{"id":844500,"date":"2026-08-05T14:30:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T14:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/844500\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T14:30:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T14:30:11","slug":"h5-bird-flu-black-swans-monkey-mia-dolphins-and-tasmanian-devils-at-high-risk-on-governments-doom-sheet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/844500\/","title":{"rendered":"H5 bird flu: Black swans, Monkey Mia dolphins and Tasmanian devils at high risk on Government\u2019s \u2018doom sheet\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some of WA\u2019s most iconic animals such as the black swan and the dolphins of Monkey Mia face an uncertain future after appearing on the Federal Government\u2019s \u201cdoom sheet\u201d for H5N1 avian influenza.<\/p>\n

It comes after Federal Agriculture Minister Julie Collins this week confirmed the first mass mortality of Australian wildlife from H5 bird flu in greater crested terns, found on an island off South Australia\u2019s south-east coast.<\/p>\n

The Government released national risk scores on Tuesday evening for more than 2,000 native birds and mammals, scoring each species on how likely they are to survive the spread of the H5 strain of bird flu.<\/p>\n

The score takes into account susceptibility to the virus and vulnerability factors such as habitat, mating behaviours and H5\u2019s impact to similar animals overseas to determine the estimated species-level risk.<\/p>\n

Quokkas, for instance, received a national risk score of \u201clow\u201d, but the risk to black swans was assessed as \u201chigh.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nationally, nearly one in five native species have been rated as facing extreme, very high or high risk, from Tasmanian devils and all three resident seal species to the critically endangered herald petrel and the bottlenose dolphins of Monkey Mia, Mandurah Estuary and Bunbury\u2019s Koombana Bay.<\/p>\n

The Houtman Abrolhos lesser noddy, which nests on just three islands in the Abrolhos archipelago, had a national risk score of \u201cextreme.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MonkeyCamera IconMonkey Mia Dolphin. Credit: Richard Hatherly<\/p>\n

Invasive Species Council CEO Jack Gough said his first reaction to seeing the list was \u201cshock.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis list is definitely worse than I expected in terms of the scale of what they\u2019re estimating of the impact. This is a doom sheet for wildlife,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPoliticians have had this list on their desks since at least the last year, and yet we\u2019ve seen cuts to frontline environmental action, to practical environmental programs on the ground in recent budgets, basically across the country, state and federal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Environment Minister Murray Watt said the risk analysis had informed programs in recent years to boost resiliency in captive animal and native species populations, by removing feral threats and inoculating against other diseases.<\/p>\n

The Albanese Government says it has committed $113 million to prepare for bird flu, including $47 million targeted at protecting threatened species and biodiversity.<\/p>\n

\"ACamera IconA black Swan by our Swan River, Matilda Bay. Credit: Sandra Jackson\"LittleCamera IconLittle penguins on Penguin Island. Credit: Ian Beattie\/Supplied<\/p>\n

Mr Gough fears that isn\u2019t enough, and cited the experience of black swans in captivity in the Northern Hemisphere when H5N1 struck.<\/p>\n

\u201cBlack swans didn\u2019t seem to produce any immune response to H5N1 and all of those black swans died within a few days,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Animal populations already under pressure, such as WA\u2019s little penguin colonies, are in the firing line.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the bird flu virus gets in, you could have complete collapse. We\u2019ve seen the collapse of colonies in Antarctica,\u201d Mr Gough said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt spread through the South American continent within four months and, in that four months, knocked out over 600,000 birds, but then the consequences have persisted after that four months.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is something we\u2019re going to be living with for years, and the waves and waves, like you see with flu viruses, will be coming through, so that\u2019s why we should have been investing at scale three years ago in wildlife resilience.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe next best time to do it is right now, especially ahead of the spring breeding seasons.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some of WA\u2019s most iconic animals such as the black swan and the dolphins of Monkey Mia face…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":844501,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,128,45,338],"class_list":["post-844500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-science","tag-wa-news","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844500","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=844500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844500\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/844501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=844500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=844500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=844500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}