Pathfinder
Editor, Senior Moderator
Statement on the impact of HPAI on wildlife worldwide
Published on 18 December 2025
Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5 viruses are causing increased mortality in wildlife and ecological disruption worldwide. Since 2021, the panzootic has spread across continents and now affects an unparalleled range of bird and mammal species, resulting in unprecedented biodiversity loss and One Health concerns.
Recent events highlight the scale and persistence of this threat. The European Food Safety Authority reported exceptionally high HPAI activity in wild birds during Europe’s 2025 autumn migration, with detections quadrupling those reported in 2024 and representing the highest levels observed since 2016. Among the affected species were common cranes (Grus grus), with more than 20,000 deaths recorded in Germany alone. In North America, the virus remains widespread in wild birds and is increasingly detected in a wide range of mammalian species. In the subantarctic islands of South Georgia, new infections are being reported in southern elephant seals (Mirounga leonina), compounding losses of nearly 50% of breeding females since 2023. Similarly, in the neighbouring Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), the world’s two largest colonies of black-browed albatrosses (Thalassarche melanophris) experienced recurrent HPAI outbreaks and a marked decline in the number of breeding birds in 2024 and again in 2025.
These mortality events have far-reaching ecological consequences. Population declines, reproductive failure, and disrupted species interactions can undermine ecosystem stability and species conservation, with potential generational impacts. Continued spillover into mammals also elevates One Health concerns, with potential implications for companion animals, livestock production and human health.
Reducing further impacts and supporting recovery requires expanded and coordinated wildlife surveillance, rapid genomic characterization of viruses, improved data sharing, integration of broader conservation actions, and addressing other conservation threats such as habitat loss, overfishing, invasive species, pollution, and climate change.
Innovative approaches such as Nature-based solutions that strengthen ecological resilience and maintain the natural barriers that limit pathogen spillover should be actively explored. Examples of these solutions include supporting natural scavenger populations to enhance biological removal of infected carcasses, restoring and protecting wetlands and coastal habitats to reduce crowding of migratory birds, maintaining heterogeneous freshwater–coastal landscapes that disperse foraging and roosting densities, and minimizing artificial congregation points that can serve as viral hot spots.
HPAI has become a global conservation and One Health challenge, demanding urgent and sustained cross-sector collaboration to limit ongoing ecological damage. This scale of biodiversity loss will result in profound and unpredictable ecological disruption, including loss of ecosystem services and the breakdown of food-web dynamics.
Veterinary authorities and wildlife health professionals are instrumental in establishing strategies and coordinating control plans for HPAI that emphasise biosecurity and biosurveillance involving both wild and domestic animals and timely sharing of up to date information on HPAI events.
...
https://www.woah.org/en/statement-on-the-impact-of-hpai-on-wildlife-worldwide/
Published on 18 December 2025
Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5 viruses are causing increased mortality in wildlife and ecological disruption worldwide. Since 2021, the panzootic has spread across continents and now affects an unparalleled range of bird and mammal species, resulting in unprecedented biodiversity loss and One Health concerns.
Recent events highlight the scale and persistence of this threat. The European Food Safety Authority reported exceptionally high HPAI activity in wild birds during Europe’s 2025 autumn migration, with detections quadrupling those reported in 2024 and representing the highest levels observed since 2016. Among the affected species were common cranes (Grus grus), with more than 20,000 deaths recorded in Germany alone. In North America, the virus remains widespread in wild birds and is increasingly detected in a wide range of mammalian species. In the subantarctic islands of South Georgia, new infections are being reported in southern elephant seals (Mirounga leonina), compounding losses of nearly 50% of breeding females since 2023. Similarly, in the neighbouring Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), the world’s two largest colonies of black-browed albatrosses (Thalassarche melanophris) experienced recurrent HPAI outbreaks and a marked decline in the number of breeding birds in 2024 and again in 2025.
These mortality events have far-reaching ecological consequences. Population declines, reproductive failure, and disrupted species interactions can undermine ecosystem stability and species conservation, with potential generational impacts. Continued spillover into mammals also elevates One Health concerns, with potential implications for companion animals, livestock production and human health.
Reducing further impacts and supporting recovery requires expanded and coordinated wildlife surveillance, rapid genomic characterization of viruses, improved data sharing, integration of broader conservation actions, and addressing other conservation threats such as habitat loss, overfishing, invasive species, pollution, and climate change.
Innovative approaches such as Nature-based solutions that strengthen ecological resilience and maintain the natural barriers that limit pathogen spillover should be actively explored. Examples of these solutions include supporting natural scavenger populations to enhance biological removal of infected carcasses, restoring and protecting wetlands and coastal habitats to reduce crowding of migratory birds, maintaining heterogeneous freshwater–coastal landscapes that disperse foraging and roosting densities, and minimizing artificial congregation points that can serve as viral hot spots.
HPAI has become a global conservation and One Health challenge, demanding urgent and sustained cross-sector collaboration to limit ongoing ecological damage. This scale of biodiversity loss will result in profound and unpredictable ecological disruption, including loss of ecosystem services and the breakdown of food-web dynamics.
Veterinary authorities and wildlife health professionals are instrumental in establishing strategies and coordinating control plans for HPAI that emphasise biosecurity and biosurveillance involving both wild and domestic animals and timely sharing of up to date information on HPAI events.
...
https://www.woah.org/en/statement-on-the-impact-of-hpai-on-wildlife-worldwide/