In a world still shadowed by the memory of COVID, environmental journalist Michael Dulaney warns that the H5N1 bird flu strain now circulating globally is not merely a threat to poultry but a potential harbinger of the next human pandemic — one shaped, in part, by the industrial systems we have built around the animals we consume. The virus has already crossed into mammals, killing thirteen thousand seals on a remote Australian island, and the conditions that could enable person-to-person transmission are not hypothetical but structural. What makes this moment particularly sobering is not the
Bird flu expert warns of 'nightmare scenario' if H5N1 mutates to spread between humans
13,000 baby seals died from H5N1 on Heard Island; potential for human pandemic if virus mutates to enable person-to-person transmission.