Australia is bracing for severe reductions in some bird and mammal populations as bird flu spreads, and the federal government has already ranked the threat level of more than 2,000 native birds and animals. Five of them are likely not to make it. Hundreds more are expected to suffer a severe reduction in population size. That’s the machinery of triage laid bare: a state list sorting living species from low to extreme risk while the virus keeps moving.
The federal government released the rankings based on vulnerability and susceptibility, along with habitat, ecology, behaviour and information discovered in overseas outbreaks. The Herald petrel, listed as critically endangered, is under extreme threat. So are the endangered Christmas Island frigate and the Houtman Abrolhos lesser noddy, imperial shag and Heard shag, which are regarded as vulnerable species. The list reads like an inventory of collapse.
Who Gets Left to the Virus
Invasive Species Council CEO Jack Gough called the list devastating. "The results are shocking, it really is a list of doom," he said. He added, "Five bird species facing 'extreme risk' … basically if bird flu gets into these populations, extinction is what we can expect." That’s not abstract policy language. That’s a warning from someone watching the state’s categories meet ecological reality.
Gough said more than 80 different endangered and critically endangered species had a high or worse threat ranking. The endangered Tasmanian devil and eastern quolls were among the highest-ranked mammals at risk. They would be likely to survive the virus, but their populations would be severely reduced. A number of species of dolphins, whales, sea lions and seals were also likely to experience significant impacts to their populations if infected by H5 bird flu.
The first mass mortality of Australian wildlife from the deadly H5 bird flu was confirmed on an island off South Australia's south-east coast earlier this week. Epidemiologist Raina MacIntyre said the bird flu strain had mutated to one that was highly concerning. "This virus, which is a special mutation that arose in 2020, has really caused an unprecedented pattern," Professor MacIntyre said. "What we've seen in other countries is how it's just swept through and decimated different species."
What They Say They’re Doing
Federal Environment Minister Murray Watt said it was likely bird flu would start spreading inland after dozens of coastal detections, and the spring breeding season brought additional risk factors. "This is likely to be a very serious event," he said. "We are the last continent in the world to have bird flu, it's quite remarkable that it hasn't come here already but what that's meant is that we have had time … to make sure we're as well prepared as we possibly can be."
Watt said the government had invested about $47 million over the last couple of years in building up the populations of its most threatened species around Australia. "Some of that's by removing feral cats, feral pigs, other kinds of invasive species that are reducing those populations," he said. The language is tidy. The scale is not. The virus is already here, and the people making the decisions are still talking about preparation after the first mass mortality has been confirmed.
Gough said the biosecurity response had been excellent, but funding to protect wildlife had gone backwards. "We won't be able to stop bird flu spreading through wildlife, so the best response to that needs to be dealing with all the other threats," he said. He said "the foxes, the cats, the rats on islands, making sure wetlands are well connected, that we're not seeing habitat destruction occurring in key nesting areas; that work hasn't been happening at a scale which reflects the seriousness of this list." He said an emergency $200 million investment was needed into wildlife resilience, separate to the government's biosecurity response. "The work on where those projects should be has already been done by state governments," he said. "What's missing is funding. This should have been funded three years ago when we started preparing [for bird flu] but the next best time is right now before the spring breeding season."
The Bottom Line for the Bottom Ranks
Professor MacIntyre said there was also little information on how susceptible Australian marsupials and monotremes may be to bird flu. "We have these unique species of wildlife that don't exist anywhere else in the world and it's unknown," Professor MacIntyre said. Unknown, and still exposed.
Watt said the challenges to vaccinating wild bird populations were too great, and trials were underway to see if it was viable for birds in captivity. "It requires two doses of vaccines, and it's hard enough to catch these birds once, let alone twice to give them a booster, so realistically it's not possible to vaccinate native birds," he said. "But we've been funding a lot of work in captive breeding, so in zoos or other facilities, building up the populations of some of our more threatened birds, and that's where we could potentially be looking at vaccination in that captive environment."
That leaves the wild where it’s always been left: exposed, monitored, and counted after the damage starts. The federal government’s ranking system can name the danger. It can’t stop the virus from moving through the species it has already sorted into categories of survival and loss.