Avian influenza has reached Antarctic wildlife. Wildlife disease specialist Dr. Meagan Dewar explains how highly pathogenic avian influenza, or HPAI, spread through wild bird populations and eventually reached Antarctica and the sub-Antarctic. Learn how the virus moves through respiratory droplets, contaminated environments, scavenging, and migration, and why it can also infect mammals. The conversation examines risks to penguins, seabirds, seals, and people, along with wildlife monitoring, field biosecurity, and the limits of controlling disease in wild populations. Climate change can alter disease dynamics, but the episode also traces the outbreak’s connection to animal agriculture and an increasingly interconnected world.
Episode Guest: Dr. Meagan Dewar
More information about Dr. Meagan Dewar here
Browse Dr. Meagan Dewar’s publications on Research Gate
Follow Dr. Meagan Dewar on X
Read about strategies for controlling Avian Influenza here.
Episode Transcript and more information on the Pine Forest Media Website
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Hosted, produced, written, and edited by Clark Marchese
Cover art and PFM logo by Laurel Wong.
Theme music by Nela Ruiz
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