Australia\u2019s bird flu fight has taken a sinister turn following the discovery of two landmark cases.<\/p>\n
Authorities in South Australia have today confirmed that the first case in a native Australian bird has been discovered.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, in NSW tests are being carried out on a dead seal which could confirm the first detection in a mammal on Australian soil.<\/p>\n
Until now, every confirmed case in Australia has been in a migratory bird.<\/p>\n
But on Friday afternoon, a case in South Australia became the country\u2019s first native seabird to be detected with the deadly new strain.<\/p>\n
The bird, a greater crested tern, was found dead at the Robe Marina on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The bird was collected the same day and has undergone testing which confirmed on Friday morning that it was carrying the new strain.<\/p>\n
Two other suspected cases, giant petrels found at Emu Bay and Port Vincent respectively, have also been confirmed.<\/p>\n
\u201cImportantly, while this is the first confirmed detection in an Australian seabird, it is being treated as an isolated incident,\u201d said SA primary industries minister Clare Scriven.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere remains no detections in poultry or any signs of mass mortalities, anywhere in Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, there are also worrying signs that the strain could be spreading to mammals in Australia too, following the discovery of a dead New Zealand fur seal in NSW.<\/p>\n
The susceptibility of seals has already been widely reported, after the illness tore through hundreds of elephant seals on the Australian sub-Antarctic islands of McDonald and Heard.<\/p>\n
However, if confirmed, this would be the first case in a mammal found in mainland Australia.<\/p>\n
Agriculture minister Julie Collins said on Friday that the total number of detections in Australia is now at 12.<\/p>\n
She said the tern discovery was a \u201cconcerning development\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a coastal seabird that has an overlapping coastal range with migratory seabirds that have previously tested positive for H5,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia\u2019s bird flu fight has taken a sinister turn following the discovery of two landmark cases. Authorities in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":792780,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,128,338],"class_list":["post-792779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792779","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=792779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/792780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=792779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=792779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=792779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}