Outbreak of H5N1 virus causing bird deaths in Antarctica

H5N1 bird flu was first discovered in a dead bird in Antarctica. Fatal tensions in avian flu are currently spreading south along the Antarctic Peninsula, with devastating consequences for wildlife such as penguins and could spread across the continent.

“It’s scary. Luckily, it only affects a few. [birds]”I say Juliana Viana at the Pope Catholic University of Chile in Santiago. “I hope it stays that way, but the bird flu in Chile and Peru was a disaster. It killed thousands of seabirds and sea lions.”

Between November 2024 and January 2025, Vianna’s team investigated 16 nesting sites for seabirds along the Antarctic Peninsula. Researchers found 35 dead Skuas with no signs of injury. Samples from 11 bodies were found to be positive for the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza virus that has spread around the world in recent years.

Skuas removes corpses and is ahead of other birds, so eating infected birds is particularly likely to cause infection. Skuas in this area are hybrids between the Antarctic (Stercorarius Maccormicki) and brown (Stercorarius Antarcticus)SKUAS.

So far, no other species of birds have been confirmed, but Vianna says she was also said to have been found dead on March 9th. “We spoke with the Chilean Antarctic Institute,” she says. “They saw the dead squau and the penguin.”

As penguins breed in dense colonies, there is a fear that H5N1 spreads rapidly between them, killing most of several groups. Some penguin species may be resistant, as birds’ susceptibility to H5N1 varies from species to species, Vianna said.

The highly pathogenic form of H5N1 avian influenza has been circulating in Europe, Asia and Africa since 2020, killing many wild birds and causing outbreaks on poultry farms. For example, in the UK, H5N1 was killed A quarter of Gannett 2023.

In 2021, it arrived in North America and was later found to infect dairy cows’ breasts and spread between them. By the end of 2022 it had spread to the southern tip of South America, killing thousands of marine mammals and many different species of birds along the way.

The sick brown squat and giant plaster on Bird Island, just off a large island in South Georgia, tested positive for the virus in 2023. South Georgia is approximately 1,500 km from the Antarctic Peninsula.

Vianna’s team in December 2023 and January 2024 Signs of infection discovered in some living Adelie penguins and Antarctic shags At the northernmost tip of the peninsula. The presence of viruses on the continent has now been confirmed.

“Reported deaths of SKUAS are of concern,” he says. Thijs Kuiken At Rotterdam, the University of Erasmus, Netherlands. Some species in the area are only found on small islands and could be wiped out by avian flu, he says.

However, the tests described in Vianna’s study only show that SKUA has been infected with H5 influenza, and Kuiken does not know whether it is a highly pathogenic form.

Vianna says that’s correct, but samples were sent for additional tests not detailed in the paper. “So it’s been confirmed as a highly pathogenic avian flu,” she says.

On February 25th, another group of researchers reported Find H5N1 in the Closet and Kergellen archipelago In the Indian Ocean near Antarctica, where the virus killed elephant seals and several species of birds. That is, the virus moved towards Australia and New Zealand along the way in Antarctica. This is the only major country that is free from the virus.