Avian Influenza

Saturday, 1 August 2026, 4:08 pm

Saturday, 1 August 2026, 5:52 pm

Many dead and sick greater crested terns on a South Australian island are being tested for H5 bird flu.

In short:

Testing for H5 bird flu is happening for many dead and sick greater crested terns found on an island in South Australia.

There are now 53 confirmed cases of bird flu in Australia, including one seagull at Robe.

What's next?

South Australian authorities will keep watching from the air and monitoring the hotline, but will stop testing where bird flu is already known.

More than 80 dead and sick birds were found off the south-east coast of South Australia.

The birds are being tested for H5 bird flu in Adelaide, but are not considered 'suspected cases' yet.

Aerial surveillance found 49 dead and 35 sick greater crested terns on an island called Baudin Rocks.

The SA Chief Veterinary Officer, Skye Fruean, thinks it is unlikely that the tests will come back negative for the H5 strain.

We need to wait for the lab results, but given the large number of sick and dead terns, we expect bad news.

A mass mortality event is when many animals die at the same time, which is unusual and significant.

We knew this would happen eventually, and unfortunately, it's happening fast.

The SA Chief Veterinary Officer describes the bird deaths on Baudin Rocks as a mass mortality event.

The island was surveyed two weeks ago, but now there are many sick and dead birds.

The aerial surveillance team collected a small sample for testing, but did not euthanize any birds.

The mass mortality event will change how we respond to and understand the impact on wildlife in South Australia.

There has been a change in the number of bird flu cases, from migratory to localized spread, and now to large numbers around the coastline.

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