Jack Gough

So serious when people catch it, but it seems at the moment, people need to have very high levels of contact in order to get the virus.

And in a country like America, where in dairy workers, there's been over 70 cases, much lower death rates than we've seen in, for example, in Southeast Asia with healthcare systems able to respond to it.

But

Flu viruses are notoriously good at mutating and combining their genes.

And so one of the things that the government has been saying to people is make sure you go out and get your flu shot because it is actually going to be helpful in reducing the risk of those recombinations of genes in people.

if this disease gets passed on and the message if you do see sick birds is really clear avoid them don't go and disturb them or touch them record it you've got a you know a biosecurity fighting tool in your pocket when it comes to a phone and then make sure that you let the authorities know to the emergency animal diseases hotline still to come is australia ready for an outbreak

Yeah, look, when this H5N1 variety starts to spread, it really is going to be a numbers game for our wildlife.

And unfortunately, this pressure could be something that tips some of them over the edge on that.

One species where there has been some work done studying it has been the black swan, that iconic Australian bird species, which is actually...

very abundant.

But unfortunately, in captive black swans overseas, 100% of them died within a few days when they caught this virus.

And there seems to be evidence that they don't produce an immune response to the virus.

And so it's one of the ones that governments have said, look, could be really under threat, as well as some of the birds that aggregate, like peacocks,

pelicans and ibises that you might not think of as threatened in Australia.

And then of course, eagles and falcons and the like, as well as some of our mammals that consume carrion, Tasmanian devils, Australian sea lions that have these other pressures.

This really could be one of the things that pushes them over the edge.

And so that's why with BirdLife Australia and the Australian Marine Conservation Society, we've been pushing hard with governments to say biosecurity response is one thing and you're doing that well.

But on the other side, we do need a huge scaled up effort that local population or entire species can persist in the face of this threat.

Look, I'm very impressed.

I mean, we worked very closely over the last three years with governments.