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wildlife disease

Government data North America

The U.S. mammal H5N1 detection table is still changing—and still incomplete

Evidence
Government data
Geography
United States
System
Wildlife, captive mammals and avian-influenza surveillance

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

USDA APHIS updated its mammal HPAI detections page on September 25. The table includes recent 2026 detections in mammals and explicitly warns that data may be incomplete and that additional detections will be added.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

The useful signal is surveillance breadth, not a claim of sustained mammal transmission. A dynamic cross-species detection ledger helps identify where wildlife, domestic animals and disease-monitoring systems intersect.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Detection does not establish onward mammal-to-mammal transmission, population-level impact or a complete incidence picture. The federal table is explicitly incomplete and is updated as reports arrive.

SOURCE

USDA APHIS
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EvidenceGovernment dataGeographyUnited StatesSystemWildlife, captive mammals and avian-influenza surveillance WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS USDA APHIS updated its mammal HPAI detections page on September 25. The table includes recent 2026 detections

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Government data

Australia’s H5N1 response is entering a multi-species wildlife phase

Evidence
Government data
Geography
Australia
System
Wild birds, marine mammals and terrestrial wildlife disease surveillance

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Australia's national bird-flu surveillance dashboard reported 583 confirmed H5 wildlife events as of September 18, with detections spread across multiple states and territories. Separate expert reporting on the Australian response has documented spillover detections in mammalian wildlife, including seals and other species, while authorities have not reported sustained mammal-to-mammal transmission.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Worth keeping in the back of your mind because the management problem is shifting from an avian outbreak to a broader wildlife-interface surveillance challenge. The useful next evidence will be whether mammalian infections remain independent spillovers, which species and places become recurrent, and how carcass, rehabilitation and biosecurity systems adapt.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

A reported 'event' is not the same as an individual infected animal, and testing intensity changes after an outbreak becomes established. Mammalian detection does not imply mammal-to-mammal transmission, and current surveillance counts should not be read as a population-impact estimate.

SOURCE

Australian Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry
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Global Virus Network · Expert statement
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National surveillance had recorded 583 confirmed wildlife H5 events by September 18, while detections in several mammal species are widening the ecological questions even without evidence of sustained mammal-to-mammal transmission.

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Peer-reviewed Asia

African swine fever has become a biodiversity crisis for Asia’s endemic wild pigs

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Asia, focused on endemic wild suids
System
Wild suids and wildlife–livestock disease interfaces

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

A conservation roadmap synthesizes the spread and impacts of African swine fever across Asia’s endemic wild pigs. Confirmed infection has been documented in at least four endemic species and is suspected in two more, with severe population declines contributing to recent conservation-status concerns and uplistings. The roadmap calls for coordinated wildlife surveillance, livestock-interface management, contingency ex-situ conservation, sustained financing and vaccine research.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

A livestock pathogen can become a biodiversity threat when spillover reaches small, fragmented wildlife populations. That pushes disease management beyond veterinary containment: conservation status, protected-area surveillance, farm biosecurity and species-recovery planning become parts of the same One Health problem.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

This is a roadmap and evidence synthesis, not an experiment estimating one uniform mortality rate. Surveillance intensity varies among species and countries, and suspected infections should not be treated as confirmed disease events.

SOURCE

Nature Reviews Biodiversity · Roadmap / synthesis
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A new conservation roadmap says disease-driven collapses now threaten several suid species and require wildlife surveillance, livestock-interface controls, ex-situ planning and vaccine research to move together.

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Peer-reviewed

Lamprey viromes found two divergent coronaviruses—but detection is not yet a disease diagnosis

Evidence
Peer-reviewed
Geography
Mataura River, New Zealand, and Tasmania, Australia
System
Migratory lamprey and freshwater disease ecology

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

Sequencing of 28 pouched lamprey identified eight fish-infecting RNA viruses, seven apparently novel, including two divergent coronaviruses. Fish showing reddening syndrome carried greater total viral abundance than healthy fish, but several viruses also occurred in fish without the syndrome, coronavirus abundance varied strongly by sampling location, and the study did not establish a single causal agent. The research was developed with Indigenous guardians of kanakana in New Zealand.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Pathogen discovery is most useful when it narrows hypotheses without turning correlation into diagnosis. For wildlife health, metagenomic surveillance can reveal previously invisible viral diversity and guide targeted follow-up, but disease attribution still requires pathology, experimental or epidemiological evidence beyond sequence detection.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

The sample was small and uneven across health states and locations, and metatranscriptomic abundance does not prove infection is causing clinical signs. The work identifies candidates and associations, not the etiology of lamprey reddening syndrome.

SOURCE

Journal of Virology · Original evidence
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Metatranscriptomic work in New Zealand and Tasmania expands the known fish-virus landscape while keeping the cause of lamprey reddening syndrome unresolved.

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