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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
From an Ipswich fish and chip shop to the epicentre of Australian politics.
Please explain. One Nation's rise.
This is the unlikely story of One Nation.
Well, I'm back.
Is it a passing protest vote or a permanent realignment of Australian politics?
Whether you love her or hate her, truth is stranger than fiction.
The Making of One Nation. To hear the full series, search for The Making of One Nation on ABC Listen.
It's happened. After years of warnings, preparations and surveillance, H5N1 bird flu is officially here on the Australian continent. As the number of confirmed detections in wild birds starts to rise, officials and experts are saying the risk to human health is currently low. But what about our Aussie birds and wildlife? If the virus is here to stay, what does that mean for their future?
This is Lab Notes from ABC Radio National. I'm Jonathan Webb. And today I'm joined by Dr. Tiggy Grillo, a veterinary scientist who is also the Chief Operating Officer of Wildlife Health Australia. Hi, Tiggy.
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Chapter 2: What is H5N1 bird flu and why is it a concern for Australia?
Is there any going back from this point, Tiggy, or do you think bird flu might be here in Australia to stay?
That's something that the experts are currently looking at in very much detail. These are two vagrant species of bird. They are likely to have come potentially from the Southern Ocean. The birds that are navigating around the Southern Hemisphere don't tend to frequent Australian mainland.
Heard Island, for example, where we have confirmed this week the devastation that it's had, where it was detected last October, it's thousands of kilometres away. So for those bird species to potentially be there, be infected and bring it towards Australia, it's quite a long distance. So we thought it was still quite a long way for that to happen. But weather is one thing that can...
change patterns of birds and can bring them closer to shore, perhaps where they wouldn't always go.
Okay. And do we think weather might have been part of what drove this event to happen when it did?
Look, potentially, there was some pretty serious weather around the western coast of Australia in the last weeks of May. And so there could absolutely be a weather aspect to this. And that's something that is being looked at.
So we don't quite know yet. But it seems unlikely, even with all the surveillance that's been going on, that these first couple of birds that were identified in the last few days were the very first to have come ashore in Australia with this strain of bird flu. Is that right?
Look, it's a very large coastline. It's still early days. The fact that this has been announced into the public domain, the suspect case was announced very early. And the wording around all of the government communications is really to raise awareness about this disease.
So the more people are aware, the more likely we are to be able to detect some other cases that might be going on and really determine what does that mean for Australia.
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Chapter 3: How does H5N1 bird flu affect wildlife in Australia?
But we haven't done that work on a lot of species.
You mentioned mammals, and they've faced terrible effects in other parts of the world. Could H5N1 come for animals like our marsupials?
So marine mammals are really the ones in the firing line in the first instance, because this virus tends to be seen in colonial or aggregating bird species, so probably shorebird species on the coastline. That's where we see marine mammals, where they might be living together or cohabiting. That's where we might see transmission occurring.
So we're certainly worried about our marine mammals, specifically first seals and sea lions. And then the other species that could be potentially at risk in Australia are the ones that scavenge on birds or eat birds. So in Tasmania, which is where I'm based, the Tasmanian devil could scavenge on little penguins, for example, that might be infected.
And so we'd be worried about Tasmanian devils from that perspective.
What sort of things might authorities or experts or organisations like yours do to protect some of these species? This virus is spreading from wild animal to wild animal. We can't really vaccinate whole wild populations. So what have you got in the toolkit?
That's a great word. There are lots of things in the toolkit that can be put together. Nothing is going to necessarily completely resolve the issue of this particular virus and the impact it's going to have on wildlife. We're going to see some really unfortunate outcomes. However, there's been a huge amount done in advance.
So the things that are in the toolkit include conservation measures to try and reduce the other threats that some of our critically endangered and threatened and vulnerable species are facing.
So invasive species management has been a priority for government funding and for state management authorities to look at how they can reduce the invasive species, say, for example, on islands or specifically in relation to some of those vulnerable bird populations to really remove that threat.
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