Bird flu has wiped out half of South Georgia\u2019s breeding elephant seals, according to a study that warns of \u201cserious implications\u201d for the future of the species.<\/p>\n
The remote island in the South Atlantic Ocean is home to the world\u2019s largest southern elephant seal population. Researchers estimate 53,000 females died after bird flu hit in 2023.<\/p>\n
The population has now plummeted by 47%, researchers found.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cIt was quite a stark number,\u201d said the lead author, Connor Bamford from the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge. \u201cI didn\u2019t anticipate it to be this high.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 2024, tourists on cruise ships said the explorer Ernest Shackleton\u2019s grave had become inaccessible to visitors due to \u201cdead seals blocking the way\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But Mr Bamford said it was likely many dead animals were never seen, having returned to the sea when they were sick to cool down.<\/p>\n
It is possible direct losses from bird flu have been exacerbated by females becoming physically stressed and abandoning their pups.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were aware there was a high level of mortality \u2014 way above normal levels \u2014 but it wasn\u2019t until we got this before-and-after comparison that we could see how extensive it was,\u201d said Mr Bamford. In the long term, he said, it would have a \u201cdramatic impact on the population\u201d.<\/p>\n
The island in the South Atlantic is home to 54% of the global breeding population of elephant seals. The team used aerial imagery from three beaches to compare the breeding population from 2022 relative to 2024, according to the paper, published in the journal Communications Biology.<\/p>\n
There was a particularly high level of mortality among pups, and females take three to eight years to start breeding.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of my colleagues is down there on a ship at the moment, and this year the count is lower than it was last year. That suggests the virus is circulating in the population,\u201d said Mr Bamford. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t say it\u2019s over at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
Research suggests bird flu is continuing to spread across bird and mammal species in the Antarctic.<\/p>\n
\n The Guardian\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bird flu has wiped out half of South Georgia\u2019s breeding elephant seals, according to a study that warns…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140520,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[61,1042,60,1094,82,263,386],"class_list":{"0":"post-140519","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-international","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-report","12":"tag-science","13":"tag-wildlife","14":"tag-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}