You can’t give a cockatoo a face mask. There’s only one way to fight bird flu

August 7, 2026 — 3:30pm

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How does one prepare Australian birds for the arrival of the deadly H5N1 avian influenza virus – a virus with no treatment and no cure? Has Environment Minister Murray Watt spent the past few years handing out P2 face masks to cockatoos and teaching eastern rosellas the finer points of social distancing?

As absurd as that sounds, that’s the impression one gets from the federal government as it becomes clear that bird flu has established itself in native bird populations in South Australia. “Don’t panic,” they say, “we’ve been preparing for years.”

But a quick look at the government’s bird flu preparation shows how woefully prepared we are to protect our wildlife from this virus.

The H5N1 virus is deadly. Not to humans but to birds and animals the world over. Recently, on the remote Heard and McDonald Islands, over 13,000 elephant seal pups died after the virus swept through breeding colonies – a staggering number that will have generational impacts on the population of this remarkable marine mammal.

The virus has caused heartbreaking devastation on every continent but ours, killing hundreds of millions of animals. Now it is here.

‘List of doom’: Bird flu puts........

© The Sydney Morning Herald