A long-nosed fur seal has died from H5 bird flu in South Australia, marking the first confirmed case in a mammal on the Australian mainland.<\/p>\n
The seal was found dead at Beachport on Wednesday on the state\u2019s Limestone Coast.<\/p>\n
It marks a fresh escalation in the spread of the virus days after the South Australian premier, Peter Malinauskas, announced three mass mortality<\/a> events on offshore islands involving more than 1,000 greater crested terns.<\/p>\n Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n The federal agriculture minister, Julie Collins, said the seal death was \u201cnot unexpected\u201d as the virus begins to spread through the country.<\/p>\n Speaking in Hobart on Sunday, Collins said the \u201cdistressing\u201d news of the first confirmed case of a mammal on the mainland was anticipated and that it was \u201cnot possible to avoid significant losses\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cAn infection of this individual animal is likely to have occurred due to exposure to infected wild birds or the environment that they share,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can\u2019t stop it spreading in terms of, particularly, in wild birds, and where we see more dead wild birds, we do expect to see increased reports of marine mammals.\u201d<\/p>\n Collins said there had been 298 events across the country, with 183 in South Australia<\/a>, 86 in Victoria, 11 in New South Wales, 10 in Western Australia, seven in Tasmania and one in Queensland.<\/p>\n The risk of human transmission remains low, but people are being urged to avoid sick or dead birds and report them to birdflu.gov.au.<\/p>\n The long-nosed fur seal was found dead with no signs of injury and reported to an official hotline by a member of the public on Wednesday<\/p>\n Testing of samples from the seal later confirmed the H5 bird flu detection.<\/p>\n