greater crested terns.<\/a><\/p>\nSeals<\/p>\n
A fur seal was found dead at Beachport, on SA’s south-east coast, on 19 August.<\/p>\n
Testing confirmed it was infected with the H5N1 bird flu.<\/p>\n
You have read 0 articles this year.<\/p>\n
Your contribution ensures The Daily Aus can continue doing the work you love.<\/p>\n
Contribute<\/p>\n
Officials say the seal showed no signs of injury and its death doesn’t appear linked to any other sick or dead marine mammals.<\/p>\n
The South Australian Government reported a suspected second seal infection on Monday.<\/p>\n
It isn’t the first time bird flu has hit Australian seals.<\/p>\n
Thousands of baby seals died on Heard Island, a remote Australian territory 1,500km north of Antarctica, after the virus reached there in late 2025.<\/p>\n
It is, however, the first case on the mainland.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, Agriculture Minister Julie Collins said of the mainland case: “While the development is concerning, it is not unexpected in areas where infection rates are high among wild birds”.<\/p>\n
Bigger picture<\/p>\n
The seal case follows a spike in mass bird deaths.<\/p>\n
SA Premier Peter Malinauskas told state parliament last week that more than 1,000 crested terns have died across three mass mortality events on remote islands.<\/p>\n
Victoria is vaccinating thousands of little penguins on Phillip Island after a bird from that colony died.<\/p>\n
SA is now working on a similar vaccination program, starting with captive animals at the state’s zoos and wildlife parks.<\/p>\n
What’s next?<\/p>\n
There have been no detections in poultry or Australia’s agriculture industry.<\/p>\n
Authorities say chicken and eggs remain safe to eat, and the risk to human health stays low.<\/p>\n
No human cases have been recorded in this outbreak.<\/p>\n
Most human cases are mild, causing conjunctivitis or flu-like symptoms, but severe illness and death can occur in rare cases.<\/p>\n
National Cabinet (all state and territory leaders) will discuss the latest developments and Australia’s ongoing response later this week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A long-nosed fur seal has tested positive to H5N1 bird flu in South Australia, the first confirmed case…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":866410,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[64,63,137],"class_list":["post-866409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866409","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=866409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/866410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=866409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=866409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=866409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}