Beach tours paused as local bird flu spread ‘highly likely’
The state government has announced it is “highly likely” bird flu has been transmitted locally as it continues to investigate 11 suspected cases.
Beach tours at Kangaroo Island’s Seal Bay are being “temporarily paused” to keep people away from South Australia’s vulnerable sea lion population after the first case of suspected bird flu was discovered at the site, Primary Industries Minister Clare Scriven said today.
Scriven also said it was “highly likely” that 11 suspect cases of H5 Bird flu from SA would be found positive, meaning the disease had been transmitted locally.
“One of the things we are doing in regard to Kangaroo Island, given that one of those detections has been at Seal Bay, is temporarily pausing the on-the-beach tours so that people can be kept separate from the seals, knowing that the [sea lion] population is so very vulnerable,” Scriven said.
“Now, this is simply important so that less human interaction means that there are higher levels of resilience to all diseases and all stress or risks to the Seal Bay population.
“We know that we have a very low number of seals in Australia, 80 per cent are in South Australia, and so every precaution that we can put in place is going to be important.”
Scriven said boardwalk tours would continue to be open and the government was focused on having “as resilient populations as possible”, through work like feral cat control programs to protect the beloved Seal species.
An Environment and Water Department spokesperson told InDaily last week that a total of 38 feral cats were trapped and removed from the Seal Bay Conservation Park before the feral cat project was wound up on June 30– the week bird flu arrived in South Australia. There were fears the feral cats could spread the disease to the vulnerable population.
On Saturday, the government announced an extra $2.7 million to continue work to eradicate feral cats on Kangaroo Island by 2030, the new work focused on the Dudley Peninsula area – about an hour’s drive from Seal Bay.
Officials are now waiting on final results today in testing of 11 cases of suspected bird flu, all in greater crested terns, including seven found in the southeast of the state, and four on Kangaroo Island, including the one at Seal Bay.
The other three Kangaroo Island cases were found at Grace Bay. In the southeast, cases were found at Cape Jaffa, one at Port MacDonnell, and five around Southend Jetty, near Beachport.
Scriven said “this is concerning, but it’s certainly not unexpected”.
Stay informed, daily
It comes after Australian Chief Veterinary Officer Beth Cookson said on Tuesday that testing at CSIRO’s Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness had confirmed H5 bird flu in seven greater crested terns found in South Australia’s south-east.
There have now been 27 confirmed or presumed positive detections of H5 bird flu in Australia in the states of SA, Western Australia, NSW and Queensland. All have been wild seabirds found in coastal locations.
There have been no detections of H5 bird flu in poultry, captive birds, or pets and other wildlife or livestock, and no evidence of any mass mortality events.
Scriven said she had attended an industry preparedness day on Tuesday and had seen the technology that would be deployed in the event of an outbreak in a poultry facility.
Want to see more stories from InDaily SA in your Google search results?
- Click here to set InDaily SA as a preferred source.
- Tick the box next to "InDaily SA". That's it.
