avian influenza has made its way across many parts of the world<\/a>, causing mass mortality among mammals and birds, including Ad\u00e9lie penguins.<\/p>\nAfter ripping through South America, the virus reached the Antarctic Peninsula, on the western side of the icy continent, two years ago.<\/p>\n
And two months ago, it was detected on the Australian external territory of Heard Island in the Southern Ocean, where hundreds of dead elephant seals were found.<\/p>\n
But so far, there has been no trace of bird flu in the Australian Antarctic Territory, a vast region on the eastern side of the continent.<\/p>\n
“We haven’t found it in this area at this stage,” said Dr Emmerson, who leads the Australian Antarctic Division’s (AAD) seabird research team.<\/p>\n
“But we’re obviously very concerned about its arrival.”<\/p>\n
Scientists on ‘high alert’ for virus<\/p>\n
Dr Emmerson’s team has been on “high alert” for the past two years, knowing the virus could breach the Australian Antarctic Territory any day.<\/p>\n
Before the scientists get too close to a colony, they launch a drone to inspect the penguins from the air to ensure there are no signs of bird flu, such as high rates of mortality.<\/p>\n
Once they have the all-clear, they collect samples from bird droppings, which will be tested in a laboratory back in Australia.<\/p>\n
They then set about gathering crucial population data, so they can understand the severity of the virus, if and when it reaches these shores.<\/p>\n
![\"Colin](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/4JVSTU3_1dcb401ee7f2ab34ef3f01a5e5925f97_avif\")
<\/p>\n
\nColin Southwell has been monitoring colonies near Casey Station.
\nPhoto: ABC\/Jano Gibson\n<\/p>\n
“To detect an impact of any kind, you need baseline data,” AAD wildlife ecologist Colin Southwell said.<\/p>\n
“You need data on what was happening before, so you can compare what’s happening after.”<\/p>\n
While Dr Southwell and Dr Emmerson have been monitoring colonies near Casey Station, other team members have been checking sites near Davis Station and Mawson Station.<\/p>\n
“The area we work over is 4,000 kilometres in extent of coastline – that’s the equivalent of eastern Australia to WA,” Dr Southwell said.<\/p>\n
“So it’s a massive task to try and get to all of those islands and monitor every population.”<\/p>\n
Penguins face multiple threats<\/p>\n
While the drones are useful for population checks, the team also has a network of about 50 nest-monitoring cameras located across eastern Antarctica.<\/p>\n
The cameras take 10 photos per day during the summer breeding season, and one photo per week over winter, giving the scientists an accurate bird count for each site.<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/4JVSTU3_4a53d2762ba9cb8dd3e5db986a65700a_avif\")
<\/p>\n
\nThe team also has a network of about 50 nest-monitoring cameras
\nPhoto: Suppled\/Nisha Harris via ABC\n<\/p>\n
But bird flu is not the only threat for the penguins.<\/p>\n
Climate change and industrial krill fishing also pose risks.<\/p>\n
So, the scientists have been attaching tracking devices to some of the penguins to find out whether their feeding grounds are in the same area as krill-fishing vessels.<\/p>\n
“With the population surveys, with the nest camera, observations with the tracking [devices], we’re trying to get a baseline of what is normal in Ad\u00e9lie penguins,” Dr Southwell said.<\/p>\n
“So we can see whether there’s been an impact from avian influenza or fisheries or climate change and all kinds of human impacts.”<\/p>\n
The ABC travelled to Antarctica with the support of the Australian Antarctic Program.<\/p>\n
– ABC News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Jano Gibson, for ABC News The H5 bird flu stain has not yet reached the Australian Antarctic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202499,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-202498","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-podcasts","13":"tag-public-radio","14":"tag-radio-new-zealand","15":"tag-rnz","16":"tag-top-news","17":"tag-top-stories","18":"tag-topnews","19":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}