The first case of deadly H5 bird flu in local wildlife has been recorded in a bird found on the South Australian coast, in what experts said was an escalation of the disease’s arrival in the country.
In New South Wales a young fur seal found at Blue Bay on the Central Coast is also being tested as a precaution for H5 bird flu. The animal died on Thursday. Test results to inform the cause of death are pending.
The federal agriculture minister, Julie Collins, said on Friday that a greater crested tern – a common coastal bird – had tested positive for the disease. The dead bird was found at Robe on SA’s Limestone Coast by a member of the public.
“While this, of course, is a concerning development, it is not unexpected and is another sign that our strong biosecurity system is working,” Collins said.
Until Friday, cases of bird flu had been detected in migratory subantarctic seabirds, mostly giant petrels, found on the coasts of SA, Western Australia and New South Wales.
Environment groups said the development marked a possible turning point for the disease in Australia.
Collins said the South Australian government was leading the response to the discovery of the greater crested tern by conducting extra surveillance to help establish whether there had been further spread in local wildlife.
“What we do know is that this is a coastal seabird that has an overlapping coastal range with migratory seabirds that have previously tested positive for H5,” she said.
Earlier this week, the SA government said it had completed the largest aerial survey of the state’s coastline, islands and reefs in 40 years and found “no widespread evidence of sick or dead seabirds or seals”.
In a statement on Friday the government said the greater crested tern was found dead by a member of the public at Robe Marina on Tuesday who reported it the emergency animal disease hotline. The government said the bird was collected for testing that same day.
Chris Purnell, the wetland and migratory shorebird program manager at BirdLife Australia, said the detection was “very, very concerning” and represented a “paradigm shift” in the development of the disease in Australia.
All previous confirmed detections had been in migratory birds that had likely brought the disease from the sub Antarctic, but the Greater crested tern was an Australian resident seabird.
“Those earlier detections were like little spot fires, but this [crested tern] suggests transmission has occurred on or near our beaches. We consider this to be a local transmission point.”
He said Greater crested terns lived in large “mixed flocks” with other species which would generate opportunities for the disease to spread.
“This is only one bird, but it is very, very concerning, but not a surprise,” he said.
The location of the bird – at Robe in South Australia and close to a network of coastal lakes with many birds – was also a concern, he said.
Purnell said BirdLife Australia was particularly concerned about the Eastern hooded plover – a species listed as vulnerable and with populations living close to where the tern was found.
Terns as a group of species have been heavily affected globally by the disease, Purnell said. In France, hundreds and potentially thousands of sandwich terns died within days of the first reports of dead birds.
Jack Gough, the chief executive of the Invasive Species Council, said international experience of the disease showed it could spread quickly and at greater distances than expected.
“This is a very serious moment because it’s the first time we’ve seen local transmission of the virus rather than sick pelagic seabirds arriving on the beaches from the Southern Ocean,” he said.
“I’m concerned that if we get persistent spread to Australian wildlife this could quickly turn up all over the Australian continent.”
