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The USDA has lifted one of two quarantines around Long Island's last commercial duck farm, according to the North Fork farmer impacted by the order, as the nation's top health official ponders an unorthodox approach to eradicating the disease. Mark Harrington and Lisa L. Colangelo report in NEWSDAY that Doug Corwin, president of Crescent Duck Farm in Aquebogue, said yesterday that the U.S. Department of Agriculture recently notified him it had lifted one quarantine on live poultry in a 10-kilometer range around his operation. But a second quarantine specific to his farm remained in place, he said, and could remain into the spring.

Corwin, who was forced to euthanize more than 99,000 of his ducks after a bird-flu outbreak at his farm in January, said he has worked methodically in the weeks since to sanitize his farm in the hopes of returning about 3,700 young ducks salvaged remotely from eggs to restart operations. That could happen in around two months, he said, pending lifting of the second quarantine.

"Barns are being disinfected and fumigated over and over again," he said, describing the work as "slow but steady." Crescent was forced to lay off nearly 48 workers after the outbreak, but 20 remain for the cleanup.

Corwin's hopes for a restart come as U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been quoted in national media as suggesting that bird flu can be eradicated by developing resistant flocks.

Kennedy said, flocks identified as infected should be isolated and "let the disease go through them and identify the birds that survive, which are the birds that probably have a genetic inclination for immunity. And those should be the birds that we breed ..."

Experts have criticized the idea, and Corwin said he shared their concern.

Corwin, a Cornell University graduate who sits on Cornell’s Avian Advisory committee and has been president of the Cornell Duck Research Laboratory on Long Island since 1986, said Kennedy’s idea might sound good theoretically, but had the potential to be "devastating" if it got out of control.

Corwin has been vocal in his support for a vaccine to immunize flocks.

But Kennedy told Fox News that "all of my agencies have advised against vaccination," despite the USDA’s recent conditional approval of a vaccine against a certain strain of the disease. That vaccine is not commercially available and the agency has no schedule to release it.

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The suspended principal of the Amagansett School — who had faced disciplinary charges alleging she stole a gift card from a co-worker — was found not guilty, according to a decision issued yesterday by a state-designated hearing officer. Dandan Zou reports in NEWSDAY that Timothy Taylor, who heard testimony from 15 witnesses over the course of seven hearings spanning months last year, sided with Maria Dorr, who was accused of taking the $25 Amazon card after it went missing in December 2023.

In his decision, Taylor ruled that Dorr be “immediately reinstated” as the school principal and required the district to expunge the disciplinary charges from her personnel files.

“The District shall make Dorr whole in all pertinent ways,” his ruling stated.

Wayne Gauger, the Amagansett school board president, said in a statement that the board accepts Taylor’s determination and believes “it is time to put this matter behind us.” Without naming Dorr, the statement said the principal was expected to return to her position in the coming days.

The alleged theft has rocked the small Amagansett School community, where the one-building school district houses 120...