Bird Flu Causes Dramatic Decline in South Georgia Elephant Seal Population
South Georgia Island – A highly pathogenic avian influenza virus is driving a significant decline in the elephant seal population of South Georgia, a remote British Overseas Territory in the South Atlantic. new research indicates a loss of approximately 53,000 female elephant seals – roughly 47% fewer than expected – during the 2024 breeding season.
The findings, based on a comparison of aerial photographs of three key breeding beaches, suggest the impact is comparable to the devastating losses observed in female elephant seals on the Valdés Peninsula in Argentina in 2023, where the population collapsed by two-thirds. These South Georgia beaches represent about 16 percent of the island’s total elephant seal population.
researchers, led by Dr. Bamford, fear the situation could worsen. Even if the virus doesn’t immediatly prove fatal to infected females, it may weaken them to the point where they abandon their pups prematurely, leading to increased mortality among young seals.
“It could take decades for South Georgia’s elephant seal population to recover from the decline,” the research team stated.
Experts are now advocating for increased monitoring of animal populations through satellite data and ground surveys to understand the long-term effects of the bird flu outbreak. The research was published in Communications Biology (Bamford,C. et al., 10.1038/s42003-025-09014-7, 2025).
The outbreak follows a pattern of increasing mortality among marine mammals and seabirds across South america in recent years due to the spread of the avian influenza virus.