Bird flu strikes elephant seals

Dead elephant seals

Do you know what's happening to plant and animal species that Indigenous peoples rely on in Amazonia? How about Siberian tigers in the taiga? Or the miniscule Macaya breast-spot frog of Haiti?

Because there are so many consequential environmental and conservation issues, taking in the full scope of the challenges facing nature can feel overwhelming to me. But if we don't know about them, we won't care. And if we don't care, we aren't spurred to action. So, from time to time in my twice-monthly blog posts, I hightlight situations largely overlooked by news media. If you find them important or interesting, please share my posts using the social media buttons I provide beneath each post.

Today's post concerns an ongoing tradgedy that might easily go unnoticed because it's occuring in a remote part of the world. I came across it in BBC reporting.

A strain of deadly avain influenza (bird flu), known as H5N1 virus, has infected and killed untold millions of birds around the world. First detected in poultry farms in China in1996, a mutated form of the virus has spread among wild bird populations in recent years. And by 2022, it began infecting a variety of domestic and wild mammal species (including humans on occassion) and transmitting directly from mammal to mammal -- species that include marine mammals such as southern elephant seals. Recently puiblished research reveals that bird flu infection of the elephant seal population at Penninsula Valdes of Argentina has produced a mass die-off, beginning in 2023. A 2025 survey indicated the seal population had declined by 60%.

"Before 2023, it was impossible to think that a healthy population like the one in Penninsula Valdes could become endangered from one year to another," said biologist Valeria Falabella, seashore conservation director at the Wildlife Conservation Society. "This is a warning," she adds, noting that climate change brings additional risks and uncertainties for the species. Another researcher estimates that it could take 70 years for the elephant seal population to recover, assuming no other disease outbreaks or other environmental issues occur. Fat chance, I'd say.

In addition to elephant seals, bird flu is causing mortality in sea lions, fur seals, penguins, and other species in the southern oceans. Die offs of such apex predators and keystone species has implications for the broader ecology, as described in the BBC reporting.