The Biodiversity Council is calling on federal, state and territory governments to publicly report estimates of wildlife deaths from H5 bird flu, including total deaths for each species and location impacted.
H5 bird flu is spreading rapidly across Australia. More than 68,000 hotline reports have been received since the first detection in June 2026. Mass deaths are being reported in some areas.
But as the disease has spread, in August the Australian Government switched to only reporting ‘events,’ which are defined as a location where one or more species have been found dead or affected by bird flu. So one event could be a single death or thousands.
The Australian Government has reported 732 H5 bird flu events, including events in all states, but not the territories. To date, South Australia (341), Victoria (249) and the greater crested tern (460) have the most events recorded.
The Biodiversity Council says that reporting events rather than estimates of the number of animals killed masks the scale of the impact and risks delaying conservation action.
The independent expert group is calling for consistent public reporting of estimated deaths by species and location, including uncertainties, to better understand impacts on wildlife populations and to guide conservation responses.
The group, which was founded by 11 Australian universities, is urging the Australian Government to lead national reporting to ensure consistency in how things are reported and because species don’t respect state borders.
They believe States and Territories collect this data and must make it available to the Australian Government to support consistent public reporting.
Photo by: Kunal Kalra on Unsplash
The Australian Government has reported 16 events of bird flu impacting little penguins nationally, but there is no data available which estimates how many have died.
Biodiversity Council member and University of Sydney conservation geneticist Professor Carolyn Hogg warned that failing to track – and report – cumulative deaths could allow serious population declines to go unnoticed.
“We could be losing thousands of individuals of a species across its range without recognising the cumulative impact. A species that was once common could suddenly become threatened, and by then protecting it becomes so much harder and costs more,” Hogg said.
Biodiversity Council member and Charles Darwin University wildlife conservation scientist Professor John Woinarski said estimates were valuable even when precise counts were impossible.
“Some animals will die in remote areas or be consumed by scavengers before they can be counted. But estimates of known deaths are still much more informative than simply recording that an event occurred,” Woinarski said.
“Also, we should be trying to move from just reporting deaths to instead attempting to assess mortality rates in infected animals, and how this varies amongst species.”
“Knowledge of virulence is important for epidemiological monitoring and modelling; for prioritising conservation responses, and for measuring efficacy of vaccination or other management actions.”
“We also need long-term studies at key breeding colonies, which track mortality, infection and survival rates for animals of different ages, breeding rates and other signs of recovery.”
Biodiversity Council member, President of the Australian Mammal Society, and Deakin University wildlife ecologist Professor Euan Ritchie said better data is essential for evaluating government plans and responses.
“Without publicly available and robust estimates of mortality, Australians cannot reliably assess the true toll of bird flu on wildlife and whether government efforts to protect native animals have been sufficient.”
Biodiversity Council member and University of Queensland conservation scientist Professor Hugh Possingham said monitoring must inform decisions about when to intervene.
“Recording estimates of deaths makes sense and need not involve significant additional costs. But the biggest question is how monitoring connects to action. What level of mortality will trigger a response? We need monitoring that informs decisions, not simply record events,” Possingham said.
Media Release
4 November 2026
By Jaana Dielenberg
Biodiverity Council: https://biodiversitycouncil.org.au/news/bird-flu-death-toll-remains-hidden-as-governments-report-events-not-wildlife-deaths
Main Image by: https://unsplash.com/@mfilipcikova
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