Suspected case of deadly bird flu detected in Australia

[00:00:00]Australia has detected its first suspected case of the deadly H5 strain of bird flu, creating concern over a potential outbreak. Poultry farms and wildlife sanctuaries nationally are making final preparations to prevent the spread of the virus.

[00:00:17]>> It's the news no one wanted to hear, but everyone knew to expect. A suspected case of the deadly H5 strain of avian influenza has been detected in Australia for the very first time.

[00:00:29]>> This is at the moment a single bird with suspected H5 bird flu. It is not in the poultry system, nor is it in the agriculture system that this is a wild migratory bird.

[00:00:39]>> The individual was found on the south coast of Western Australia, a region known for its livestock and grain.

[00:00:46]Despite the risk, the Minister for Agriculture is urging primary producers to remain calm. State and federal governments have spent more than a hundred million dollars to prepare the country in the event of an outbreak.

[00:00:58]>> We've always said that we couldn't keep it out forever. Uh so, it's about making sure as we're as prepared as we can be, and that's what you've seen from our government in terms of the investments that we have made working with states and territories.

[00:01:09]>> The H5 strain was first documented in 1959.

[00:01:13]Since then, more than a thousand people around the world have contracted the virus, though the risk to humans remains extremely low.

[00:01:20]>> Only in exceptional rare cases has it impacted humans. If you see multiple sick or dead birds or other animals, please take photos or record it from a safe distance, record your location, and go to birdflu.gov.au to report it.

[00:01:37]>> The announcement comes less than 24 hours after the discovery of a mass mortality event on Australia's Heard Island. 13,000 southern elephant seal pups were found dead after contracting the H5 strain.

[00:01:49]>> It is a really sobering results, uh and and actually having the quantification of the numbers of seal pups that were impacted by the virus. Um and that's science that was made available by being able to use drones from Nooaitch and >> Wildlife conservationist Craig Webb is preparing for the arrival of the virus at his Tasmanian sanctuary.

[00:02:11]>> We've taken um a lot of effort put a lot of effort into trying to mitigate uh situations here. For example, here above me we've put flappers so to stop wild birds hanging around this aviary. We don't want wild birds with the bird flu to come in uh to defecate in the aviary and so forth.

[00:02:28]>> Raptor Refuge cares for injured eagles and tawny frogmouth before releasing them back into the wild. The facility is home to some of the largest flight training aviaries in the Southern Hemisphere, but years of rehabilitation would come undone if the virus takes hold.

[00:02:44]>> We can only do so much and raptors are you know, they're meat eaters so they're you know, they're high on the list of um getting it and you know, it's um Yeah.

[00:02:55]It's a strange world we live in these days and we've got to try to do our best to protect these magnificent birds behind me and um and throughout Tasmania.

[00:03:03]>> Aspen Bloomfield, Sky News, Hobart.