A desperate attempt is under way outside the Australian city of Melbourne to save a group of birds. Every year, thousands of people watch little penguins on Phillip Island make their nightly parade from the water to their burrows. But bird flu, combined with an expected super El Niño, threatens to spell the end for thousands of penguins.
A relatively wet Australian winter and spring have slowed the spread of the flu. But most signs point to El Niño bringing a very dry and hot summer - something that, according to Darren Grover, a biodiversity expert at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), will increase the spread of the infection.
Birds will gather more and more densely, creating ideal conditions for the spread of the virus, he says.
10,000 doses of vaccine
About 40,000 little penguins live on Phillip Island, the largest colony in the world, across an area of about 20 square kilometres. In the evenings, they gather at the water's edge and walk together to their nests - a kind of superspreader event every night. In response, authorities in the state of Victoria have taken a crisis measure: vaccination. About 5,000 penguins will receive two doses of the vaccine, reports ABC.
"We don't know how successful this vaccination will be. It hasn't really been used on wild birds before," says Darren Grover.
But if we use the vaccine and it saves some of them, that's good, because in the worst-case scenario, most or all of them die.
But birds are not the only animals at risk of contracting bird flu, which climate change may help spread. Animals that eat birds or live near them, such as dingoes, opossums and Tasmanian devils (a marsupial), are also at risk of infection. These animals are found nowhere else. As the Australian summer approaches, concern is growing for these already vulnerable animals, as the heat itself poses a direct threat.
The heat is coming soon
During the summer of 2019-2020, also known as the “black summer,” Australia was hit by massive bushfires. Thirty-three people lost their lives as more than 17 million hectares burned between November and March. Three billion animals died or were displaced by the flames, most of them reptiles, according to a WWF report.
With two months to go until the official start of the Australian summer, the country is holding its breath over what the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has warned could be the strongest El Niño on record. The event's extreme nature is linked to climate change.
According to a report from the Climate Impact Lab at the University of Chicago, global land temperatures in the coming months will be 1.4 degrees Celsius higher than in a typical El Niño year. Up to 44 percent more days of extreme heat are expected.
The world must treat this as the urgent climate warning it is. El Niño conditions will add fuel to the fire in an increasingly warm world. The impacts will hit even harder, travel even further and cross borders with devastating speed, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said earlier this year.
“We have to test”
Although bird flu is not directly linked to climate change, there is a risk that the situation could become a vicious spiral. If forest fires and drought force animals into increasingly smaller areas, the virus could spread at an ever-increasing rate. In the worst case, this could lead to mass extinction, Darren Grover says.
The worst, devastating, scenario would be that we lose entire species.
The breeding season for penguins on Phillip Island began in August and runs until February. A first dose of the vaccine has already been given to a selection of penguins. Vaccination of wild birds is still at an experimental stage, but authorities hope it will save future generations of these waddling, community-minded birds.
Facts: Bird flu
Bird flu (avian influenza) is spread primarily between birds. The disease is caused by several different variants of the bird flu virus. Some types of the virus can infect humans, but this is very rare. No human has been infected in Sweden so far.
Bird flu occurs every year in Sweden and Europe in wild birds. Wild aquatic birds, such as ducks and geese, can carry the virus without becoming ill, and they can spread the infection to more susceptible bird species such as domestic chickens. Therefore, wild birds should not be fed near facilities with domestic birds.
There are different forms of bird flu. The highly pathogenic form causes very high mortality and epidemics that can spread rapidly, devastate the poultry industry and result in strict trade restrictions. The low-pathogenic form of the virus usually causes only mild symptoms.
Source: Swedish Board of Agriculture (the government agency for agriculture).
El Niño and La Niña are phases of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) weather cycle. El Niño warms the surface waters of the eastern Pacific Ocean, while La Niña cools them.
El Niño occurs on average every two to seven years and usually lasts nine to twelve months. It often peaks around Christmas, hence the name El Niño (the boy child - meaning Jesus).
El Niño effects, such as increased rainfall, typically affect parts of southern South America, the southern United States, the Horn of Africa and Central Asia, while severe drought can occur in Australia, Indonesia and parts of South Asia.
Sources: WMO, SMHI (Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute), NOAA
