More than 13,000 seal pups die on Heard Island amid H5N1 outbreak
More than 13,000 southern elephant seal pups have died on Heard Island, an Australian external territory in the subantarctic Indian Ocean, after testing confirmed the spread of H5N1 bird flu among wildlife on the island and nearby McDonald Island. Government scientists observed the mass mortality during drone and ground surveys carried out in October 2025 and January 2026. The deaths were recorded on Heard Island, about 4,000km south-west of Perth and 1,700km north of Antarctica.The findings, which have been submitted as a preprint research paper, say death rates among seal pups averaged 76% across the island and reached as high... [Continue Reading]
360LiveNews | 18 Jun 2026 06:33 LONDON
Sponsored
