Emergency hotline swamped with reports as authorities race to contain deadly H5 bird flu, after second bird tests positive

Dozens of calls have been made to an emergency animal disease hotline after two cases of H5 bird flu were detected in migratory birds on Western Australia’s southern coast. Agriculture Minister Jackie Jarvis said 42 calls reporting dead or unwell birds were received from multiple locations across Western Australia. “There have been no reports of large-scale mortalities,” she said. “Nine samples were collected (on Sunday), and they have been sent for testing. “The community has been a vital partner and a greatly enhanced our surveillance activities.” Ms Jarvis said it was not unusual for migratory birds to be blown off course, washed up or die from fatigue with wild weather from the south. She urged anyone who saw a sick or dead bird or marine mammal to avoid handling the animal, and to record and report what they saw to the hotline. “This surveillance phase is as much about proving where it isn’t, as much it is about proving where it is,” she said. Authorities are scrambling to determine whether the highly contagious pathogen has been established in Australia after a second bird has tested positive for bird flu. Agriculture Minister Julie Collins announced on Monday a northern giant petrel found in the same region of southwestern Western Australia where a brown skua bird tested positive for H5 on Saturday had also returned a positive result. “I want to reiterate that this is two birds that have been found with the H5 bird flu in an isolated area of Western Australia,” she said. “I also want to reiterate at this time there are no there is no evidence of any mass mortalities, particularly in our wildlife.” Ms Collins said investigations were ongoing into whether bird flu had been “established in the wildlife or established in Australia”. “We are over the next three to five days, up to possibly a week, actually listing and looking at whether or not there’s other infections,” she said. “We want to see whether or not there has been an entrenched infection in the wildlife in Australia.” Australia’s chief veterinary officer Beth Cookson said samples were still en route to Western Australia for testing. However, she said there was “no information that would suggest that there is a suspect laboratory result or a situation of multiple, mass mortalities that would indicate a high level of suspicion”. She said the government had been clear that it could not prevent migratory birds entering Australia that might be carrying bird flu. “We’ve been aware of a number of different migratory routes that might increase the threat to Australia including the sub-Antarctic spread”, she said “We’ve seen more reports of that over the last 18 months or so, including recently, as reported from the Australian Antarctic Program through their investigation in the Heard Island, the McDonald Island. “These particular seabirds have their breeding sites in that sub-Antarctic region, so I would say it is unsurprising that at some stage these migratory birds, by multiple different pathways, would arrive eventually onto Australian shores.” Likewise, Environment Minister Murray Watt said the second finding was disappointing “but not unexpected”. “We are the only continent in the world that until now has not had this strain on our shores,” he said. “What that has meant is that it has given us time as a country to ensure that we are as well prepared as we possibly can be for the time when this strain eventually reached our shores.” Senator Watt said he had called for a special meeting on state and federal health ministers for Monday. He said while there were only two cases so far, he did not want to “underplay the threat that this poses to wildlife and our agriculture sector in Australia should this become a wider outbreak”. “That’s why, since those detections late last week, all of the relevant plans to deal with this incident, all of the relevant committees have met,” Senator Watt said. “Everything has been enacted because we’ve done the work with states and territories, with industry, with environment groups, to make sure that we’re ready for when Australia did have its first detection of this strain.” Senator Watt thanked the public for being vigilant after more than a dozen “dead or sickly” birds were reported after the confirmation of a deadly and highly contagious flu strain in a sickly looking Antarctic seabird. At least 16 cases of “dead or sickly” birds have been reported to the WA Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development over the weekend following the shock announcement of a confirmed case of H5 bird flu found in a brown skua bird in southwestern WA on Saturday. Shortly after the skua bird was reported to authorities, a giant petrel bird found nearby was also reported to be exhibiting symptoms of the highly contagious disease, which has decimated seal pup and bird populations across the globe. Speaking to the ABC on Monday morning, Senator Watt said the 16 reported cases of sickly or dead birds were not explicitly indicative of a mass infection of birds. “At this point, we only have one officially confirmed case of the deadly strain. Of course, there is a second bird that looks like it has tested positive, (but) there’s no evidence at this point in time of any more widespread outbreak,” Mr Watt said. “I am aware there have been reports of other dead birds, but it’s unclear whether that’s related to bird flu or the many other reasons that birds die every single day.” The skua bird represents the first confirmed case of the uniquely deadly and highly contagious H5N1 bird flu strain to be recorded on the Australian mainland, which is the only country other than New Zealand not to have been affected. WA Environment Minister Matthew Swinbourn said six birds were being tested for the illness, but the strain appeared to be isolated. “Those two birds were found some way apart from each other, and they were both sub-Antarctic birds, so they were not typical to our shorelines. In both instances, the birds were exhausted when they were found and passed away not long afterwards,” Mr Swinbourn said. “At this stage, it looks like (the strain) is isolated at the moment, but we have people on the ground who are looking to see if there’s further impacts. “One of the important things we need to re-emphasise if you do come into contact with any bird that is sick, you avoid contact with it, you record what you’ve seen and you report it.” Despite state and federal governments’ assertions of the incidents being “isolated”, the scientific community is expressing grave fears over what it could mean for the near future of Australian bird populations. University of Tasmania Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies senior lecturer Jane Younger said the detection was a “serious development” for Australian wildlife. “The species involved are important. A brown skua has tested positive, and a sick southern giant petrel from the same area is also being tested,” Dr Younger said. “These are Southern Ocean and sub-Antarctic species, suggesting the virus probably reached mainland Australia through Southern Ocean wildlife movements rather than through the northern hemisphere migratory shorebird route we have been watching closely. “We have already seen devastating mortality in seals and seabirds across the Southern Ocean, with seals dying in the tens of thousands. We should be particularly concerned about vulnerable seabird colonies and Australian fur seal populations.” Experts believe Australia was able to escape the virus for so long because migratory duck species, which have historically acted as superspreaders between continents, don’t use Australia or New Zealand as stop-off points during their annual migrations. In the summer of 2023-24, the first recorded cases of the virus were reported in Antarctica, and scientists believe gulls, skuas and giant petrels, all of which are known to travel extreme distances, have taken on the role of ducks as spreaders of the disease.