Wild bird mortality events and avian influenza

The Pacific Wildlife Health Network (PWHN) held its 3^rd meeting on the 13th October 2022. The meeting was attended by representatives from Australia, New Caledonia, New Zealand and the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH, founded as OIE).

There were three main agenda points in the meeting:

• Updates on a number of PWHN administrative items including agreement on broadening revision of the Terms of Reference.
• The topic for the meeting, selected by the participants of the previous meeting, was Wild bird mortality events and avian influenza. During the meeting, two invited speakers presented on this topic, as outlined below.
  • Dr Kelly Buckle, Ministry for Primary Industries, New Zealand gave an excellent presentation on “What to expect, collect and investigate during wildlife mortality events”.
  • Dr Paul Duff, Animal and Plant Health Agency provided a recorded presentation on “Surveillance of unprecedented wildlife mortality due to HPAIV infections 2021-2022 in the UK”.
• Information exchange and discussion from participants noted the importance of early wildlife disease investigations and developing, maintaining, and utilising local and regional networks to inform investigations, including but not limited to local communities and ecologists.

The 4^th meeting for the PWHN will be scheduled in 2023 with a topic chosen from ideas previously put forward by participants.

Banner photo credit: Michelle Wille