Did You Know? Bird Flu Is Messing With… Badminton?

You’ve heard about bird flu disrupting egg supplies and poultry shows and devastating the poultry industries in Europe and North America, but here’s a curveball (or should we say, a shuttlecock).

The global outbreak of avian influenza has created a shortage of high‑quality feathers used to make professional badminton shuttlecocks.

Yep. Shuttlecocks aren’t made from just any feathers.  They’re traditionally crafted from 16 strong, perfectly‑curved flight feathers of geese and ducks, each taken from the same wing to give the correct flight and spin as feathers from different wings curve differently. When bird flu sweeps through major waterfowl‑producing regions, farms cull flocks, movement is restricted, and suddenly the world’s badminton manufacturers are scrambling for feathers. The result being that the Badminton World Federation (BWF) has announced that it will trial synthetic shuttlecocks in grade three and junior international tournaments as part of an ongoing review of their potential use at elite level.

China is the leading producer of shuttlecocks, but poultry production in the country has decreased in recent years because of outbreaks of bird flu and as people return to eating pork following an outbreak of African swine fever in pigs in 2018.

Some brands have reported higher prices for raw feathers, difficulty sourcing consistent quality and production delays, all resulting in an increased reliance on synthetic alternatives.

Turns out, when millions of birds are affected, even elite athletes feel the ripple effect.

But wait, it’s not just birds that are wreaking havoc on the badminton industry, pigs are too! 

Strangely enough, African Swine Fever (ASF) has also played a role in the shuttlecock squeeze.  ASF devastated pig populations across Asia, which pushed some farmers to shift from pigs to poultry and waterfowl. That sudden expansion created more vulnerability when avian influenza hit those expanded flocks.  This, combined with the return of pork to the menu in China, has created a shortage of geese and ducks and, hence, shuttlecock feathers.

This is a great reminder of how global agriculture is interconnected in ways most people never see - and sometimes in very quirky ways indeed.