Poultry farms across Western Australia have been placed under lockdown after the lethal H5N1 bird flu was detected on the Australian mainland, with testing confirming a second wild bird was also infected.
Ingham’s Group, the country’s biggest poultry producer, said on Monday it had moved to a “complete lockdown” of its WA operations, even though the virus has not been found in commercial flocks.
The action followed confirmation over the weekend that a brown skua found on an isolated beach near Esperance was carrying the “highly pathogenic” H5N1 strain. The WA government said both infected birds have since died.
Ministers said on Monday that a giant petrel discovered several kilometres away had also returned a positive result for the H5 strain, as authorities revealed more than 50 reports of sick or dead birds had been made to a government hotline.
Until H5N1 was confirmed in Australia, the nation had been the only continent where the virus had not been detected. Since 2021, the disease has killed millions of birds and thousands of marine mammals worldwide.
Ingham’s said it would seek approval from the state government to house free-range chickens indoors, while also suspending all nonessential access to its sites as a precaution.
WA’s chief veterinary officer, Dr Michelle Rodan, said the emergency animal disease hotline received 42 calls on Sunday from “multiple locations around the state” regarding sick or dead birds, following 16 calls the day before.
After assessing the risk of a possible H5 infection, authorities collected nine samples for testing, including from reports of dead seabirds around Esperance, where the infected skua and petrel had been found unwell.
Australia’s chief veterinary officer, Dr Beth Cookson, said there was “no indication [the disease] has spread to other populations”.
She told ABC’s Radio National the virus had not been detected in wildlife, poultry or agricultural systems. But Cookson said authorities were trying to work out whether the infected birds had spread the disease to other populations.
“Our approach is to really learn from the overseas experience and look at the practical actions that can be put in place to mitigate the impacts as far as possible,” she said on Monday.
Ingham’s share price fell by as much as 14% early in the day, before retracing some of the losses to close down by almost 5% at $2 a share.
The group said in an ASX announcement that its breeder farms and grower networks are mostly located north of Perth, several hundred kilometres from where the positive cases have been found in the Esperance region.
The share price has been sliding for four months and was down more than 23% in the year to date, according to the news agency. The Australian Financial Review reported on 1 June that the $777m company was “deep in turnaround mode”, after a contract with Woolworths was restructured.
‘Stressful time for farmers’
Watt said state and territory environment ministers had been invited to a special briefing from Cookson and the threatened species commissioner, Dr Fiona Fraser, on Monday afternoon.
“We’ve been working very hard with states, industry, environment groups [and] scientists over the last couple of years to make sure that we are as well prepared as we possibly could be,” he said.
“As a government, we’ve invested $113m, including $11m in the most recent budget in those preparedness efforts. So I feel confident that we’ve got the systems in place, and that we’re working cooperatively with states, territories and others to make sure that we can manage this outbreak if it does get more serious.”
The National Farmers’ Federation said it would be a “stressful time for farmers” but that Australia was well prepared.
“It’s important to prepare for the worst and hope for the best,” president Hamish McIntyre said.
The Greens, BirdLife Australia and the Australian Conservation Foundation echoed a call from the Invasive Species Council for the government to set up a $200m emergency fund to protect wildlife.
Anyone seeing sick or dead birds or marine mammals were advised to avoid the animals and not handle them, but to take photos or a video and call the Emergency Animal Disease Hotline on 1800 675 888.
– with Australian Associated Press
