Australia to evacuate personnel from Macquarie Island over bird flu risk
The Australian Antarctic Division has decided to evacuate 24 expedition members early from the scientific station on the subantarctic Macquarie Island due to the risk of a bird flu outbreak and potential psychological consequences for personnel. As ABC News Australia reports, the icebreaker RSV Nuyina is expected to arrive at the island in early October. The team arrived at the station in May and was due to work there for a year.
Risk of mass animal deaths
Macquarie is located in the Southern Ocean, about 1,500 kilometres southeast of Hobart. The World Heritage-listed island is home to up to 4 million seabirds and 100,000 seals. The island is currently free of the deadly H5 strain of bird flu.
Experts warn that if the virus appears, up to 90% of southern elephant seal pups could die. A similar situation occurred during the summer on Heard Island, where 13,000 pups died from bird flu. The scientific station on Macquarie is located a few metres from a colony of about 2,500 elephant seals.
Federal Department of the Environment deputy secretary Sean Sullivan said that prolonged stays by staff alongside mass wildlife deaths would be psychologically extremely difficult. According to him, such a situation could also affect air quality and have long-term consequences for personnel.
More current news is available on the UA.News Telegram channel Telegram.
Monitoring after personnel evacuation
Evacuating the team in October will also make it possible to avoid a potential evacuation during the active summer season, when RSV Nuyina is due to supply Australian bases in Antarctica. The icebreaker is currently in Singapore for scheduled maintenance.
The Australian Antarctic Division plans to develop options for remotely monitoring the island over the next month, including with cameras and drones. The agency said it intends to maintain a long-term presence on Macquarie and is considering the return of expedition members in future seasons. The three Australian stations on the Antarctic continent are not planned to be taken out of operation because they are not located directly within seal colonies.
The Antarctic Division is also preparing the station for a possible temporary closure. This could slow the modernisation of the facility: the Australian government has allocated about 370 million for a nine-year project to build a new station better protected from ocean flooding and earthquake-induced landslides.
