At Seal Bay on Kangaroo Island, a virus has crossed a threshold that conservationists long feared but hoped would never come. H5N1 bird flu, detected in four greater crested terns at one of Australia's most sacred wildlife sanctuaries, now stands at the edge of a species that exists nowhere else on Earth — the Australian sea lion, numbering only 12,000 individuals in total. What unfolds in the coming weeks may determine whether this animal endures or becomes a casualty of a global pandemic that has already rewritten the fate of marine mammals on distant shores. The question humanity faces here
H5N1 bird flu detected at Seal Bay threatens endangered Australian sea lions
Potential mass mortality of endangered Australian sea lion population if H5N1 spreads to marine mammals, following international precedent of tens of thousands of deaths.