{"id":70094,"date":"2026-08-12T05:45:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T05:45:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/70094\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T05:45:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T05:45:15","slug":"melbourne-royal-show-bans-poultry-exhibitions-as-h5-bird-flu-cases-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/70094\/","title":{"rendered":"Melbourne Royal Show bans poultry exhibitions as H5 bird flu cases rise"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Melbourne Royal Show has cancelled poultry competitions and exhibitions for 2026 in the wake of surging H5 bird flu cases around the country.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The decision was made earlier today, and follows a state government announcement that Phillip Island’s wild population of little penguins would be vaccinated against the disease.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Event organisers say they hope to welcome poultry back to the show in 2027. (Melbourne Royal Show)<\/p>\n

Melbourne Royal Show executive general manager Hannah von Bibra said the committee had been in consultation with Agriculture Victoria and the state’s chief veterinary officer, with the health and wellbeing of all animals at the show being the number one priority.<\/p>\n

“Melbourne Royal is taking this precautionary step to protect the health and wellbeing of the Victorian poultry community,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Whilst there are currently no detections of H5N1 in Australian poultry, the situation is not predictable and, as such, we want to give our community as much certainty as possible.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The poultry exhibits and competitions were previously cancelled in 2024 due to the H7 bird flu outbreak. (Melbourne Royal Show)<\/p>\n

Ms von Bibra said the show committee was appreciative of the time and effort exhibitors put into preparing for the show, and hoped to welcome poultry back in 2027.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She told Statewide Drive<\/a> while there are no recorded H5 cases in poultry yet, the decision was made as a precaution.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“The show has been going for over 178 years and the poultry part of that for 150,” she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It’s absolutely a wonderful addition to our show. What it means is we’ve made this announcement to give real certainty of what is happening during this time.”<\/p>\n

Concerns for the show were raised at the weekend,<\/a> with a number of other poultry shows taking place across regional Victoria.<\/p>\n

The Royal Adelaide Show has also cancelled bird competitions ahead of next month’s event due to bird flu concerns.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Melbourne Royal Show has cancelled poultry competitions and exhibitions for 2026 in the wake of surging H5…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70095,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[94782,30140,14693,30241,260,30769,17334],"class_list":["post-70094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-melbourne","tag-agricultural-show","tag-bird-flu","tag-birds","tag-h5","tag-melbourne","tag-poultry","tag-show"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}