Surveillance Intensifies on NSW Coast After Suspected H5 Bird Flu Case

Surveillance efforts have intensified on the Mid North Coast after a giant petrel found on Bennetts Beach in Hawks Nest was announced on Friday as a suspected case of the H5N1 virus. The bird washed up opposite Cabbage Tree Island, which hosts the main breeding colony of Australia’s rarest seabird, Gould’s petrel.

Five hundred personnel are searching the state’s beaches for seabirds sick with the virus. They are racing against scavengers such as dingoes, gulls and sea eagles that could carry the pathogen into native wildlife populations.

4.4b emerged in 2021 and has killed hundreds of millions of birds overseas while also affecting seal colonies. The government considers the risk to native wildlife as potentially catastrophic. Wedge-tailed eagles, Tasmanian devils and black swans are among the species identified as at risk.

Experts have raised extinction concerns for the remaining 12,000 Australian sea lions, noting that recovery for affected colonies could take the length of a human lifetime.

Gould’s petrel was removed from the endangered species list in 2009 after rabbit eradication allowed undergrowth to recover on Cabbage Tree Island. The species has since established breeding colonies on nearby islands. The petrels have not yet returned from their winter grounds in the central Pacific, reducing their immediate exposure risk.

A Gould’s petrel expert stated that no population of burrowing, crevice-nesting seabirds has been significantly impacted by H5N1 elsewhere. Authorities have urged members of the public to report dead or sick birds from a distance. Greater risk of mass die-offs is expected in September and October when migratory and native species overlap during breeding season.