A deadly strain of bird flu has swept the globe, and Australia is the last uninfected continent. Preparations for the carnage have just begun.
Environmental officers will soon be vaccinating wild populations of endangered animals against an inevitable outbreak of deadly bird flu, breeding captive “insurance” populations of threatened species and picking up carcasses to limit the spread of the disease.
“With Australian marsupials – we don’t know whether they will be more, or less, susceptible to transmission,” Plibersek said. “We’re trying to make sure that we can get as much information as we can about any uniquely Australian responses to this variant of bird flu. The saddest and most important lesson is that it is likely to lead to mass mortalities, so insurance populations of animals are particularly important.
In North America there is a program to vaccinate the world’s largest bird of prey, the endangered condor, as well as penguins in South Africa and ground-nesting birds in New Zealand.Invasive Species Council advocacy director Jack Gough said wildlife experts were forecasting a crisis in which entire species of native birds and mammals could be wiped out forever.
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