One of Victoria’s top tourist attractions, the Phillip Island home to thousands of penguins, is developing high-level plans to protect the world-famous flock from bird flu.
There are fears the deadly H5 avian influenza strand will end up on Australian shores and cause “inevitable” mass kill events, according to some experts.
Australia and New Zealand are so far free of the H5 strand after the first cases were confirmed in Antarctica in February.
Now those in charge of protecting the colony of little penguins on Phillip Island are planning for an outbreak on Australian shores.
“Phillip Island Nature Parks has been really concerned about the risk and has been developing plans to be prepared,” Invasive Species Council principal policy analyst Carol Booth said.
Dr Booth said even though Australia was well protected by its distance from other continents, the main risk for the penguins will be in spring when migratory birds return to Australia from the Northern Hemisphere.
“That’s definitely regarded as high risk,” she said.
In a statement, Phillip Island Nature Parks chief executive Catherine Basterfield said contingency planning was underway.
“Phillip Island Nature Parks is working closely with the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action and other relevant organisations to prepare in the event of an avian influenza detection in penguins on Phillip Island,” she said.
While the COVID pandemic impacted international visitor numbers to the world-famous penguin parade, it remains one of Victoria’s top tourist attractions, recording more than one million visitors per year from 2012 to 2018.
The 40,000 breeding little penguins on Phillip Island do not migrate but spend their lives on the shore, venturing out to sea for food.
Other penguin colonies include the St Kilda breakwater in Melbourne, Montague Island and Sydney’s Manly Beach in New South Wales, and Penguin Island in Western Australia.
Chair of Ecology at Deakin University Marcel Klaassen agreed it was only a matter of time before the deadly H5 bird flu virus hit Australia via migratory birds.
“For wild bird populations, it would be pretty devastating … we are seeing entire colonies being wiped out overseas, so it could have pretty dire consequences here in Australia,” Professor Klaassen said.
Penguins dead in Antarctica
In March, Federation University ecologist Meagan Dewar led a team of scientists to monitor the H5N1 outbreak in Antarctica.
Dr Dewar described the scene awaiting them as unlike anything the remote continent had ever experienced.
“This is the first time we are seeing something so widespread,” she said.
“To arrive in some places where we have had mass mortality events was quite difficult to work through and be in.”
Scientists uncovered four new locations where the virus had spread and documented thousands of dead Adelie penguins on one of Antarctica’s neighbouring islands.
Dr Dewar said the virus had the potential to devastate wildlife and the ecosystem in Antarctica.
“We have seen devastating consequences in South America with over 600,000 sea birds affected and over 50,000 sea mammals succumbing to the virus,” she said.
“We do predict that it will come into Australia with a lot of migratory birds around spring time.”
According to Wildlife Health Australia, targeted surveillance efforts for avian influenza continue to focus on sampling from waterfowl and shore birds, particularly from locations where wild birds are known to mix with poultry and humans.
General surveillance across Australia is focusing on the exclusion of avian influenza from wild bird mortality and morbidity events.
A different strain in chickens
The strain of bird flu killing thousands of penguins and other birds in Antarctica is different from the strains that have decimated the poultry industry in Victoria in the past month.
More than 1 million chickens have had to be culled in response to the outbreak of the highly contagious and deadly H7 strains of bird flu at farms at Meredith, Terang, and other locations in western Victoria including a commercial duck farm.
A seventh Victorian chicken farm was found to be infected last week.
Agriculture Victoria believes the disease had spread from wild birds into domestic poultry.
A separate strain of the HPAI H7N8 virus has been detected at an egg farm in the Hawkesbury district of New South Wales.
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