Bird flu is devastating animal populations around the globe

Seals and sea lions in the Southern Hemisphere are hit especially hard.

- BY SUSANNE RUST

Photographs by British Antarctic Survey THE ELEPHANT SEALS of South Georgia Island are the largest breeding colony on the planet.

For the last year and a half, Americans have watched and worried as H5N1 bird flu racked dairy herds and killed hundreds of millions of commercially raised chickens, turkeys and ducks.

But far less widely known is that the virus has devastated wildlife across the globe, killing millions of wild birds and mammals.

Few animals have been harder hit than elephant seals, sea lions and fur seals in the Southern Hemisphere. In some places, thousands of carcasses and orphaned pups have littered the beaches.

On Thursday, a research team led by Connor Bamford, a marine ecologist with the British Antarctic Survey, reported a 47% drop in breeding females between 2022 and 2024 in the three largest elephant seal colonies on South Georgia Island.

The elephant seals of South Georgia Island, located between South America and Antarctica in the South Atlantic, are the largest breeding colony on the planet.

The virus hit there in 2023, Bamford said, and researchers were there to see it. But it was their visit in 2024 that really drove the devastation home.