H5N1 jumps to Australian marine mammal, sparking $200M wildlife funding push

A long-nosed fur seal testing positive for H5N1 on the South Australian coast marks the first confirmed crossing of this virus into marine mammals on the Australian mainland — a threshold that conservation scientists had long feared and that the Southern Ocean's devastated seal colonies had already foreshadowed. The same strain that killed more than 13,000 elephant seal pups on Heard Island and collapsed colonies across the globe has now arrived in Australian waters, where vulnerable species already weakened by fishing pressure, habitat loss, and climate change face the prospect of mass mortal