Wildlife advocates warn bird flu mass mortality events are a sign of things to come

Wildlife advocates warn bird flu mass mortality events are a sign of things to come In short: Wildlife advocates are "devastated" over mass bird mortality events in South Australia and Tasmania. They are calling on federal and state governments to step up their response to save wildlife. The Invasive Species Council says it wants more funding to go to protecting wildlife amid the crisis. Environmental campaigners are warning the escalation of the nation's H5 bird flu outbreak is a sign of what's to come, after South Australia detected three mass mortality events believed to be linked to the infection. On the same day SA authorities revealed the death of more than 1,000 crested terns in three separate events, Tasmania also confirmed the loss of more than two dozen penguins and three crested terns. Testing is still required to confirm bird flu as the cause of the deaths in both states, but authorities believe that to be reason in a clear sign of the growing severity of the outbreak. The Invasive Species Council said it was "shocking" and "dreaded news". "It is only the start of the scale of deaths we can expect in the months ahead as the virus spreads," chief executive Jack Gough said. "The devastation from bird flu is becoming very real." He said Australia might soon face a similar reality to the bird flu outbreak in South America. "We look at South America, where we're talking hundreds of thousands of birds dead in the first few months and that's the scale of death that we can start to expect," Mr Gough said. "While a thousand birds sounds shocking, this is only the tip of the iceberg in terms if the level of devastation we're going to see and it's going to start becoming very real for people on coastlines around Australia and islands around Australia." Mr Gough said this could include inland, particularly around wetlands, where birds congregated. "Australian wildlife needs a bail out, it's facing a huge threat in the form of bird flu, one that we can't stop just as we weren't able to stop the algal bloom in South Australia or the black summer bushfires on the east coast," he said. "This could be worse than both of those incidents in terms of wildlife impact, and it is going to be very visible and increasingly visible around the whole country." He said a focus on protecting wildlife areas from other threats including cats, foxes and the destruction of habitat was also crucial. "That is what is going to be key to how wildlife survive and hopefully are able to thrive in the future after what's going to be a pretty devastating wave of destruction," he said. Will vaccination be effective? Last week, Victoria announced it would vaccinate 5,000 penguins on Phillip Island, after a bird from the island's colony was found to have died from H5N1 bird flu. In response to the mass mortality, SA's state Premier Peter Malinauskus yesterday said it would now consider a potential vaccination program "under certain circumstances for certain species", including penguins. Mr Gough said while vaccination was important, it was also not an easy solution to combat the issue. "It's something that potentially in limited circumstances, for some highly restricted species, ones in captivity or ones that are very easy to access can make a difference," he said. Wildlife Recovery Australia's Chief Executive Officer Dr Stephen Van Mil said vaccination was not a practical solution. "The reality it's only going to be confined to flightless birds," Mr Van Mil said. "As far as birds that can fly…you're not going to catch them, not once and definitely not twice." Mr Van Mil said following the mass mortality deaths this week, the organisation had appealed to the federal government to commission more mobile wildlife veterinary hospitals in every state across the country. "We know how to build them, we can build them quickly, we're just leaning on the federal government to make a decision," Mr Van Mil said. "We'd be collecting as many live birds as we could and euthanising them and dispose them appropriately, because if dead birds are left exposed, the other birds of prey will come and eat on them and then they will become infected. "It's really important even though we can't save birds affected by this horrible virus, that we can either humanely euthanise them and or dispose them appropriately."