The Department of Conservation is preparing to vaccinate some of New Zealand’s rarest birds against the deadly H5N1 strain of avian influenza, hoping to build a wall of immunity around a handful of species before the disease ever reaches our shores.
The plan, made public this week, covers roughly 300 core breeding birds drawn from five critically endangered species. They are the kākāpō, the flightless night parrot; the takahē, the stout blue and green rail once thought extinct; the kakī or black stilt; the tūturuatu or shore plover; and the kākāriki karaka or orange-fronted parakeet. Each of these birds has a tiny total population, and for some of them the loss of even a few breeding adults would undo decades of painstaking recovery work.
Work begins this month. The Department of Conservation has timed it carefully, wanting the vaccinations finished outside the breeding season so the birds have the whole winter to build full immunity before spring. A team of departmental veterinarians and specially trained staff will give the doses, backed up by the species rangers and facility teams who look after the birds day to day.
The vaccine being used is an inactivated one, meaning it contains only dead virus and cannot give a bird the flu. The Ministry for Primary Industries has approved the vaccination plan and authorised the release of the vaccine. The department ran a controlled trial about a year ago, using a small number of birds from each of the five species to check the vaccine was safe and to work out the right dose. According to the department, none of the birds showed any adverse reaction, and all five species produced a strong initial antibody response. Four of the species held that response for at least six months, while the black stilt’s levels dropped off at around three months, which suggests those birds may need a booster.
Dr Kate McInnes, a senior science adviser and wildlife vet at the department, said the small size of these populations was exactly what made vaccinating them possible. As she put it, “It won’t be possible to vaccinate all endangered birds if bird flu arrives, but we can focus on those species where the full two doses of the vaccine can be safely given to achieve protection.” The idea is not to shield every native bird in the country, which no one could do, but to protect the last strongholds of the species least able to absorb a loss.
H5N1 has not been found in New Zealand. But it has recently turned up in migratory seabirds in Australia, and it has been carving a grim path around the rest of the world, killing wild birds, seals and sea lions in enormous numbers and forcing the culling of millions of farmed poultry. New Zealand and Antarctica have been among the last places on Earth largely untouched by this particular strain, and few experts expect that to last.
Professor Jemma Geoghegan, an evolutionary virologist at the University of Otago, said the timing of the rollout made sense given how close the virus was now getting. “They’ve run a trial a year ago on very few birds, selected a few species and only five birds of each species to sort of understand the efficacy and the correct dosage,” she told the Otago Daily Times. “It’s shown that it works on those birds and so now that the virus is … getting closer, it’s a good move to proactively protect more species.” Professor Geoghegan has said the disease reaching the country is now more a matter of when than if.
That blunt assessment is shared across government. The department is working with the Ministry for Primary Industries, the Ministry of Health and Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora under what the agencies call a One Health approach, which treats the health of wildlife, farmed animals and people as one connected problem rather than three separate ones. Because the virus cannot be wiped out of wild bird populations once it takes hold, the department has said its focus is on slowing any spread through biosecurity and on keeping threatened populations as resilient as possible through captive breeding and predator control. Full detail on the strategy sits on the department’s avian influenza page.
For most New Zealanders the practical message is simple. The public is asked to report any sighting of three or more sick or dead wild birds to the Ministry for Primary Industries pest and disease hotline on 0800 80 99 66. Those early reports are one of the main ways the country would spot an incursion quickly, and speed would matter enormously. The Ministry for Primary Industries has published guidance on protecting native species from the virus.
There is something quietly telling about a country reaching for a vaccine to defend its wildlife the way it might defend its people. New Zealand’s birds are, for many here, part of what home feels like, and the sight of departmental staff carefully working through a few hundred of the rarest of them, one bird at a time, is a reminder of how much has already been invested in keeping them alive. The hope is that the needle work being done this winter turns out to have been an insurance premium that never needed to pay out.
What do you make of the plan to vaccinate our rarest birds ahead of a virus that has not yet arrived? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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