Geese collected this month at Crown Memorial State Beach tested positive for highly pathogenic avian influenza, and officials say infected birds could appear anywhere in the East Bay.
Canada geese are about as ordinary a sight on the Alameda shoreline as kite surfers and dog walkers. This month, some of them turned out to be carrying bird flu.
Geese collected on Oct. 8 and Oct. 12 by Alameda County Vector Control at Robert W. Crown Memorial State Beach tested positive for highly pathogenic avian influenza, the East Bay Regional Park District announced on Friday. The district, which operates the state-owned beach, said the risk to the public is low but warned that “infected birds could be found throughout the East Bay.”
The district did not announce any closures at the beach, a long strip of sand on Alameda’s south shore that looks out across the bay toward San Francisco.
What visitors are being asked to do
The park district’s advice is short. Do not touch wild birds. If you find a dead bird, stay at least 50 feet away. Keep children and dogs away from birds, bird carcasses and bird droppings.
Sick or dead birds should be reported, with an exact location and a photo or map pin if possible, to Alameda County Vector Control at (510) 567-6800 or, for parks on the other side of the hills, Contra Costa County Vector Control at (925) 685-9301. The state also runs a bird hotline, (866) 922-2473, for reports of unusual numbers of sick or dead birds, according to the Alameda County Health avian flu page.
The district said it is coordinating with the Alameda County Public Health Department, Alameda County Vector Control, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the City of Alameda, and will post updates as more information comes in.
Why now, and why geese
Avian influenza mainly circulates among wild birds, and detections tend to climb in the fall and winter as migratory flocks move along the Pacific Flyway and gather in places like the bay’s shorelines and marshes. Waterfowl such as ducks and geese are natural carriers, The San Francisco Chronicle noted in its report on the findings.
The Crown Beach findings come in a year of repeated detections. Alameda County’s public health department lists 12 detections of H5N1 in the county in 2026 and says the virus can also infect mammals, including cats, raccoons and skunks. County officials tell pet owners to keep household animals away from wild birds and their droppings.
The risk to people
Human infections are rare, but they can occur through close or prolonged exposure to infected birds or contaminated environments, the park district said. The Chronicle, citing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reported that the CDC said this month that H5 bird flu remains widespread in wild birds but that there are no signs of unusual influenza activity in people, and that no person-to-person spread has been detected in the United States.
California’s human cases so far have come almost entirely from farms, not beaches. The county health page counts 38 confirmed cases among dairy farm workers in California since the national outbreak in dairy cattle began in 2024, all reported as mild, mostly eye redness or discharge, with none hospitalized. The last human case reported in California was on Jan. 14, 2025. There are no commercial dairy herds in Alameda County, the department notes.
County health officials say anyone who handled sick or dead birds without protection and then develops symptoms should see a doctor and mention the exposure; testing is recommended within the first seven days of illness. The seasonal flu shot does not protect against avian influenza, the county says.
How this compares around the bay
For people who use the East Bay shoreline, the practical change is small. The guidance from the park district at Crown Beach is the same guidance that applies at the district’s other shoreline parks from Richmond to Hayward, because the district’s own warning is that the virus is not confined to one beach. A goose at Crown Beach and a goose at the Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Shoreline in Oakland or at Point Pinole share the same flyway.
The difference is in who answers the phone. A dead bird in Alameda, Oakland, Berkeley or Hayward goes to Alameda County Vector Control. One in Richmond, El Cerrito or along the Contra Costa shoreline goes to that county’s district. San Francisco and the Peninsula counties have their own reporting channels.
Unanswered questions
The park district’s announcement did not say how many geese tested positive, whether other species at the beach had been sampled, or whether the birds were found sick or dead.
The Inquirer asked the park district, Alameda County Health, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and a University of California, Davis, researcher who studies the virus in wildlife about the findings and about surveillance along the bay. They did not respond by publication.
Desmond Akers covers the cities and counties of the greater Bay Area, from Oakland and San Jose to the Peninsula, the North Bay and the East Bay suburbs, for Around the Region. More from Desmond Akers
