The H5N1 bird flu has arrived in New Zealand. It is a flu that has killed millions of birds and mammals around the world. Now it poses a threat to species conservation and primary industries in New Zealand, and an enormous biosecurity challenge for sustainable tourism.
Transcript
On the 15th of July 2026, New Zealand recorded its first case of H5N1 bird flu. A brown skua, an ocean-going seabird, was found sick on Petone Beach in Wellington. It tested positive for H5N1 which has been spreading globally over the last few years. Bird flu arrived in Australia on the 19 June 2026 also via a migratory seabird. Australia was the last continent to record the arrival of the disease.
New Zealand’s Biosecurity Minister Andrew Hoggard made the announcement that the first case of bird flu had been recorded in New Zealand. He was clear that this was a single detection in one bird, with no evidence at that point of mass mortality or of the virus spreading between wild birds in New Zealand. There was also no detection in poultry. His message to the public was to be alert, and to not panic. Eggs and poultry remain safe to eat, and the health risk to people is low, because it generally takes close, prolonged contact with large numbers of sick birds for the virus to transmit to humans.
The arrival of bird flu was not unexpected. The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI), the Department of Conservation, the Ministry of Health and Health New Zealand had been working together for months, alongside the poultry industry, to prepare. Back in September 2025 a Government Industry Agreement formally set up a Poultry Council to run a joint readiness programme. MPI has also been testing birds every few days through targeted surveillance.
The public advise has been clearly communicated. If you see three or more sick or dead wild birds in the same place, don’t touch them and don’t move them. Note the location, take photos if it’s safe, and record how many birds are affected. And call the Exotic Pest and Disease Hotline.
The Department of Conservation didn’t wait around either. They started vaccinating 300 core breeding birds from five of our most at-risk endangered species include kākāpō, takahē, tūturu atu (the shore plover), kakī (the black stilt), and kākāriki karaka (the orange-fronted parakeet). So the government advisory picture is really twofold: reassurance that this is being actively managed, alongside a clear call for the public and industry to stay vigilant.
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To understand what this actually means in the longer term, it is necessary to take the advice of Professor Jemma Geoghegan, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Otago, who has been the voice of expert advice on bird flu in recent weeks.
Geoghegan told RNZ’s Morning Report that the arrival of H5N1 could be, in her words, “catastrophic” for native wildlife. She pointed out that many of New Zealand’s birds don’t exist anywhere else on Earth, so if the virus takes hold, there’s no safety net elsewhere in the world.
She also flagged that bird flu is likely here to stay. MPI’s chief veterinary officer, Mary van Andel, said much the same thing. She explained that because birds move constantly between places like Antarctica, where the virus is already circulating, the disease can not simply be eradicated once it’s established in wild bird populations.
Prof. Geoghegan’s team has been working with DOC studying low pathogenic avian influenza viruses that already exist naturally in New Zealand’s sea and shore birds, which has given the country, in her words, “a really good platform of information” to work from. She noted that DOC’s vaccination trials in five taonga species have already been expanded since the virus reached Australia in mid-June.
But she has also been honest enough to state that it is hard to feel optimistic, given how the virus has devastated bird populations overseas. Her advice is practical: be proactive, get early warning systems working, and make sure people report anything unusual straight away. So the expert take is a mix of realism and readiness. This isn’t a crisis that ends in a few weeks. It’s a new, ongoing feature of how we manage biosecurity and conservation in New Zealand.
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It was not unexpected that this arrived via a seabird. Brown skua are ocean-going, long-distance travellers that move between New Zealand, the sub-Antarctic islands and Antarctica, where H5N1 has already caused serious seabird mortalities.
Massey University infectious disease epidemiologist Distinguished Professor Nigel French has indicated that species extinction is a very real possibility. He said that if the virus gets into small, endangered seabird populations, like the tara iti (the Fairy tern) – a species that is endemic to New Zealand and critically endangered, with only about 40 individuals remaining in the wild – it could wipe the species out.
French made an important distinction too. Unlike something like foot and mouth disease, which only affects cloven-hoofed animals, H5N1 crosses between many different species of wild birds, marine mammals and domestic animals. That makes it much harder to contain.
There’s also a structural risk to consider relating to colony size and density. As Professor Geoghegan explained in a piece for The Conversation, the risk of transmission is greatest in species that breed in large, dense colonies, because that’s exactly the kind of environment where a virus can spread fast between individuals, and then jump sideways to other species sharing the same habitat, like shorebirds or seals.
DOC’s biosecurity technical advisor, Suliana Teasdale, added a note of uncertainty, explaining that the Department of Conservation doesn’t know exactly how this will play out here, because New Zealand’s fauna, our marine mammals and birds, are so unique compared to what’s been affected overseas. That uncertainty is precisely why the vaccination programme and boosted biosecurity protocols matter so much right now.
It’s also worth remembering that vaccination isn’t a simple fix here. Geoghegan explained that the vaccine trialled on taonga species needs two doses, and vaccinated animals need to be monitored afterwards to confirm it’s safe and working. That means it’s only really practical in captive, closely managed populations or on predator-free offshore islands, not something that can be rolled out across an entire wild population. For animals like fur seals or sea lions, catching and vaccinating enough individuals simply isn’t realistic, so early detection and rapid reporting remain the main tools available for those species.
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So how is the tourism sector actually responding to this new and serious threat? Tourism Industry Aotearoa (TIA) was quick to publish a practical Bird Flu Preparedness advisory for its members.
The advice for operators working in outdoor and natural environments includes keeping a safe distance from any wildlife that looks unwell, avoiding handling sick or dead wildlife, cleaning boots, equipment and vehicles after visiting natural areas, and making sure guides and staff stay vigilant. Members have also been informed that closely following public advisories is important.
TIA has also been running a Bird Flu Tourism Forum, bringing together bird and wildlife tourism operators from around the country to talk through what the arrival of H5N1 actually means for their businesses. What’s come out of these forums is a picture of an industry that’s moving fast to partner with authorities, protect vulnerable species, and keep operating as close to normally as possible.
Because Wellington was the “ground zero” location for the first detection, local operators there have stepped up particularly quickly, activating biosecurity measures and adjusting what they offer where needed. Operators who would normally take in sick or injured birds for rehabilitation have paused that practice for now, specifically to reinforce the public message that people shouldn’t be handling unwell birds themselves. They’re working with local councils to get that message out to communities.
TIA has also set up a dedicated Bird Flu page on its members’ platform, MyTIA, which is updated regularly, and it’s continuing to work with DOC on getting further clarity for tourism operators who hold conservation concessions, since DOC recently updated its guidance for concession holders too. The overall message from TIA is one of shared responsibility. Tourism businesses that operate in natural environments now stand at the front line of protecting the wildlife their industry depends on.
Ōamaru Penguins provides a real-world example of what a fast, sensible response from a tour operator looks like. Within a day of the first H5N1 case being confirmed, they’d introduced new biosecurity measures to protect their kororā, or little penguins, and their kekeno, the New Zealand fur seals that also use the site.
The headline change is footwash stations, now placed at the entrances to both the penguin colony building and the seal viewing area. Every visitor is asked to use them before entering, which is a simple, low-cost way to stop people accidentally carrying the virus in on their shoes from somewhere else. Visitors attending the evening penguin viewing are now asked to arrive 30-45 minutes early, to allow time for extra biosecurity precautions.
All of their tours have continued running as normal. There have been no confirmed cases in Otago, and none in little penguins specifically, so this is very much a precautionary move rather than a reaction to an active outbreak. Their rehabilitation facility has also stayed fully operational, continuing to respond to sick or injured little penguins that need help.
They’ve been upfront with visitors about all of this too, publishing updates explaining what’s changed and why, working closely with DOC, MPI and their veterinary partners. This is an example of the new reality that biosecurity and visitor experience must be closely co-managed.
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The first line of response has been swiftly put in place by tourism industry organisations and wildlife tourism operators working closely with key partners. But we know that the bird flu landscape will shift quickly.
Today the Australian media reported that helicopter surveillance has revealed more than 80 dead and sick greater crested terns seen on the South Australian coast. Although unconfirmed, it is expected that this is the first mass mortality event from the disease.
This, only six weeks after the disease arrived in Australia. There is genuine concern in Australia that the bird flu crisis has quickly moved to a critical new stage. The chief executive of the Invasive Species Council in Australia has stated that it now appeared the disease was “starting to take off” and “mirroring the experience in South America of early detections, then rapid increases in numbers and spread leading to mass mortality events in wildlife.”
Further evidence of the rapid change in status of this disease was reported today in a piece by Dr Jane Younger of the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies at the University of Tasmania. In an article published in The Conversation Australia, she notes that until recently, Australia’s detections were mostly isolated to migratory seabirds arriving from the Southern Ocean. But recent detections show this has changed, with local transmission among wildlife that live in Australia.
She considers gull infections to be particularly concerning because gulls move between beaches, towns, rubbish tips, wetlands and inland waterways meaning that infection cannot be contained to coastal areas.
She also notes that seals and sea lions require urgent surveillance. H5N1 killed more than 17,000 southern elephant seals in Argentina in 2023, with 95% pup mortality at one monitored colony. She warns that the impacts of bird flu on species and ecosystems will play out for decades to come, and that Australia’s response will need to evolve as new ‘critical stages’ arise.
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It seems likely that in New Zealand, we can anticipate a similar spread of the disease where we need to anticipate the likelihood of an imminent ‘critical new stage’ of the disease.
It must be noted that bird flu has not yet been detected at any wildlife tourism sites in New Zealand. However in Australia, Jane Younger has commented that birds that gather densely in breeding colonies face the greatest danger. She specifically mentions that colonies of terns, gulls, gannets and albatrosses transmit the virus rapidly through close contact, with these groups experiencing devastating mortality in other parts of the world.
So we must anticipate the risk factors at places where tourists visit dense breeding colonies such as the Gannet colony at Cape Kidnappers in Hawke’s Bay and the Royal Albatross Colony at Taiaroa Head on the Otago Peninsula. Toroa (the Northern Royal Albatross) is the jewel in the crown of Taiaroa Head, given that it is the only mainland breeding colony of any species of great albatross in the world. But it is also a breeding site for kororā (little penguins), the Stewart Island Shag or cormorant, and Red Billed Gulls.
It is important to anticipate the possibility that this operation will need to close to the public. If so,
the impacts of temporary closure wouldn’t just be financial for the operator. The Otago Peninsula Trust and Pukekura Penguin Trust support enormous conservation efforts. Closure would threaten an important source of local employment and a significant point of public connection to the conservation of species.
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The Albatross colony has been very actively engaged in public engagement to raise awareness of seabird species conservation. Several years ago it innovated with the installation of live-streamed nest cameras, a webcam that they dubbed the RoyalCam, which quickly gained a wide and international public audience. It allowed people to keep watching, learning and caring about the species even when physical access was difficult or possible.
This highlights the work of our current He Karapitipitinga Mariko Endeavour research programme on virtual and augmented technologies and tourist experiences. Our research was designed to confront management challenges in regional tourism in Aotearoa, such as in the cases of South Westland and the Far North where, respectively, glacier retreat and kauri dieback disease have disrupted visitor experiences.
Using techniques from Virtual and Augmented Realities, our research team has created and tested digital platforms that enable immersive interactive tourist experiences for visitors who may or may not be physically present. This provides visitors who are onsite or anywhere around the world with
the feeling of actually ‘being there’, affording the opportunity to enabling controlled virtual access for tourists to inaccessible and sensitive places, including those that must be temporarily closed to the public for cultural and/or ecological reasons.
This raises the point that for operators, building some of that digital capacity before it is needed in an emergency, could be a genuinely useful piece of resilience planning. Being able to deliver virtual alternatives when in-person on-site experiences have to be temporarily suspended, allows revenue streams, employment and an audience connection to remain active during periods of enforced physical closure.
It’s not a replacement for the real thing. Nobody is suggesting that a livestream virtual experience in real time is the same as standing on a headland watching an albatross in flight. But the technology prototypes that are being developed and refined in the lab aim to be a close to ‘being there’ as possible. The uptake and application of these technologies become very real in the case of bird flu.
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How we manage nature-based tourism in New Zealand has undoubtedly become more challenging with the arrival of bird flu. There are some important conclusions to draw.
First, wildlife tourism operators are now, whether they signed up for it or not, active partners in biosecurity and conservation. The leadership being offered by TIA’s forums and newsletters, and the swift responses that we are seeing a places such as Ōamaru Pengiuns, shows an industry treating its new biosecurity roles very seriously.
Second, Professor Geoghegan and MPI have made it clear that this virus is likely to become a permanent feature of our environment, not a one-off event to wait out. That changes the planning horizon. Sustainable tourism management has to extend to building resilience to ongoing biosecurity risk as a standing part of the wildlife tourism model in Aotearoa.
Third, there’s something worth drawing out about how New Zealand is protecting these birds, and the language DOC and researchers use. These endangered species are consistently referred to as taonga, treasures, not just biodiversity assets. That framing sits close to indigenous, holistic models of guardianship, kaitiakitanga, where the relationship with a species like the kākāpō or the Tara Iti isn’t purely about ecological or tourist value, it’s about an ongoing responsibility to protect something irreplaceable for future generations.
Finally, this whole episode is a reminder that early warning and shared, system-wide responsibility is necessary in advance of a crisis. This is a lesson that has been learned through the work of AF8, in building system-wide preparations an alpine fault seismic event in New Zealand.
Bringing together organisations, agencies, operators and communities and having existing relationships and protocols in place in advance has been critical to the swift response. This collaborative and coordinated approach has become the new reality as wildlife tourism operators learn to live with bird flu.
References:
Crimp, L. (2026a, July 16). Newly arrived bird flu could wipe out NZ’s endangered species. 1News (RNZ). https://www.1news.co.nz/2026/07/16/newly-arrived-bird-flu-could-wipe-out-nzs-endangered-species/
Crimp, L. (2026b, July 16). Newly arrived H5N1 bird flu likely to take hold in New Zealand, MPI says. RNZ. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/environment/723766/newly-arrived-h5n1-bird-flu-likely-to-take-hold-in-new-zealand-mpi-says
Geoghegan, J. (2026, July 16). Bird flu has reached New Zealand – what this means and what comes next. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/bird-flu-has-reached-new-zealand-what-this-means-and-what-comes-next-287591
He Karapitipitinga Mariko (2026). Immersive and regenerative tourism experiences in Aotearoa New Zealand. Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) Endavour Programme (2024-2028). https://www.karapitipitingamariko.org/
Hoggard, A. (2026, July 15). H5 bird flu confirmed in New Zealand [Media release]. Beehive.govt.nz. https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/h5-bird-flu-confirmed-new-zealand
Ōamaru Penguins. (2026, July 16). Biosecurity measures at Ōamaru Penguins. https://www.penguins.co.nz/blog/biosecurity
Readfearn, G. (2026). First Australian mass mortality event suspected as deadly bird flu virus rapidly escalates among native birds. The Guardian. 1 August 2026. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/01/first-australian-mass-mortality-event-suspected-as-deadly-bird-flu-virus-rapidly-escalates-among-native-birds?
RNZ Digital Reporters. (2026, July 17). Newly arrived H5N1 bird flu could be ‘catastrophic’ for native wildlife, leading scientist says. RNZ. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/environment/728756/newly-arrived-h5n1-bird-flu-could-be-catastrophic-for-native-wildlife-leading-scientist-says
Tourism Industry Aotearoa. (2026, July 16). Bird Flu Preparedness [Members’ advisory]. https://members.tia.org.nz/s/bird-flu-preparedness-
Tourism Industry Aotearoa. (2026). Bird Flu Tourism Forum [MyTIA members’ update].
Tourism Industry Aotearoa. (2026). H5N1 Bird Flu: New MyTIA page [Members’ update].
Younger, J. (2026). The warning signs are over: Australia now faces a devastating bird flu outbreak in wildlife. The Conversation 2 August 2026. https://theconversation.com/the-warning-signs-are-over-australia-now-faces-a-devastating-bird-flu-outbreak-in-wildlife-288889
