Eurasia Review An unprecedented avian flu outbreak in Argentine Patagonia devastated a stable elephant seal colony, highlighting the rising threat of infectious disease to wildlife in a warming world.
In the spring of 2023, we returned to Península Valdés, a rugged coastal region in Argentine Patagonia, expecting to witness the familiar sights and sounds of southern elephant seals during their breeding season. These massive marine mammals, with males weighing up to 4,000 kilograms, gather in large colonies on the beaches to give birth, nurse their young, and mate. The air usually resonates with the cries of thousands of pups calling out to their mothers, the grunts and bellows of males competing for dominance, and the buzz of life thriving on the rocky shores.
Instead, we were met with an eerie silence and a devastating sight: beaches once bustling with thousands of seals were littered with hundreds of dead pups and adults. The usual cacophony had been replaced by the stench of decay, and the empty spaces where seals should have gathered were painfully obvious. This mass mortality event had unfolded over just a few weeks—a stark and sudden collapse that no one could have predicted with such speed and severity.