Full Transcript for Confirmed Bird Flu case on the Fleurieu Peninsula

Speaker 3: We're just looking at it. 00:02:48 Speaker 2: Yeah, it was good timing. 00:02:50 Speaker 3: Yeah, who took the picture? 00:02:53 Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure it was Anthony Rowlands. 00:02:56 Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure one of the one of your safer mates. Yeah, yeah, no, it's an amazing chot, beautiful looking bird to the poor thing. 00:03:04 Speaker 2: Yeah, well one we'll talk about it. Because there was one landed there about a week beforehand, and another mate helped it out and he got bitten by it. Butposally that one came back with not having a bird for you. 00:03:19 Speaker 3: Yeah right, okay, so luckily. 00:03:21 Speaker 2: Because yeah he got bitten pretty bad. 00:03:23 Speaker 3: But we like Drew blood. Oh yeah, yeah right, wow, yeah, I suppose they've got strong beaks given their diet. 00:03:32 Speaker 1: Well, Aaron, thank you for that's quite an insight. And how were you in his first contact with you know what is patient zero in this whole thing? Aaron Brand, local surfer who was pictured in that shot. You're going to see a lot of if you missed it in the news last night, I suspect over the next twenty four hours, Professor Hugh Possing and from Bird Life Australia joins us on five double a breakfast, professor, passing him a good morning to you. This is one of these petrels. Is it not tell us about these birds? Because how often do we would we have them landing here in South Australia. 00:04:02 Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a southern giant petrol. They do turn up regularly. They're what's called pelagic, which just means they feed in the open ocean. In general. They will have bred down on the sub Antarctic islands. Of course, when winter comes it gets very cold down there, so after breeding the juveniles and the adults come up here and they typically feed offshore. I mean I had used to go to Victor Harville when I was young. I remember seeing one in my youth on a beach, so it's not unusual to see the odd bird. Often it's a bird that's not completely well. But you know, we're getting some storms coming through soon from the west and the southwest and nat'll often push these birds closer to inland areas if they're sick and unwell. And there's a lot of these pelagic species we're talking about. This includes petrols, sheer waters, skewers, albatrosses, and if they're not well, they may well they can just feed out in the open ocean and they can sit on the sea, but if they're not well, they may land on beaches and headlands, and so that's where to look for them. If you look at Birds South Australia website, you can see distribution maps of all these pelagic species and you can see there are many records. In fact, some people just specialized in looking for them because they're interesting and they're unusual. 00:05:21 Speaker 3: So Professor Possingham at the moment, is it just sort of a coincidence based on where the viruses that it's been these seabirds that are getting it, or is it just as likely that it could end up being something that affects sort of more land based birds like parrots and so forth. 00:05:41 Speaker 4: Yeah, it's most likely to move to species that are water birds and congregate. And these seabirds do congregate when they breed. On these Antarctic islands, we have a lot of congregatory seabirds as well, like terns and cormorants, and they nest in big colonies, particularly in islands. If you're looking around Poor Idiot and the Southern Coast and all those islands, they're often full of seabirds, So that's the first places it tends to turn up. And these southern giant petrols which the guy mentioned at biting him, I mean, they're quite vicious predatory, very large seabirds, so that's why they bite. Most seabirds aren't like that they are turning up, and they could spread it to resident breeding things like turns. But also when you get into the freshwater systems like estuaries. The other group of bird that three susceptible are the waterfowl, the ducks, the geese, and the swans. Of course, the black swan are iconic black swan. They tend to congregate a lot in the winter and we're talking about coastal areas. Those people who know the Korong Victor Harbor. We've got these estorine semi saline areas where there are waterbirds that could mingle with these pelagics, these ocean birds, and that's how it could spread into those populations, ensure birds and finally predatory birds. So there are predators that scavenge for birds, and if they're dead on the beach because they are overwhelmed by the bird flu, a lot of birds will get it and survive. It's a bit like any other disease in humans. Some people do well, some people do badly, some species do well, some species do badly. But if they were to pre date on a carcass, that is another form of transmission to a predatory bird. So anything to be getting it. Yes, it can get around quickly and it does spread extremely. We're very very lucky it hasn't arrived yet in Australia. I mean it's just right now, but we're the last continent in the world to get this very highly pathnogenic version of bird flu. There is bird flu around all the time, but this human flu around all the times. It's just this particular strain causes often a lot of mortality in birds. 00:07:49 Speaker 3: Yeah, no, absolutely, thank you for that great explanation, Professor Hugh Possingham. They're the President of bird Life Australia.