Authorities race to combat the threat of bird flu

From The Saturday Paper, 3 August 2024:

The beaches of South America’s south-eastern and western coastlines are breeding grounds for sea lions. Every year, hundreds of thousands of these marine mammals converge in riotous crowds along the sandy and rocky beaches that stretch from Lima and Rio de Janeiro down to the southern-most tip of the continent.

In early 2023, something went catastrophically wrong. Scientists visiting areas that should have been full of noisy, stinking sea lions and elephant seals found instead silent beaches.

“Almost 20,000 animals that should be there were not there,” says virus ecologist Michelle Wille, a senior research fellow at Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Melbourne. “They just found carcasses and carcasses and carcasses on the beach.” Scientists report that at least 24,000 sea lions died in the region in the first few months of 2023. Read more (paywall).