Australia races to shield little penguins from H5N1 bird flu

“UNPRECEDENTED”

In response, wildlife teams started to vaccinate birds in the colony this week, said James Todd, chief biodiversity officer for the state of Victoria in which the island lies.

“This is unprecedented. There has been no vaccination of this scale in a wild population anywhere in the world,” Todd said.

The H5N1 vaccination program, which also covers a popular little penguin population at a breakwater in the Melbourne beach suburb of St Kilda, is a challenge, he said.

“Trying to vaccinate wild populations is almost impossible, partly because you need two doses of the vaccine,” Todd told AFP.

But wildlife experts are very familiar with the little penguins’ burrows at Phillip Island and St Kilda, he said.

The birds, in turn, are accustomed to floodlights for the “penguin parade” tourist attraction, as well as being periodically handled by veterinarian scientists for monitoring of their health.

Vaccination teams aim to inoculate about 5,000 little penguins closest to the visitor areas, the state official said, in a program that is likely to last weeks and months, not days.