<\/p>\n
IMAS researcher Jane Younger says the public should be informed of managing the risks of bird flu. (Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies)<\/p>\n
Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) ecologist Jane Younger said Tasmania could face risks from at least two different directions.<\/p>\n
“When we first thought about how bird flu might reach Australia, the discussion was about it coming from the Northern Hemisphere with these seabirds and shorebirds returning to Australia every year,” she said.<\/p>\n
“We haven’t seen that happen, which is wonderful. But there is also the potential now that the virus could reach Australia from the south.”<\/p>\n
The suspected arrival of bird flu on Heard Island cannot be confirmed until the ship returns to Australia in mid-November with samples for testing.<\/p>\n
Part of a worldwide problem<\/p>\n
After a contained outbreak of the H7 virus in Victorian poultry facilities earlier this year, Australia is now the last continent free from the highly contagious and deadly H5 strain.<\/p>\n
Still, authorities are concerned about the potential impacts of the virus.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Scientists visited the remote Heard Island as part of a seven-week research voyage on the icebreaker RSV Nuyina. (Australian Antarctic Division: Rowena Hannaford)<\/p>\n
In the United States, this strain of bird flu has hit dozens of poultry businesses recently, killing nearly seven million farmed birds since September, according to The New York Times.<\/p>\n
Because the virus can be passed between birds and other animals, dairy cows in the US have also been affected, and some dairy industry workers have fallen sick.<\/p>\n
The Tasmanian government says authorities are preparing for the expected arrival of the virus, with a major public information campaign is already up and running.<\/p>\n
“It’s not possible to say definitively when the H5 strain of bird flu will arrive,” Deidre Wilson, Acting Secretary of Tasmania’s Department of Natural Resources and Environment, told ABC Northern Tasmania Drive.<\/p>\n
“What we do know is that it is in other continents and we’re undertaking active surveillance to ensure that we do pick it up, if it arrives on our shores.”On the front lines<\/p>\n
Wildlife carer Alice Carson said she’s concerned Tasmanian authorities are not taking the risks seriously enough and are uncertain about how to respond.<\/p>\n
Last summer Ms Carson was alerted to a number of sick seagulls at Stanley wharf in the north-west of the state and claims she was given conflicting instructions by authorities on how to deal with them.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Wildlife carer Alice Carson says she received conflicting advice from a government department. (
\n ABC News: Meg Powell
\n )<\/p>\n
She said at one point she was asked by Biosecurity Tasmania to take some of the sick birds home with her, while in the days that followed she was told she should not have touched the animals.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the department confirmed that H5 bird flu has “not been detected in Tasmania” and that calls to Biosecurity Tasmania in relation to suspected animal diseases are “assessed on a case-by-case basis.”<\/p>\n
“Advice will vary based on the specifics of the situation provided by the caller”, the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
Informed, but not alarmed<\/p>\n
Ms Carson also believes bird flu warning signs should be installed on all Tasmanian beaches right now, informing the public of the risks of touching a diseased animal.<\/p>\n
“Every access point to a beach should have signage and we have a lot of beaches,” she said.<\/p>\n
“We should be able to home in and not install the signs everywhere, but just put them where we know the birds are going to come to.”<\/p>\n
Michelle Wille is a senior researcher at the University of Melbourne, currently focused on avian influenza viruses.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She said this time of year is crucial.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Shearwaters, or mutton birds, cross the globe in their migrations before arriving in Tasmania. (ABC News:\u00a0Lucille Cutting)<\/p>\n
“In our risk assessment work that we’ve done before, we’ve highlighted that the spring season \u2014 when all the birds return from overseas \u2014 poses a really high-risk window for the virus to arrive,” she said.<\/p>\n
“The virus could potentially be arriving with these long-distance migratory shore and sea birds right now.”<\/p>\n
Dr Younger believes it’s unlikely the deadly strain has arrived in Australia via migrating birds this spring time, but wants to see the public informed of how to handle the risk.<\/p>\n
“Bird flu can spread from wildlife to humans, that’s documented,” she said.<\/p>\n
“We haven’t seen any human-to-human transmission but there are cases of people who have handled sick animals \u2014 like dairy cattle or poultry \u2014 that have contracted the virus.<\/p>\n
“The virus is dangerous to humans so I think getting that message out there would be really good.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As spring arrives in Tasmania, the threat of bird flu remains present via the state’s rugged coastlines \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238469,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[64,63,1845,17702,73487,133875,137,142703,118723,142702,142701,2801],"class_list":["post-238468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bird-flu","tag-birds","tag-h5","tag-h7","tag-health","tag-institute-for-marine-and-antarctic-studies","tag-migratory","tag-mutton","tag-shearwater","tag-tasmania"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}