A polar bear was killed by bird flu, while the highly contagious H5N1 virus is spreading to the most remote areas of the planet, The Guardian reports.
The death was confirmed in December by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation.
“This is the first case of bird flu reported in a polar bear,” Alaska State Veterinarian Dr. Bob Gerlach told the Alaska Beacon.
It was found near Utqiagvik, one of the northernmost communities in Alaska. Gerlach said it was likely the bear had eaten the carcasses of infected birds.
Polar bears are on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of Endangered Species as “vulnerable”, mainly due to loss of sea ice.
More bears may have died unnoticed because they tend to live in remote areas with few people, Gerlach said.
The current epidemic of the highly infectious variant of the H5N1 virus – which began in 2021 – is estimated to have killed millions of wild birds. Worldwide, thousands of mammals have died from the virus, including black bears and brown bears.
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2024-01-03 05:40:55
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