Arabic version: جزيرة فيليب تلقّح البطاريق الصغيرة مع ارتفاع حالات H5N1

According to SBS News, scientists are working to vaccinate Victoria’s 5,000-strong little penguin colony on Phillip Island against H5N1 bird flu after a second suspected case was identified in a South Australian seal.

Five suspected H5 bird flu cases were recorded in South Australia on Monday, including a long-nosed fur seal at The Pages Conservation Park, the state’s Department of Primary Industries and Regions said. Test results for the seal were expected in the coming days. The first confirmed mammal case in Australia was a long-nosed fur seal at Beachport, 300km south of Adelaide, confirmed on Sunday.

Environment Minister Murray Watt said spread from birds to mammals was inevitable and warned Australia was likely to experience mass mortalities among birds and mammals, as seen overseas. Agriculture Minister Julie Collins said the federal government was examining research into vaccines for mammals, though none was commercially available.

Vaccinations have been rolled out for at-risk species, including Phillip Island’s little penguins. Penguins were corralled into pens for the first of two doses on Sunday night. Their routine of returning to the same burrows along the same paths has made the colony suitable for the program, reserve manager Ben Thomas said.

Thomas said teams had worked late into the night for a week to refine the process, initially using quieter penguin pathways before moving to the western end of the penguin parade, where numbers are larger. A further 600 penguins were vaccinated over the weekend, bringing the number receiving a first dose at Phillip Island and St Kilda to about 1,000.