Wildlife Welfare

Wild Gannet Avian Influenza Response

Highly pathogenic avian influenza has devastated gannet and other seabird colonies since 2022, raising unprecedented wildlife welfare challenges at colony scale.

Key Facts

HPAI H5N1 killed an estimated 50,000 gannets on UK coasts in 2022-2023
Bass Rock in Scotland lost a significant proportion of its world-leading gannet colony
HPAI causes neurological signs including disorientation, tremors, and inability to fly
Culling of infected birds is not feasible at colony scale due to numbers and access
Vaccine development for seabirds is theoretically possible but faces major practical challenges

Welfare Considerations

HPAI causes acute neurological suffering and death for individual gannets while causing catastrophic mortality at colony level. The scale of this welfare disaster exceeds any practical intervention capacity, making biosecurity and vaccine research the most realistic available responses.

What You Can Do

Report sick or dead seabirds to APHA's dead bird reporting line
Do not handle sick or dead seabirds due to zoonotic HPAI transmission risk
Support seabird conservation organisations monitoring HPAI impacts