00:02A vast expanse of interconnected lakes, lagoons and sweeping sand dunes make up the Coorong
00:08National Park.
00:10You can see a whole array of different birds, pelicans, cormorants.
00:14A unique landscape luring hundreds of thousands of people every year to marvel at the diversity
00:20of bird life.
00:21It's just this magical wetland, wondrous wetland.
00:26You feel like you're a million miles from anywhere.
00:27When South Australia recorded its first case of the H5 strain of bird flu in a migratory
00:33bird in June, it landed on the doorstep of the Coorong.
00:38We've gone from crisis to crisis, COVID, floods, algal blooms, now bird flu, it's just a next
00:44little series.
00:45We leave something for the future.
00:48Naranjeri elder Mark Cormitry runs cultural tours and worries the arrival of bird flu could
00:54impact sacred connections with wildlife.
00:57The mental anguish that could have occurred seeing all of these unfortunate birds that
01:05need our help.
01:06Winter in the Coorong marks a quieter time with northern migratory birds having made their
01:11way home.
01:12But during the summer months this place is teeming with up to 200,000 birds with an additional
01:18100,000 in the lower lakes.
01:21That's probably the critical time when you're going to have issues because that's when you've
01:24got vast numbers of birds using this system.
01:27Ecologist David Payton has been closely studying birds in the Coorong for four decades.
01:32If it gets into the black swan populations then it could decimate those populations.
01:36One of those species which has very little immunity to an avian flu if any.
01:40The lower river Murray system including the Coorong was listed as critically endangered this
01:45year and has long suffered from a lack of water flow.
01:49We used to talk about it being the Kakadu of the south and it's definitely not that anymore.
01:54Ecologist Faith Coleman says the flu has arrived at a time when the system is already vulnerable.
02:00The system is incredibly sick.
02:02There isn't a lot of food for those birds.
02:04They're often stressed.
02:05They've come a long way.
02:06Justin Biddle's Wildlife Rescue Centre was plunged into a biosecurity lockdown for two weeks
02:13after unknowingly taking a positive case into care.
02:17He says the months ahead remain uncertain.
02:20Volunteers make it their life work to treat wildlife.
02:24It's quite distressing to know that lots of that might disappear.
02:28Mind that?
02:29Jeff Coleman left for one of the two main in the BDSP- code of launchers and demand
02:29in the BDSP- code of launchers.
02:29Plus the He bellehorn proved into a proper performance.
02:30Relifen Robotic says there are a lot of funke.
02:30We've had a long way.
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