A greater crested tern in flight with its wings raised, photographed side on against a plain white background.
Greater crested tern (Thalasseus bergii), the species of Victoria’s first detection and of the South Australian cluster. Photograph by JJ Harrison, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped and converted to greyscale.

H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b, Australia

Where bird flu is being detected in Australia

Every officially reported detection, mapped where it happened and listed with the source that reported it. The Commonwealth’s own national count is shown beside our mapped total rather than merged into it, and the resolved 2024 to 2025 H7 poultry outbreaks are a different subtype, kept separate throughout.

Current situation, Australia

Loading the current situation

Two figures, measured differently

The official count and this map

The map is built from automated feeds that follow WOAH notifications, which arrive after an Australian announcement. The Commonwealth counts from its own updates. Rather than pick one number, both are published here and the difference is named.

Detections and their location

The view starts on the current H5N1 incursion. Historical events are opt in, and are labelled as historical, resolved, and a different subtype wherever they appear.

Region
Event
Type
Strain

Basemap tiles and data © OpenStreetMap contributors.

What the category marks mean

    The marks carry the category and are drawn in one stroke weight so they read as a set. Colour is not part of them: on this site colour means strain and era, so a mark is legible in plain black on white.

    Detections, one row per record

    One officially reported detection per row, each with the source that reported it. Dates are the reported or confirmation date, not the date an animal was found. The table follows the filters above and every column heading sorts. On a narrow screen each record becomes a labelled block instead of a row, so no column is left off the side of the page.

    Officially reported avian influenza detections, filtered by the controls above

    Media reports, not official notifications

    Recent Australian news coverage

    These are media reports gathered from an Australian news feed. They are not official notifications. Nothing on this list is plotted on the map or counted in any figure anywhere on this page. Treat each one as a lead to check against a primary source.

    Data sources and method

    This is an independent, public-interest tracker of avian influenza in Australia, with the wider world for context. Australian detections come automatically from the FAO EMPRES-i+ animal disease system, which aggregates the official WOAH notifications Australian agencies issue. United States wild-bird detections come from USDA APHIS, and global human-case figures from the WHO via Our World in Data. Data refreshes daily.

    The FAO feed follows WOAH notifications, which arrive after an Australian announcement, so the number of detections plotted here can trail the Commonwealth’s own figure. The page therefore reads the official national count straight from the Department of Agriculture’s H5 bird flu updates and national campaign page and shows it beside the mapped total. Those pages publish place names without coordinates, so they inform the counts and never add points to the map: a guessed coordinate on a public health map is worse than a missing one. A nationally significant first, such as a state’s first detection, may be added by hand with its primary source attached until the automated feed catches up.

    Feeds that produce mapped records

    Sources that inform the page without producing map points

    Further reference

    Notes and caveats