{"id":179653,"date":"2025-11-14T03:50:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T03:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/179653\/"},"modified":"2025-11-14T03:50:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T03:50:13","slug":"bird-flu-slams-seals-and-sea-lions-in-the-southern-hemisphere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/179653\/","title":{"rendered":"Bird flu slams seals and sea lions in the Southern Hemisphere"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For the last year and a half, Americans have watched and worried as H5N1 bird flu racked dairy herds and killed hundreds of millions of commercially raised chickens, turkeys and ducks. <\/p>\n

But far less widely known is that the virus has devastated wildlife<\/a> across the globe, killing millions of wild birds and mammals.<\/p>\n

Few animals have been harder hit than elephant seals, sea lions and fur seals in the Southern Hemisphere. In some places thousands of carcasses and orphaned pups have littered the beaches. <\/p>\n

On Thursday, a research team led by Connor Bamford, a marine ecologist with the British Antarctic Survey, reported a 47% drop in breeding females <\/a>between 2022 and 2024 in the three largest elephant seal colonies on South Georgia Island. <\/p>\n

\"Elephant <\/p>\n

Elephant seals stricken with avian flu at one of South Georgia\u2019s largest colonies.<\/p>\n

(British Antarctic Survey)<\/p>\n

The elephant seals of South Georgia Island, located between South America and Antarctica in the South Atlantic, are the largest breeding colony on the planet. <\/p>\n

The virus hit there in 2023, Bamford said, and researchers were there to see it. But it was their visit in 2024 that really drove the devastation home.<\/p>\n

\u201cNormally there\u2019s about 6,000 seals on St. Andrews Bay,\u201d he said, describing a two-mile strip of beach along the northeastern side of the island. Usually it\u2019s hard to make your way through the animals, it\u2019s so jam-packed.<\/p>\n

But in 2024, \u201cit was easy. There were massive gaps. There were so few of them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Other large breeding colonies \u2014 including along the Argentinian coast, as well as several other islands north of the Antarctic Circle \u2014 have also been hit. In 2023, UC Davis researchers reported that nearly 97% of elephant seal pups died at Argentina\u2019s Peninsula Valdes, the most deaths ever recorded for this species.<\/p>\n

According to Ralph Vanstreels, a marine ecologist with UC Davis who is researching the animals in Argentina, two-thirds of southern elephant seal colonies are now infected. Only those near New Zealand and Australia have been spared.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re just holding our breath,\u201d in hopes the virus doesn\u2019t get there, he said. <\/p>\n

Vanstreels said genetic analyses show the strain of virus circulating in Argentina acquired mutations allowing it to pass easily between mammals. He said it\u2019s not yet clear whether the virus that has hit other elephant seals and pinnipeds in the region carries the same mutations. <\/p>\n

Nor does anyone know whether the virus will move north to populations along the California coast \u2014 or into people.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s left a deadly wake. <\/p>\n

Reports of southern sea lions, fur seals and crabeater seals dying en masse have come in from across the region.<\/p>\n

Vanstreels and Bamford say there\u2019s no way to know the full extent of the virus\u2019 toll on these animals. Many of these species, such as crabeater seals, are so remote that there are few, if any human observers to witness the devastation.<\/p>\n

More than 30,000 sea lions in Peru and Chile died between 2022 and 2024. In Argentina, roughly 1,300 sea lions and fur seals perished. <\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

A researcher launches a drone on the island of South Georgia, home to the world\u2019s largest southern elephant seal population.<\/p>\n

(British Antarctic Survey)<\/p>\n

Vanstreels said researchers don\u2019t yet have any clear idea about why northern elephant seals and marine mammals in the north Pacific, including those that breed along the California coast, have been spared.<\/p>\n

He said the strain circulating off the North American Pacific coast doesn\u2019t carry the mutations seen in South America, so that may be why. There may also be differences in population densities or in the local marine ecosystem.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think the South American sea lion played a big role in transmission, carrying the virus along the coast and perhaps introducing it to the elephant seal population,\u201d he said. \u201cMaybe the areas where the Northern elephant seal lives don\u2019t have as good a vector for the infection to be spread.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bamford and Vanstreels say the loss of this many animals will probably affect the broader ecosystem as well. <\/p>\n

For example, elephant seal placentas are a major source of food for a variety of coastal animals, such as birds and crabs. In addition, the seals\u2019 deep-sea foraging brings nutrients to the ocean surface, where fish, kelp, shrimp and other sea life depend on their waste and refuse for sustenance.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou get rid of half of their population, that\u2019s going to have an impact,\u201d Vanstreels said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the last year and a half, Americans have watched and worried as H5N1 bird flu racked dairy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179654,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[273],"tags":[5665,394,50660,101555,18,31712,101557,19,17,46509,101559,6869,5053,12421,133,76783,101556,698,101558,461],"class_list":{"0":"post-179653","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-animal","9":"tag-argentina","10":"tag-bird-flu","11":"tag-connor-bamford","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-elephant-seal","14":"tag-fur-seal","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-mammal","18":"tag-marine-ecologist","19":"tag-million","20":"tag-mutation","21":"tag-population","22":"tag-science","23":"tag-sea-lion","24":"tag-vanstreel","25":"tag-virus","26":"tag-wild-bird","27":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115546018799469898","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}