{"id":839419,"date":"2026-08-02T08:17:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T08:17:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/839419\/"},"modified":"2026-08-02T08:17:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T08:17:18","slug":"fears-shared-on-australia-reaching-bleak-milestone-in-the-spread-of-h5-bird-flu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/839419\/","title":{"rendered":"Fears shared on Australia reaching bleak milestone in the spread of H5 bird flu"},"content":{"rendered":"

Citizen scientists Johanna Williams and Susan Belperio have been witnessing dead birds wash up on their beloved Glenelg Beach since South Australia’s harmful algal bloom began last year.<\/p>\n

But both bird enthusiasts said finding sick birds since the H5 bird flu arrived in Australia has been even more disturbing.<\/p>\n

“Seeing dying and suffering birds has been quite distressing, so is the idea of the anticipation of what might happen,” Ms Williams said.\"A<\/p>\n

Johanna Williams said it was even more distressing finding sick birds at Glenelg than dead birds during SA’s harmful algal bloom. (ABC News: Lincoln Rothall)<\/p>\n

South Australian authorities are Mass mortality of terns on SA island<\/a> event after more than 80 dead and sick birds were found off an island called Baudin Rocks, about five kilometres south of Cape Jaffa on Friday.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, local transmission of H5 bird flu occurred for the first time<\/a>\u00a0between a number of greater crested terns in South Australia.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dr Belperio said she recently found a dead silver gull on Glenelg Beach which was one of the several suspected H5 cases announced by the Department of Primary Industries and Regions yesterday.<\/p>\n

“We really shudder to think what might lie ahead in the way of potential mass mortalities of birds on this very beach,” she said.\"a<\/p>\n

Susan Belperio said she found and reported a suspected H5 case in a dead gull at Glenelg Beach. (ABC News: Lincoln Rothall)<\/p>\n

Australia entering ‘next phase’ of outbreak<\/p>\n

Birdlife’s senior advisor Sean Dooley said recent high mortalities in South Australia linked to H5 bird flu showed the country was entering the “next phase” of the outbreak.<\/p>\n

“This mass mortality is what we’ve been dreading,” Mr Dooley said.<\/p>\n

\"Bird<\/p>\n

Birdlife Australia’s Sean Dooley says the latest mass mortalities are what officials have been dreading. (ABC News: Jason Katsaras)<\/p>\n

“Until now it’s just been individual birds that have been positively identified.<\/p>\n

“But what we’re seeing now is spread between native birds, mainly silver gulls but also the greater crested tern.<\/p>\n

“Both of those are quite abundant species around our coasts, so we can expect that as they move around, we might see more of these outbreaks.”<\/p>\n

Australia currently has 54 confirmed cases of H5, with a large proportion detected in SA with 40 confirmed cases.<\/p>\n

There have been 10 cases in WA, two in NSW, one in QLD and one in Victoria.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Dead and sick birds were found at Robe Marina in July. (ABC News: Joshua Brine)<\/p>\n

There are no H5 bird flu detections in poultry or livestock.<\/p>\n

Results are expected in the coming days on the 80 birds detected at Baudin Rocks Island.<\/p>\n

Federal Health Minister Mark Butler said officials were concerned about the increase in cases.<\/p>\n

“But I think we are very well prepared to manage the impact as best as we possibly can,” Mr Butler said.<\/p>\n

He said the federal government had been in “significant talks” with the poultry industry.<\/p>\n

“They’ve been taking place for a very long time, because the Australian poultry industry has watched the impact that H5N1 has had on poultry industries across the world in every other continent.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Citizen scientists Johanna Williams and Susan Belperio have been witnessing dead birds wash up on their beloved Glenelg…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":839420,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[64,63,73486,412047,17973,137,412048,52226,367934],"class_list":["post-839419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-avian-bird-flu","tag-h5-bird-case","tag-h5n1-bird-flu","tag-health","tag-mass-mortality","tag-outbreak","tag-sa-bird-flu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839419","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=839419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/839420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=839419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=839419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=839419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}