{"id":289083,"date":"2026-02-18T00:42:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T00:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/289083\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T00:42:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T00:42:07","slug":"bird-flu-ravaging-antarctic-wildlife-scientist-warns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/289083\/","title":{"rendered":"Bird flu ravaging Antarctic wildlife, scientist warns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"PjjNclxixstKXPGyV\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cThe virus has completely spread throughout the Antarctic region where we have the capacity to go and study,\u201d said Neira, a scientist at the University of Chile and the Chilean Antarctic Institute (INACH).<\/p>\n<p class=\"PjjNclxixstKXPGyV\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cThis disease is capable of killing 100% of the birds in short periods of time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"PjjNclxixstKXPGyV\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cFor example, in one or two days it can kill 90% or 100% of the animals in a given area.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"PjjNclxixstKXPGyV\" style=\"display:none\">Antarctic species are often small in total population, underscoring the risk of outbreaks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"PjjNclxixstKXPGyV\" style=\"display:none\">Animals such as Antarctic cormorants and skuas number about 20,000.<\/p>\n<p class=\"PjjNclxixstKXPGyV\" style=\"display:none\">A global wave of bird flu has affected birds and mammals around the world since 2021, spread via bird migration.<\/p>\n<p class=\"PjjNclxixstKXPGyV\" style=\"display:none\">In 2023, it killed thousands of Humboldt penguins in Chile.<\/p>\n<p class=\"PjjNclxixstKXPGyV\" style=\"display:none\">-Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe virus has completely spread throughout the Antarctic region where we have the capacity to go and study,\u201d&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289084,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[3548,2840,64865,25277,21453,35875,82716,160526,20403,1379,134,87304,11156,13620,111,139,69,79411,1523,160525,387,388,9433,106955,35108,35836,1455,8218,406,102],"class_list":["post-289083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-3548","tag-across","tag-alarm","tag-antarctic","tag-antarctica","tag-bird","tag-capable","tag-chilean","tag-fauna","tag-flu","tag-health","tag-infected","tag-killing","tag-leading","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-observed","tag-over","tag-ravaging","tag-researcher","tag-scientist","tag-scientists","tag-sounding","tag-spread","tag-strain","tag-warning","tag-warns","tag-wildlife","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289083","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=289083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}