{"id":890551,"date":"2026-09-13T13:42:20","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T13:42:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/890551\/"},"modified":"2026-09-13T13:42:20","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T13:42:20","slug":"bird-flu-first-endangered-australian-sea-lion-dies-on-kangaroo-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/890551\/","title":{"rendered":"Bird Flu: First endangered Australian sea lion dies on Kangaroo Island"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first endangered sea lion on South Australia<\/a>\u2019s Kangaroo Island<\/a> has died from bird flu<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With no vaccine available, the state government is scrambling to import one being trialled in Hawaii in an effort to protect the spices from an extinction level outbreak.<\/p>\n

\"First<\/p>\n

First endangered Australian sea lion dies from bird flu on Kangaroo Island\u00a09News<\/p>\n

Kangaroo Island Mayor Michael Pengilly said the news was “not unexpected”.<\/p>\n

“We’ve been waiting for something like this to happen,” he said.<\/p>\n

An endangered Australian sea lion died at the colony’s key breeding ground at Seal Bay on Kangaroo Island.<\/p>\n

While a little penguin has also died at Victor Harbor.<\/p>\n

“The Australian Sea Lion is the rarest seal found in our Australian waters [and] 85 per cent of the population is found here in South Australia,” SA Environment Minister Emily Bourke said.<\/p>\n

The Sea Lion was found injured and dying from bird flu.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A little penguin also died from bird flu at Victor Harbor\u00a09News<\/p>\n

“This particular seal had already been attacked by a shark and was suffering from a shark attack already,” Bourke said.<\/p>\n

“But also we found that it was actually not the shark attack that killed the actual Sea Lion.”<\/p>\n

Authorities are now desperately trying to avoid situations like Heard Island near Antarctica, where mass death events have occurred in seals.<\/p>\n

“We’ve seen Heard Island, a reduction in the population there for seal pups by 75 per cent,” Burke said.<\/p>\n

\"First<\/p>\n

Authorities are now desperately trying to avoid situations like Heard Island near Antarctica, where mass death events have occurred in seals.\u00a09News<\/p>\n

There is currently no approved bird flu vaccine for sea lions but the State Government is pushing its federal counterparts to import a vaccine being trialled on endangered Hawaiian monk seals, which, it says, is showing some positive results.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe cost isn\u2019t the factor here, it\u2019s the ability to get it into the country and go through that rigorous process,\u201d Bourke said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first endangered sea lion on South Australia\u2019s Kangaroo Island has died from bird flu. With no vaccine…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":890552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-890551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890551","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=890551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/890552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=890551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=890551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=890551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}