Australia has launched a vaccination campaign targeting little penguin colonies in Victoria after H5N1 bird flu arrived in the country on June 20. The campaign focuses on colonies at St Kilda and Phillip Island, which authorities identified as priority sites.
Little penguins were selected for vaccination because they are flightless, live in colonies and return each night to the same burrows, making them easier to capture for the two-dose vaccination process, according to Julie Old, an associate professor in biology and animal science at Western Sydney University.
So far, 1,000 penguins have been vaccinated. The campaign comes after wild birds died from the virus and prompted concerns about wildlife. As of now, no confirmed infections have occurred in domestic animals such as poultry, authorities said.
The vaccination announcement drew criticism online from people skeptical of vaccination efforts. The backlash prompted social media users to note that anti-vaccination voices, sometimes called "cookers" in Australian slang, were expected to oppose the measure. The term, which originated during the COVID-19 pandemic, has since been adopted to describe people who believe various conspiracy theories.
The situation has escalated in South Australia, where authorities declared a "significant escalation" in H5 bird flu after detecting three mass mortality events involving more than 1,000 greater crested terns. Officials also were investigating a suspected H5N1 case in a little penguin on Kangaroo Island and 28 penguin deaths on King Island in Tasmania. In a separate development, officials detected bird flu in a seal in South Australia, marking the first confirmed case of H5N1 in mammals in the country.