Tests confirm a migratory brown skua found in \u200cWestern \u200cAustralia had the virus.<\/p>\n
Published On 20 Jun 202620 Jun 2026<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says Australia will do \u201cwhatever we can\u201d to curb H5N1 bird flu after the first mainland case was confirmed in a seabird, which means the virus has now spread to every continent.<\/p>\n
Tests confirmed a migratory brown skua found in \u200cWestern \u200cAustralia\u2019s Cape Le Grand National Park had the deadly virus, authorities said on Saturday, and a giant petrel found in the same area was also suspected to be infected.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThis is concerning,\u201d Albanese told reporters in Sydney, adding his government would do \u201cwhatever we can to restrict any spread\u201d.<\/p>\n
Previously, Australia had been the only continent without a confirmed mainland case, although the virus was detected in late 2025 on Heard Island, a sub-Antarctic territory about 4,100km (2,550 miles) from the mainland.<\/p>\n
Agriculture Minister Julie Collins said the virus had not yet been detected in Australia\u2019s poultry or agriculture sector.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all knew we couldn\u2019t be bird flu-free forever,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Human infections remain rare, but the highly pathogenic avian influenza has led to the culling of hundreds of millions of birds globally in recent years, disrupting food supplies and driving up prices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tests confirm a migratory brown skua found in \u200cWestern \u200cAustralia had the virus. Published On 20 Jun 202620…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":748749,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[77,63,164,75,1295,3786,43,137,44,41,39,42,40,338],"class_list":["post-748748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-asia-pacific","tag-australia","tag-economy","tag-environment","tag-food","tag-government","tag-headlines","tag-health","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748748","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=748748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/748749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=748748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=748748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=748748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}