The solution to avian flu, the virus responsible for the devastating eradication of chicken and turkey flocks across much of the nation this year, is, as we speak, alive and clucking across the pond.

It’s a chicken.

Genetically modified by a team of researchers in the UK, the bird doesn’t pass the virus on to other birds.  Had all the chickens in this country been so modified, the flu virus that hit poultry operations in fifteen states would never have made it past Chicken Zero, the first bird infected.

The flu was first detected in backyard flocks in the Pacific Northwest at the end of last year, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that 48 million birds have now been affected.