The federal government has ranked more than 2,000 native birds and mammals by how likely they are to survive the spread of the H5 strain of bird flu, with five species likely not to make it and hundreds more expected to suffer a "severe reduction" in population size.
Who Gets Left to Face It
The list lays out, in cold bureaucratic language, which creatures are most exposed when the virus moves through the country’s wildlife. The federal government released the ranking from low to extreme risk based on vulnerability and susceptibility, while also weighing habitat, ecology, behaviour and information from overseas outbreaks. That’s the apparatus doing what it always does: sorting life into categories while the damage closes in.
The Herald petrel, listed as critically endangered, is under "extreme threat" along with the endangered Christmas Island frigate and the Houtman Abrolhos lesser noddy, imperial shag and Heard shag, which are regarded as "vulnerable species." Invasive Species Council CEO Jack Gough called the results "shocking" and said, "It really is a list of doom." He added, "Five bird species facing 'extreme risk' … basically if bird flu gets into these populations, extinction is what we can expect."
Gough said more than 80 different endangered and critically endangered species had a "high" or worse threat ranking. That’s the hierarchy in plain sight: the most fragile species, already pushed to the edge, now get handed another round of exposure while officials publish rankings and hope the numbers hold.
What the Bottom Endures
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. She said, "This virus, which is a special mutation that arose in 2020, has really caused an unprecedented pattern," and added, "What we've seen in other countries is how it's just swept through and decimated different species."
MacIntyre also said there was 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," she said. Unknown, but still exposed. That’s the whole arrangement in one sentence.
What They Call Preparedness
Gough said the biosecurity response had been "excellent," but funding to protect wildlife had gone backwards. He said, "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," and added, "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. He said, "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 language is blunt because the stakes are blunt. The state can rank species, issue warnings and announce preparedness, but the work that actually keeps wildlife alive gets measured against budgets and delayed until the season turns.
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." He said, "This is likely to be a very serious event," and added, "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. He said some of that work involved removing feral cats, feral pigs and other invasive species. He also said vaccine trials were underway, but the challenges to vaccinating wild bird populations were too great. "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, adding, "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’s the shape of it: a government that can count the endangered, a council warning of doom, and a wildlife system forced to survive inside a managed collapse. The virus moves. The rankings follow. The rest is damage control.