The moment scientists had been dreading arrived late last year, when the H5N1 virus, or avian flu, was first discovered in Antarctica. Last week, a king penguin on South Georgia Island became the first in the region to be suspected of having died from the disease. Guardian biodiversity reporter Phoebe Weston tells Ian Sample why researchers say the spread of bird flu through Antarctic penguin colonies could signal ‘one of the biggest ecological disasters of time’ modern”.
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