not change rules, Ms. Rosenthal stated: “You by no means know, we may have one other Wuhan market right here, and God is aware of what may occur.”

Audio produced by Patricia Sulbarán.