Extract from ABC News
A long-nosed fur seal is Australia's first case of H5 bird flu in a mammal. (ABC South East SA: Caroline Horn/File)
In short:
The first case of bird flu in a mammal has been confirmed in a long-nose fur seal found at Beachport, on South Australia's south-east coast.
Federal Agricultural Minister Julie Collins says the detection is concerning but not unexpected.
The Invasive Species Council says the development is "devastating news for wildlife".
Australia's first case of bird flu in a mammal has been confirmed following testing of a long-nosed fur seal found in South Australia.
Federal Agriculture Minister Julie Collins has told reporters in Hobart the seal was found at Beachport, 300 kilometres south of Adelaide.
"This is sadly our first confirmed case of H5 bird flu in a mammal in Australia," Ms Collins said.
"Although this is a concerning development, it is not unexpected for us to start to see infection in other wildlife, particularly in marine mammals, particularly in areas where there are high infection rates in wild birds.
"I have been advised that at this time the detection does not appear to be associated with other sick or dead marine mammals.
"An infection of this individual animal is likely to have occurred due to exposure to infected wild birds or the environment that they share."
Julie Collins announced the confirmed case at a media conference in Hobart. (ABC News)
There have now been 298 positive H5 bird flu events recorded in Australia since the outbreak, with 194 of those in South Australia.
"At this stage there is no evidence of infection in our poultry or agriculture systems," Ms Collins said.
The minister said she would be travelling to South Australia "in the coming days" to discuss the state's response to H5 bird flu.
SA Environment Minister Emily Bourke said there were "devastating numbers" of detections in South Australia, with the fur seal case "something we always knew would be coming".
"This came from Heard Island where we saw 75 per cent of the pups on Heard Island killed through bird flu, that's 13,000 seal pups," she said.
Heard Island is an Australian external territory about 4,000 kilometres south-west of mainland Australia, and a haven for breeding seals and seabirds in the Southern Ocean.
Ms Bourke also confirmed a previously suspected case in a little penguin on Kangaroo Island had also been confirmed.
Emily Bourke says the detection is not unexpected. (ABC News: Ashlin Blieschke)
She said there was "no cure" or ability to stop bird flu, but the SA government was working very closely with the federal government on its national vaccination program.
"There is no off-the-shelf vaccine for mammals … we are the last place in the world to be going through this as a continent and no-one has found a vaccine to this point in the last five years when it comes to bird flu for mammals," Ms Bourke said.
"No other country has been able to come up with a way to say that we can control bird flu."
The Invasive Species Council chief executive Jack Gough said the confirmed case of bird flu in a fur seal was "devastating news for wildlife" because mammal-to-mammal transmission occurred quickly among seals when bird flu arrived in South America and Antarctica.
He said the detection in the long-nose fur seal was "really concerning because we know we can expect potential colony collapses", similar to what had occurred when 30,000 elephant seals died from bird flu in South America.
"Particularly, I'm worried about what this might mean for the Australian sea lions,"Mr Gough said.
"There's less than 10,000 of mature, breeding adult sea lions.
"This could be an extinction level event for that iconic Australian species.
"We are still just at the early stages of this devastating virus and the bad news is going to keep coming for our wildlife as it spreads around the continent and between species."
SA's chief vet Skye Fruean said the mammals most at risk of getting bird flu included predatory animals.
"The sort of mammals that might come into contact with birds most at risk of getting bird flu, so predatory animals, scavenging animals like cats," she said.
"We do expect that the seals and sea lions would be more at risk because this is the same strain that we have seen in Heard Island where we did see mass mortalities of seals."
She advised pet owners to keep their dogs on leads and cats indoors.
The government has advised anyone who sees sick or dead birds not to touch them or get close to them but to record their location and make a report.
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