The last continent: how deadly bird flu travelled the world before landing on a remote Australian beach

Researchers visited the South Georgia coast to monitor the spread of the H5N1 variant of flu among Antarctic fur seals and birds. Photograph: Jane Younger

It was a rough five-day sail from the Falkland Islands and, as the science expedition approached the South Georgia coast, they found fur seal carcasses floating on the water. “There were these moments when it would hit us,” says Dr Jane Younger, remembering the expedition to the British subantarctic territory six months ago.

Younger, an ecologist at the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies at the University of Tasmania, was with scientists from the United States, France, South Africa and the Falklands to check on the spread of the H5N1 variant of bird flu.