Wildlife veterinarian professor Brett Gartrell said the harrier was “stuck in a fence” and admitted to the animal hospital with suspected head trauma.<\/p>\n
“We weren’t even thinking about highly pathogenic avian influenza at the time,” he said.<\/p>\n
The bird deteriorated overnight and was put down the next morning. It was tested for bird flu as part of routine surveillance, he said.<\/p>\n
“It was a surprise to all of us when it came back positive.”<\/p>\n
Gartrell said it wasn’t surprising to find the virus in a bird of prey.<\/p>\n
The harrier most likely contracted the virus after feasting on a sick seabird blown ashore in July’s stormy weather, he said.<\/p>\n
It followed an established pattern of infection in scavenging or carnivorous bird populations overseas, he said.<\/p>\n
What New Zealand can learn from a farmer who lived through H5N1<\/p>\n
Country Life<\/p>\n
“In the [United Kingdom] peregrine falcons have been hit really hard by this… virus because they pick up sick and dying birds and eat them and get infected themselves.<\/p>\n
“So, it does look like birds of prey are going to be really hit by this.”<\/p>\n
Gartrell said the k\u0101rearea, New Zealand’s only falcon, was the biggest cause for concern due to its low population numbers – between 5000 and 8000, according to the Department of Conservation.<\/p>\n
There are still only two confirmed cases of bird flu in NZ. It has been almost two weeks since the last confirmed case, but Gartrell warned that wouldn’t last.<\/p>\n
“When these infections first come in they’re often very slow to get established but they build in intensity as more and more birds get infected.<\/p>\n
“We’ve been given a bit of a lull … but I think it still is definitely coming.”<\/p>\n
Gartrell said bird-to-bird transmission was unlikely at this stage, but the same couldn’t be said for Australia.<\/p>\n
![\"MPI](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/4JLEEFA_MPI_standup_and_sweep_4_jfif.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
An MPI team sweeps Petone Beach for more sick or dead seabirds earlier in July.<\/p>\n
RNZ\/Baz Macdonald<\/p>\n
“Most recently, they’re seeing a cluster of mortality in a group of terns, which is a coastal species that flocks close together.”<\/p>\n
As of Tuesday, Australia had 27 confirmed cases of H5 bird flu in wild seabirds, with South Australian authorities warning local spread was “very likely”.<\/p>\n
Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) chief veterinary officer Mary van Andel confirmed tests from the harrier were delivered to MPI’s laboratory on July 14.<\/p>\n
She said that testing involved two rounds – the first to identify avian influenza and the second to confirm whether it was a high-pathogen or low-pathogen strain.<\/p>\n
Test results confirmed it was highly pathogenic on July 17.<\/p>\n
Van Andel said there had been a strong response from the public, with 1267 notifications about sick or dead birds as of Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n
Given the location of the two confirmed detections, a large number of those reports were from the Wellington region, she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The native bird found to be infected with the deadly H5 bird flu in Wairarapa was actually the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":548972,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-548971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548971","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=548971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}