Connor Bamford

South Georgia, a sub-Antarctic island hundreds of miles east of the tip of Argentina, is home to the largest breeding population of elephant seals on the planet.

In 2023, the bird flu, H5N1, was first reported there, and an aerial survey the following year found that by then nearly half of the seals breeding females were gone.

Marine ecologist Connor Bamford authored the new study in the journal Communications Biology.

He's hopeful the population will recover, but the amount of loss, he says, is jarring.

Nade Rott, NPR News.