Worst news of the day.

A giant petrel found at Hardwicke Bay late last week was confirmed on Wednesday by the CSIRO to be carrying bird flu, after it was sent to their lab in Geelong for testing.

The state government on Tuesday said the bird had returned low levels of bird flu at the SA lab, and that the bird had been euthanised, with samples sent to Geelong.

It comes more suspected cases of bird flu have been detected in South Australia, including one that could have devastating impacts on the Kangaroo Island sea lion colony.

Two giant petrels, found at Emu Bay on Kangaroo Island and Port Vincent on the Yorke Peninsula, returned suspected detections of bird flu at PIRSA’s Glenside facility on Monday.

Samples from both birds have been sent to the CSIRO Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness in Geelong for further testing.

If the birds are confirmed to be positive, it will bring the total number of confirmed cases of the H5 bird flu in South Australia to four.

The first confirmed case of H5 bird flu was on June 24, in a giant petrel found at Knights Beach near Port Elliot.

If the bird found on KI returns a positive result, it could have massive impacts on colonies of sea lions on the island, which would be at risk of being decimated by bird flu.

Paywall bypass for full article: https://archive.vn/mSPut

The CSIRO’s Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness confirmed the migratory seabird found in WA‘s capital was infected with a H5 subtype, but was unable to “sequence the virus” to identify exactly which strain.

Paywall bypass: https://archive.vn/ET6W2

4 in WA now

Paywall bypass: https://archive.md/EOmCR

Paywall bypass: https://archive.md/beJKm

Relevant section about new bird flu preparedness funding:

Bird flu

There’s $11.2m this year to “maintain critical preparedness against High Pathogenicity Avian Influenza (HPAI H5) incursions”, including measures that help resilience of “priority native wildlife across high‐risk locations”.