Avian flu is rampant in poultry farms and in wild birds in the U.S. Every mutation brings the virus one step closer to the brink of human-to-human transmission, but predicting whether a virus will cross that threshold remains an uncertain science.

Only this weekend, the water was surrounded with dozens of dead birds believed to have contracted the avian flu that is sweeping the U.S."We could see that there were deceased Canada geese, ducks, a few other species,