When bird flu hit the UK, suffering seabirds died in their thousands. Australia’s wild flocks will soon do the same
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- H5N1 bird flu (lineage 2.3.4.4b) was detected in Australia two months ago in migratory seabirds likely arriving from subantarctic breeding grounds, having killed millions of birds and infected more than 400 bird species across every other continent since 2021.
- Australia's federal government analysis identified nearly 400 bird and mammal species at "high risk" or worse, and Prof John Woinarski of Charles Darwin University expects the disease to spread across the continent within a year.
- Dr Sara Ryding's risk model, built on World Organisation for Animal Health reports, ranked gannets and boobies (Sulidae) as the most at-risk family, followed by cranes, darters, ducks/geese/swans, and gulls/terns/noddies.
- Tens of thousands of seals and sea lions have already died from H5N1 outbreaks in Peru, Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, and on Australia's subantarctic Heard and McDonald Islands, with the virus causing severe neurological and respiratory symptoms.
- Australia's three resident pinniped species — the New Zealand fur seal, Australian fur seal, and the already endangered Australian sea lion — are all rated "very high" risk, meaning severe population reduction is predicted.
- UK tern colonies suffered total collapse when adults tried to mate with dead birds and chicks begged food from dying parents, per British Trust for Ornithology director Prof James Pearce-Higgins, drawing a direct parallel to what Australia now faces.
- Pearce-Higgins sees cautious hope from the UK experience, noting signs the impacts may be slowing and that long-lived species may prove more resilient — but the near-term outlook is "really bad," per Ryding.
Why it matters: Australia now faces the same H5N1 wave that killed tens of thousands of seabirds in single UK colonies and wiped out a third of Patagonia's sea lions. With nearly 400 species flagged at high risk and the already endangered Australian sea lion rated very high risk, the continent's uniquely endemic wildlife faces a potential extinction-scale event — and experts see no biological reason it will be milder here than overseas.
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