{"id":193420,"date":"2026-02-25T18:29:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T18:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/193420\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T18:29:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T18:29:07","slug":"h5n1-bird-flu-found-in-california-elephant-seals-for-the-first-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/193420\/","title":{"rendered":"H5N1 bird flu found in California elephant seals for the first time"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The H5N1 bird flu virus that devastated South America\u2019s elephant seal populations has been confirmed in seals at California\u2019s A\u00f1o Nuevo State Park, researchers from UC Davis and UC Santa Cruz announced Wednesday. <\/p>\n

The virus has ravaged wild, commercial and domestic animals across the globe and was found in seven weaned pups. <\/p>\n

The confirmation came from the U.S. Department of Agriculture\u2019s laboratory in Ames, Iowa. <\/p>\n

The death toll so far was not provided, although a press release from UC Davis noted at least some animals had succumbed. In most wildlife cases, carcasses and tissue samples are sent to the USDA for confirmatory testing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is exceptionally rapid detection of an outbreak in free-ranging marine mammals,\u201d said Professor Christine Johnson, director of the Institute for Pandemic Insights at the University of California, Davis\u2019 Weill School of Veterinary Medicine. \u201cWe have most likely identified the very first cases here because of coordinated teams that have been on high alert with active surveillance for this disease for some time.\u201d<\/p>\n

In late 2022<\/a>, the virus decimated southern elephant seal populations in South America and several sub-Antarctic Islands. At some colonies in Argentina, 97% of the pups died, while on South Georgia Island, researchers reported a 47% decline in breeding females between 2022 and 2024. Researchers believe tens of thousands of animals died.<\/p>\n

More than 30,000 sea lions in Peru and Chile died between 2022 and 2024<\/a>. In Argentina, roughly 1,300 sea lions and fur seals perished.<\/p>\n

At the time, researchers were not sure why northern Pacific populationswere not infected, but hoped previous or milder strains of the virus had conferred some immunity.<\/p>\n

The virus is better known in the U.S. for sweeping through the nation\u2019s dairy herds, where it infected millions of cows, dozens of dairy workers and thousands of wild, feral and domestic mammals. It\u2019s also been found in wild birds and killed millions of commercial chickens, geese and ducks.<\/p>\n

Two Americans have died from the virus since 2024, and 71 have been infected. The vast majority were dairy or commercial poultry workers. One death was that of Louisiana man who had underlying conditions. It is believed he was exposed via backyard poultry or wild birds.<\/p>\n

Scientists at UC Santa Cruz and UC Davis increased disease surveillance of this population in recent years due to concerns about avian influenza\u2019s spread throughout North and South America.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the catastrophic impacts observed in related species, we were concerned about the possibility of the virus infecting northern elephant seals for the first time, so we ramped up monitoring to detect any early signs of abnormalities,\u201d said Roxanne Beltran, a professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UC Santa Cruz. Beltran\u2019s lab leads UC Santa Cruz\u2019s northern elephant seal research program at A\u00f1o Nuevo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The H5N1 bird flu virus that devastated South America\u2019s elephant seal populations has been confirmed in seals at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193421,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1955,57429,90536,7,90532,9,8,90534,90533,34270,90535,90537,22178,31760,8229,1816,90538],"class_list":["post-193420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-agriculture","tag-ames","tag-ano-nuevo-state-park","tag-california","tag-california-elephant-seal","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-domestic-animal","tag-h5n1-bird-flu","tag-iowa","tag-laboratory","tag-pandemic-insights","tag-researcher","tag-u-s-department","tag-uc-davis","tag-university","tag-weill-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193420\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}