A very contagious strain of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) is wreaking havoc on elephant seals (Mirounga leonina) on the coast of Patagonia, Argentina. According to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), almost 96 percent of elephant seal pups living at three breeding sites where the H5N1 strain of HPAI was detected have died. The WCS team estimates 17,000 elephant seal pups died in these areas in 2023.
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“It’s the first report of massive elephant seal mortality in the area from any cause in the last half century. The sight of elephant seals found dead or dying along the breeding beaches can only be described as apocalyptic,” WCS Executive Director of Health Chris Walzer said in a statement. “This 2023 die-off contrasts starkly with the 18,000 pups born and successfully weaned in 2022.”
The WCS believes that the elephant seals had little to no interaction with infected bird populations, which is further evidence of mammal to mammal transmission. According to veterinarian Marcela Uhart at the University of California, Davis, since newborn elephant seal pups suckle their mothers to feed, there is little chance that the pups ate infected birds. “This is all highly suggestive of some sort of transmission between mammals,” Uhart told New Scientist.
H5N1 was first detected in 1996 in China. The virus had been largely confined to domesticated birds for several years, but has been spreading quickly in wild populations since 2021. H5N1 infected over 150 domestic and wild bird species around the world. Over 500,000 birds in South America alone have died from the disease. H5N1 has also killed more than 2,200 Dalmatian pelicans in Greece and about 20,000 Sandwich terns in the Netherlands.
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