Wednesday, 27 November 2024

Avian influenza

Georgie PURCELL (Northern Victoria) (18:42): (1319) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Outdoor Recreation, and the action I seek is for him to cancel the 2025 recreational duck-shooting season to help safeguard Victorian native waterbird populations. Deadly strains of bird flu have killed millions of wild birds overseas. In Australia the reality is that we are simply not prepared for its devastating consequences. Threatened species commissioner Dr Fiona Fraser and bird flu expert Dr Michelle Wille have both warned our government that birds will face mass deaths once a highly pathogenic flu reaches our shores. The risk to our iconic native waterbirds is unprecedented, and new data has shown that it has already affected endangered species populations overseas.

The H5 strain of avian influenza and its variants have resulted in the slaughter of over half a billion farmed birds since it was first detected. Millions of wild birds have also died, including 600,000 in South America alone since 2023. Globally waterbirds and shorebirds are the most susceptible hosts for avian influenza. In 2022 shooters themselves reported alarming mortality rates of geese in America and Canada after it was detected. But it is not only birds who are impacted by this; a Canadian team currently remains in critical care with the newest deadly strain. Of the 463 global deaths from bird flu infections since 2003, almost all have been linked to close contact with infected dead and alive birds. In Australia black swans, who are particularly susceptible to the virus, have the potential to be entirely wiped out when the virus inevitably spreads. This same species has been inadvertently shot time and time again at the hands of shooters who, despite all attempts from the Game Management Authority, are unable to avoid shooting non-target species.

Shooters themselves can become carriers or transmitters of bird flu. Their presence on wetlands poses an exponential danger in spreading the disease to humans and to other birds, because anywhere there is increased interaction with wildlife there is inherent risk. Need I remind the chamber of how global pandemics emerge and then spread? There are so many deadly threats to our native waterbirds, and allowing the duck-hunting season to go ahead in 2025 would be incredibly irresponsible. I hope the minister can do the right thing and prohibit future duck-shooting seasons while this zoonotic risk is prevalent.