# Bird flu has killed thousands of southern elephant seal pups on remote Antarctic islands belonging to Australia. The Heard and McDonald Islands, about four-thousand kilometres south-west of Australia, are home to over one million breeding seabirds and seals. Scientists estimate about 13-thousand baby seals from a group of 17-thousand on Heard Island were killed by the H5N1 strain of bird flu since last August. Scientists believe bird flu was likely introduced to the islands by migrating birds from the French-owned Crozet Islands, about one-thousand-800 kilometres away.
Bird flu kills more than 75% of baby seals on remote Australian island