A suspected case of the deadly new bird flu strain has been detected in another mammal in South Australia – prompting a dire warning from wildlife experts for another iconic Australian animal.
A suspected case of the deadly new bird flu strain has been detected in another mammal in South Australia – prompting a dire warning from wildlife experts for another iconic Australian animal.
Following the first confirmed case in a seal, authorities in South Australia now suspect that an urban red fox has contracted H5N1 bird flu.
Found in Adelaide, the fox is one of five new suspected cases reported in SA today, although the other four were all in bird species.
The other samples were taking from an Australian raven in Robe, a little penguin in Southend, a pacific gull on Kangaroo Island and a crested tern at Coonalpyn.
However, it is the fox which has caused the most concern, with wildlife experts warning it poses a stern risk to other scavenging animals.
Rob Brewster, rewilding manager at the Invasive Species Council, warned this could mean Tasmanian devils may also find themselves in the line of fire.
Tasmanian devils could be at risk of developing bird flu. Picture: Melbourne Zoo
“Finding bird flu in a fox is a serious warning about what this virus could mean for Australia’s scavenging animals,” he said.
“Quolls and Tasmanian devils will all scavenge dead wildlife, potentially putting them directly in the path of this virus as bird deaths increase.
It also comes after the SA government announced a vaccine program was being rolled out in the state, beginning at Cleland Wildlife Park, around 18km east of Adelaide.
Announced on Tuesday, the scheme will see around 100 native birds at the attraction vaccinated – including magpie geese, Australian pelicans and red-tailed black cockatoos.
“Protecting South Australia’s unique wildlife is a priority and this vaccination program is an important step in safeguarding vulnerable native bird species from the threat of H5 bird flu,” primary industries and regional development minister Clare Scriven said.
Chronic wasting disease outlives the deer it kills.
Wildlife managers have culled entire deer herds and waited as long as six years before reintroducing animals to affected areas – only to see the disease return. That’s because the particles that cause chronic wasting disease persist in the soil, where they’re taken up by plants and passed back to the deer that eat them, says Miranda Turner, a wildlife biologist with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission.
Wildlife officials working to control chronic wasting disease face a difficult tradeoff: Hunting can help slow the disease’s spread through deer populations. But new research suggests the likelihood that chronic wasting disease can jump from deer to humans may be greater than previously thought, raising questions about whether increasing human exposure creates undue risk.
“Currently, no human has been known to have chronic wasting disease. But at the same time, that is how people thought before the mad cow disease outbreak in the UK, which was also a prion disease,” said Turner.
Chronic wasting disease, or CWD, is caused by misshapen proteins called prions. When a prion encounters a normal protein, it forces that protein into the same misshapen form. Those proteins then change others, creating a chain reaction that damages the nervous system. Infected deer will progressively lose control of their bodies until they die.
Unlike a virus or bacterium, a prion doesn’t eventually stop being infectious. The proteins can persist environmentally for years.
North Carolina detected its first case of CWD in 2022. The disease is still relatively limited in North Carolina, but has devastated deer populations in other states and globally. Prion diseases are always fatal.
CWD can be found across the US, Canada, several European countries, and South Korea. In the US, the disease has found its way into deer farms. “Even the rigorous herd health certification program that the USDA has is not effective at at preventing the spread of CWD in captive service facilities,” said Turner.
When CWD first appeared in North Carolina, the Wildlife Resources Commission implemented hunting prohibitions and established mandatory testing policies in surveillance areas.
The Commission’s restrictions have not been well-received by some hunters, who argue that regulators have focused too heavily on CWD while giving less attention to EHD, another disease that can kill large numbers of deer.
“How much funding y’all getting this year for the CWD scare? More counties, more money?” wrote one commenter in a Facebook update about CWD regulations from May.
“What about something legitimate like EHD. Cwd hasn’t really killed anything compared to possibly thousands of deer from EHD,” wrote another.
Turner says the commenters are correct that only a small number of deer in North Carolina are testing positive for CWD – but this is because of restrictions, and the limitations of testing. CWD can only be diagnosed post-mortem, and testing often relies on hunter-killed deer. Because most samples come from the healthy-looking deer hunters seek out, there’s a selection bias. Additionally, these animals may be in early stages of infection and have low concentrations of prions that are harder to detect.
Deer in the early stages of CWD can appear healthy.
And EHD deaths are less of a concern for long-term herd management, Turner says.
“The two diseases work on different scales,” she said. “CWD is always fatal and it takes many years, but it will impact entire populations of herds. Whereas EHD is more seasonal, cyclical. It may look bad for a year, but the herds will recover within a year, and populations themselves aren’t really impacted.”
In Wisconsin, Wyoming, and Colorado, where CWD has had a higher impact on herd numbers, population declines happened over time with the accumulation of environmental prions.
“Once you hit about 20% of a herd infected, you are going to see herd declines, especially once CWD moves to fawns in utero. A deer can be born with CWD, and that immediately puts a timer on their life of about two years. That is below the age that deer need to reach to replace themselves,” Turner said.
Joshua Young represents the Carolina Deer Association and owns a deer farm. He says messaging and hunting restrictions around CWD have been bad for business.
“It kind of pushed hunters from wanting to go hunt. And honestly, it killed a lot of the deer industry years ago,” he said.
Because infection rates have remained low, Young believes the commission’s previous strategies for controlling the spread were overzealous and ultimately futile.
“Buzzards can carry it. It can be on the mud in your tires. So unless you’re walling off the entire state and stopping everything from flying over, you’re not going to stop the spread of CWD,” he said.
In May, the Commission relaxed many of therestrictions, expanding hunting opportunities across the state and making all testing for non-commercial deer handlers voluntary. They did this because hunting has been shown to reduce CWD transmission by reducing the amount of prions shed into the environment by infected deer.
Recorded cases of chronic wasting disease in North Carolina remain limited. State wildlife biologists are working to keep it that way. “Our goal in CWD management in North Carolina is not to eradicate CWD from the state. That’s impossible. Our goal is to reduce transmission and slow the spread as much as possible,” said Miranda Turner, a biologist with the Wildlife Resources Commission.
Young and Turner are both happy with the changes. But the increased hunting raises another concern: human exposure to CWD.
Research into whether the disease could adapt to be able to infect humans has been going on for decades. But a new study from the University of Calgary suggests that the likelihood may be higher than previously thought.
Infectious disease expert Hermann Schaetzl and his colleagues found evidence that CWD prions can cross into macaques, which are primates like humans – although the infection looked very different from CWD in deer.
His lab recently tested a wild deer that entered their facility and found CWD prions throughout its body. Prions are typically thought to concentrate in the nervous and lymphatic systems. The finding is consistent with another study published in 2025. In the macaques, Schaetzl’s team also found prions in the gastrointestinal tract.
“Some [macaques] showed signs of disease. Others didn’t. Which worries us… is this a typical manifestation of the disease? Would we see human CWD?” Schaetzl said.
Many states, including North Carolina, offer CWD testing services for recreational hunters. Hunters remove the lymph nodes of harvested deer and can either drop them off at designated sites in counties being surveilled for the disease, or mail them for testing.
It’s still impossible to predict whether a spillover from deer to primates will happen at all, or if it already has, he added.
Schaetzl says increased hunting may help reduce transmission among deer. But it also means more people are handling and eating potentially infected meat. The same dead deer that helps stop CWD from spreading can also be the thing that exposes a human to the disease.
As cases increase worldwide, Schaetzl says so does the likelihood of humans interacting with CWD prions and the possibility of a spillover. The main conclusion of the research, he said, is that the disease is unpredictable and this should not be taken lightly.
“CWD is a highly, highly contagious disease which is really expanding, and it’s not because our diagnostics are better,” Schaetzl said. “The more CWD you have out there, the higher the risk. The more people consume positive materials, the higher this zoonotic risk.”
His message for hunters: Test if possible, and don’t eat deer that test positive for the disease.
For now, North Carolina has no known human cases of CWD and wildlife officials are confident that surveillance and the new hunting policies can keep the disease in check. But as researchers continue studying the disease, only more questions come up.
So how does the way we farm, eat, and live make us vulnerable to viruses like this? And could humans be at risk with the next mutation?
Today, journalist and the author of Sentinel: When diseases spread between animals and humans, Michael Dulaney, on the root cause of the virus – and the future of animal pandemics in our times.
If you enjoy 7am, the best way you can support us is by making a contribution at 7ampodcast.com.au/support.
New regulations aimed at reducing Michigan’s deer population will limit hunters to one buck per year in 2027. Effective immediately, hunters will be able to use high-powered rifles anywhere in the state during deer season.
Starting in 2027, hunters in the Lower Peninsula will be limited to harvesting one antlered deer (buck) per season. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources is encouraging hunters to take more does, which could help the state curb exploding deer populations in the southern portion of the state.
The rule could also help younger bucks live longer, meaning more mature bucks in the herd.
End of the line for the rifle line
Starting November 15, 2026, hunters will be able to use high-powered rifles in southern Michigan, below the ‘rifle line,’ an area which had previously been restricted to shotguns, muzzleloaders and straight-wall cartridge rifles.
Kevin Vistisen hosts the Deer Hunter Podcast and he says tension between hunters and state bodies Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and governor-appointed Natural Resources Commission (NRC) have been an issue for years.
“A lot of people in this country are just like, mentally wounded by being lied to by establishments for decades, and does that trickle down to state level policy? Yeah certainly.”
Vistisen joined Owen Armentrout on The Metro alongside MDNR specialist Brent Rudolph to discuss the recent deer hunting policy changes in Michigan, and how hunters are responding.
The findings of a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) investigation into the death of a Newberry teen nearly two years ago have left the family with more questions than answers.
The FWC investigation into the death of Malachi Lancaster, 18, who was hunting Dec. 8, 2024, with another teen off Southwest Williston Road in Alachua County, concluded his death was “accidental.” However, the death certificate from the District 8 Medical Examiner’s Office in Gainesville classified the manner of death as “undetermined,” according to official records.
Although the FWC released the conclusion of its investigation more than a year ago, people who have recently become aware of the case have launched a “Justice for Malachi” movement on social media. A petition on Change.org had received 6,639 signatures as of 2 p.m. Aug. 25. The petition asks the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to “intervene and reopen the investigation, bring in independent experts, review all forensic evidence and pursue a complete and unbiased examination of what really happened” the day Malachi was shot.
Interest in Malachi’s death increased following the death of Nolan Wells, a Mississippi teenager whose body was found after a July 4 boat trip to Horn Island, Mississippi, said Sophie Lancaster, Malachi’s mother. Wells’ case remains unresolved, with conflicting witness accounts, an indeterminate autopsy and concerns about racial bias influencing the investigation, according to a USA Today report.
Malachi, who played football at Newberry High School after transferring from Buchholz for his senior year, died after his rifle allegedly “accidentally discharged.” The young man hunting with Malachi called 911 at 5:39 p.m. Deputies with the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office were the first law enforcement officers to arrive at the scene and found Malachi lying on his back on the trail with a gunshot wound to the back left lower flank above the waistline and no exit wound. Efforts to save him were unsuccessful, and he was pronounced dead at UF Health Shands Hospital at 7 p.m., according to official records.
Deputy William Patten wrote that while approaching Malachi, he passed a young white male who was on the phone with an unknown person and heard him say, “Someone must have shot him.” Sophie Lancaster said that was the earliest recorded statement made by the sole witness and that it does not match the accounts he later provided.
In one account given to ACSO, the witness said Malachi had been climbing into a tree stand when his rifle became caught on a branch and discharged. Based on that account, ACSO informed the medical examiner’s office there were no suspicions of foul play, which became part of the medical examiner’s initial understanding of the death, records show.
However, FWC investigator Terrynce Bing, who traveled from Jacksonville to the scene, walked the path between where Malachi was found and the tree stand and found no blood trail, leading him to describe the tree-stand account as “unconfirmed.” Bing concluded the incident occurred on the trail, according to records.
Official records also show that an ACSO crime scene investigator photographed the tree stand and documented that nothing of evidentiary value was found there.
Emphasizing that it was too early in the investigation to provide a complete account of the incident, Bing wrote in a supplemental report that “… this appears to be a hunting incident; however, giving the initial context of the incident and the fatal outcome, treating it as a criminal case was a possible course of action.”
Bing also wrote that further investigation was necessary and should be conducted thoroughly, as in all investigations.
“Based on my experience, I am aware that initial reports regarding critical incidents are often incomplete or inaccurate,” Bing wrote. “These early accounts can be fragmented and unreliable; while they provide helpful leads, they must be evaluated with caution and verified through subsequent investigation.”
Bing also wrote that his survey of the scene “strongly suggests” the shooting occurred where Malachi was found, “where the blood pooling and the firearm were found — rather than at the tree stand.”
The FWC’s final report states that a preponderance of the evidence led investigators to conclude that Malachi’s death was accidental.
“Based upon the evidence gathered, witness statements, laboratory and forensic test results it is my conclusion that the incident on December 8, 2024, is a result of an accidental discharge of the Savage Arms rifle, that was carried by Malachi, and not criminal in nature,” wrote the report’s author, FWC investigator Joshua Bembry.
According to the report, factors supporting that conclusion included neighbors who lived near the scene hearing the gunshot and communicating with the other hunter within seconds, responding deputies securing the scene within four minutes of the 911 call, and all evidence being photographed and collected by ASO forensic investigators. The report also notes that the Savage Arms rifle recovered beside Malachi was left untouched until processed by crime scene investigators.
The report further states that FDLE ballistic testing ruled out the other hunter’s rifle as the weapon that fired the single round recovered from Malachi. Investigators found that the only other rifle at the scene, Malachi’s, was entangled in brush with a stick protruding through the trigger guard.
The report also cites the fact that neither Malachi nor the other hunter had “attended and completed” a hunter safety course, which teaches the importance of firearm safety while participating in outdoor activities.
Though the FWC’s final report was completed more than a year ago, calls for a review of the investigation continue to grow.
The family is not asking for any favors, only that the FDLE or another law enforcement agency conduct a thorough review of the FWC’s investigation, Sophie Lancaster said. She added that the family is grateful for the attention the Justice for Malachi campaign has received since it was launched on change.org.
Lancaster said an official with the medical examiner’s office succinctly summarized the situation by saying the story of Malachi’s death “has yet to be told.”
Exposing the Big Game 