The H5N1 bird flu has landed

The H5N1 strain of bird flu was confirmed in New Zealand yesterday after a brown skua tested positive, writes Henry Oliver in today’s excerpt from The Bulletin.

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The H5N1 strain of bird flu – the highly infectious variant that has swept across the Northern Hemisphere since 2020 and recently reached Australia – was confirmed in New Zealand yesterday after a brown skua found on Petone Beach in Wellington tested positive. Biosecurity minister Andrew Hoggard confirmed the result, telling reporters at 1News the government was well prepared and agencies were already working with industry and councils to protect poultry, wildlife and communities. The timing was no surprise: just the day before, Hoggard had told RNZ’s Checkpoint the arrival “could be any day now.”

New Zealand has had bird flu before – in December 2024, the H7N6 strain was detected at a chicken farm in Otago, leading to the culling of more than 150,000 chickens – but H5N1 is considered significantly more dangerous because it spreads more easily between wild birds, and because of the scale of wildlife deaths it has caused internationally.

Why skuas? And how does it spread?

The brown skua is one of two seabirds (along with the giant petrel) identified by researchers as likely vectors for H5N1’s spread from South America to Australasia, RNZ reported. Research director Christophe Barbraud of the French National Centre for Scientific Research said skuas and giant petrels were “highly exposed to contamination” because they prey on live animals and scavenge on dead carcasses. Skuas can also be infected by birds they harass into regurgitating food. Birds can transmit the virus through mucus, saliva, faeces or by eating infected carcasses.

Massey University professor Brett Gartrell said the arrival was “always going to be soon” and urged anyone seeing sick birds to report them to MPI immediately, saying wildlife hospitals should begin triaging seabirds, waterfowl and raptors before bringing them into contact with other birds.

The threat to endangered species

The biggest concern is what H5N1 might do to New Zealand’s vulnerable native wildlife. Massey University infectious disease epidemiology professor Nigel French told RNZ’s Lauren Crimp that if the virus reached small endangered populations – particularly seabirds like the fairy tern, of which there are very few remaining – “it could result in an extinction.”

He pointed to overseas examples where 90% of some sea lion populations had been killed. “There may be very little we could do to protect non-contained wildlife populations,” he said. “We just have to hope that many of them will not succumb in the same way that some of these populations have overseas.”

DOC has begun vaccinating 300 core breeding birds from five of the country’s most endangered species – kākāpō, takahē, shore plover, kaki/black stilt and kākāriki karaka/orange-fronted parakeet. Otago University evolutionary virologist Jemma Geoghegan said there was no reason for public panic, and that New Zealand could draw on years of international experience to guide surveillance and wildlife monitoring. “The priority now is to understand how widely the virus may be circulating and whether this is an isolated detection or evidence of broader spread.”

PSA: If you see three or more sick or dead wild birds in a group, report it immediately to the exotic pest and disease hotline on 0800 80 99 66. 

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