South Australia has recorded the first death of an endangered Australian sea lion from H5 bird flu. Experts say about 12,000 Australian sea lions remain – though a more recent estimate put the figure at less than 10,000. Most of the population are found in South Australia, with the remainder in Western Australia.
On Sunday, the state’s environment minister, Emily Bourke, said the sea lion was found dead at Seal Bay on Kangaroo Island, the third-largest single colony. It’s an endangered species.” She said the sea lion had been recovering from a shark attack, but that bird flu had caused its death. It was the bird flu … we might find that this particular case was more susceptible because it was recovering.” The government said there had been no other known endangered sea lion deaths at Seal Bay, but it was monitoring the population closely.
Bourke said there was “no real” mammal vaccine that “you could get off the shelf at the moment”. Bourke said the population was already diminishing by 2% every year, even before the arrival of bird flu, which will have a “devastating impact” on population levels if no vaccine can be administered. They were impacted by bird flu,” she said.
We know that this is going to be not the first and only case of [the virus] going into our sea lions.” Last month, John Woinarski, a leading mammal scientist at Charles Darwin University, told Guardian Australia that he feared the virus would quickly start affecting more seals and sea lions. SA had confirmed Australia’s first case in a mainland mammal in August, after a dead long-nosed fur seal found at Beachport on the Limestone Coast tested positive for H5N1.
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