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The Impact of Avian Flu: 17,000 Elephant Seals Lost in Argentina · How To Protect The Ocean

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  Over 17,000 elephant seals died last
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  year off the coast of Argentina. You're probably wondering, was it due to
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  overfishing? Was it due to climate change? No,
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  it was actually due to the avian flu. The H5N1
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  virus hit that colony last year and over 17,000 individual elephant seals
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  died last year. There's a lot of implications because
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  of this, and scientists are saying that this is gonna affect the population for
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  decades to come. Because of other things that prevent the
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  colony from expanding, like climate change, like
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  overfishing, lack of food resources, you know, heating
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  of the ocean, which has to do with climate change, of course. But there are a lot
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  of things that we need to talk about to find out, like, how does a
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  virus like this wipe out so many and how does that
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  affect a colony in the future? We're going to talk about that on today's episode
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  of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Let's start the show. Hey
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  everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
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  I'm your host Andrew Lua, and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how
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  you can speak up for the ocean, and what you can do to live for a better ocean by
• 1:10
  taking action. And today we're going to be talking about elephant seals, and
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  it's going to be great. But if you want to know more about the ocean and ocean science, this
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  is the first time you've come here. I've had a lot of new followers on
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  your ocean news resource. Let's get into it. Let's talk about elephant seals.
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  Look, elephant seals are great. We've had on experts before that talk
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  about Neil the seal, for instance, in Tasmania, but
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  also we talk a lot about marine mammals and whales and
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  so forth, and we know that marine mammals are susceptible to
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  diseases. And we know that can take out a population. It
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  can take out a big chunk of the population. And seals and
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  sea lions and elephant seals have been known to lose a lot of
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  animals if a virus just comes in and takes them
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  out. And they're affected by it. They don't have the ability
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  to fight off that virus. And that happened last
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  year with the avian flu. The H5N1
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  virus hit the colony off the coast of Argentina and over
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  17,000 seals died, including approximately 97% of the pups during
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  the outbreak. 97% of the next generation, a slow Growing
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  generation, right? This is a slow-growing species. So it
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  takes a while to get to sexual maturity It takes a while to reproduce and it takes a
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  while to grow to adulthood That is going to reduce
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  the population this season only about one-third of the expected seal
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  population has returned To the area. This
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  is in the peninsula Valdez off the coast of Argentina That
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  is a huge Huge problem in
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  the sustaining the population of that elephant seal population, right?
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  Unfortunately, the h151 had sorry the h5n1
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  virus has adapted to marine mammals Spreading efficiently
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  and evolving into distinct strains for avian and marine hosts.
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  So this is an avian flu So you probably how does it get from one host to
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  the other viruses change they evolve they evolve
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  quickly That's what makes it so so dangerous. We
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  know that You know, the COVID virus that we had,
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  that changed quite rapidly, and we kept seeing new strains and
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  new strains. That's why new vaccines kept coming out, because they
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  needed to ensure that the new vaccines would actually
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  stop the new viruses and the evolution of those viruses that
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  kept infecting people and reinfecting people. I know I
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  got COVID a couple times, even though I got the vaccines, but I
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  know my symptoms were a lot less. But it's not as if you can go and vaccinate
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  an entire population. And so that becomes, it
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  really becomes difficult when strains evolves from avian
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  to marine mammals and they come into distinct populations now,
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  right? And obviously, you know, researchers are saying that
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  this event is going to set back the population for
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  decades. As I mentioned, this is a slow-growing species. It
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  takes a long time for them to get to sexual maturity. It
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  takes a long time for them to get to adulthood. And if you lose
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  97% of the pups from that year, you're missing an entire year
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  of animals that are going to grow to sexual maturity. That's going to affect them
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  later on down the road. And who knows what's going to affect them in
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  the future? Could the H5N1 virus come
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  back and hit them again? That's possible. If
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  the H5N1 virus remains present in
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  marine or coastal ecosystems, there is a risk of recurring outbreaks among
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  elephant seals. to
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  the virus, but will it adapt to the next version of
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  the virus is the big question. A sharp decline in
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  the population and loss of genetic diversity could make the seals
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  more susceptible to future outbreaks or other
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  environmental stressors. And of course, the transmission from birds
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  still remains primarily, even though it's an avian influenza,
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  migrating birds or other carriers could
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  reintroduce the virus into seal habitat. look
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  there could be a potential immunity there could be whales that
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  survive the first outbreak may have the uh
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  the the the i guess the makeup the the gene
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  makeup to fight off an h5n1 virus which
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  is great to see and that populates that those populations will
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  eventually reproduce and maybe have a better chance
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  against the H5N1 virus. I mean, this is evolution at
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  its finest right here. The strongest will survive. The
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  animals, right, the individuals with the gene makeup that could fight
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  off this virus will survive to the next generation. Unfortunately,
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  the pups were probably too young and did not have the immune system to
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  fight it off. But that's why there were so many that died. But
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  the adults, some of the adults may have survived. A lot of
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  these colonies are massive. If you have 17,000, over
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  17,000 die off, you know you're going to have a lot that are still surviving. And
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  as they regrow, they'll regrow even stronger. As the population grows,
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  they'll grow even stronger, right? But it's going to
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  require a lot of increased monitoring, rapid
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  response strategies by conservationists and researchers to
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  mitigate future risks, making sure that animals are tested,
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  making sure that these animals are not in close confinement
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  if they are infected. If you think about what a
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  seal population looks like, a haul-out area looks like, you're looking
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  at the elephant seals being very, very close together.
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  You thought humans were close together in a household, or in a neighborhood, or
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  at a mall, or in a school, things like that, when they're
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  in the hallways. Those viruses can
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  transmit just like that with a cough, or sneeze,
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  or anything like that. Imagine elephant seals, they're almost stacked
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  on top of each other a lot of the times, especially their pups. They're
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  in close quarters. They're protected by the adults. And so any
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  adults that were affected or even pups that were affected could
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  spread it very easily as they are so close together. So
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  it is a possible that the H5N1 virus
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  could spread. virus will affect the elephant seal
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  population in the future. Obviously ongoing research and monitoring is
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  and conservation efforts will play a critical role in minimizing the
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  risk and supporting the population recovery, but that's going
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  to require funding, that's going to require prioritizing the population over
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  other monitoring aspects because when you look
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  at conservation efforts It's about funding. It's
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  about making sure that the right people and the right amount of people are
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  in the right place at the right time, ensuring that these populations are
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  safe. And that, unfortunately, will probably take resources away from one
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  aspect, prioritize the elephant seal population to
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  ensure that they go further. And that's really what it
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  comes down to. So it is a tough situation
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  to hear about elephant seal populations. declining by
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  so much obviously 97% of pups that must have been Absolutely
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  atrocious to witness as conservationists, as
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  scientists, as researchers, onlookers. It's
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  not fun to even hear about. These pups are adorable. They're
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  the future of this colony. And 97% of them dying is
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  really, really distressing from a conservationist perspective or
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  anybody's perspective. Nobody wants to see a baby seal, a
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  pup, die. It's got to be horrible. They didn't
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  even have a chance to survive. Hopefully the efforts
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  to help them out for next season will
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  be there, but I'll be following this story to ensure
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  that that happens. So hopefully this was an
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  article off of the newsroom for the Wildlife Conservation Society.
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  I'll hopefully try and get more information from them and see what we
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  can do to help out as a community. But thank you. That's it for today's
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