For the last year and a half, Americans have watched and worried as H5N1 bird flu racked dairy herds and killed hundreds of millions of commercially raised chickens, turkeys and ducks.

But far less widely known is that the virus has devastated wildlife across the globe, killing millions of wild birds and mammals.

Few animals have been harder hit than elephant seals, sea lions and fur seals in the Southern Hemisphere. In some places thousands of carcasses and orphaned pups have littered the beaches.

On Thursday, a research team led by Connor Bamford, a marine ecologist with the British Antarctic Survey, reported a 47% drop in breeding females between 2022 and 2024 in the three largest elephant seal colonies on South Georgia Island.

The elephant seals of South Georgia Island, located between South America and Antarctica in the South Atlantic, are the largest breeding colony on the planet.

The virus hit there in 2023, Bamford said, and researchers were there to see it. But it was their visit in 2024 that really drove the devastation home.

“Normally there’s about 6,000 seals on St. Andrews Bay,” he said, describing a two-mile strip of beach along the northeastern side of the island. Usually it’s hard to make your way through the animals, it’s so jam-packed.

But in 2024, “it was easy. There were massive gaps. There were so few of them,” he said.

Other large breeding colonies — including along the Argentinian coast, as well as several other islands north of the Antarctic Circle — have also been hit. In 2023, UC Davis researchers reported that nearly 97% of elephant seal pups died at Argentina’s Peninsula Valdes, the most deaths ever recorded for this species.

According to Ralph Vanstreels, a marine ecologist with UC Davis who is researching the animals in Argentina, two-thirds of southern elephant seal colonies are now infected. Only those near New Zealand and Australia have been spared.

“We’re just holding our breath,” in hopes the virus doesn’t get there, he said.

Vanstreels said genetic analyses show the strain of virus circulating in Argentina acquired mutations allowing it to pass easily between mammals. He said it’s not yet clear whether the virus that has hit other elephant seals and pinnipeds in the region carries the same mutations.

Nor does anyone know whether the virus will move north to populations along the California coast — or into people.

But it’s left a deadly wake.

Reports of southern sea lions, fur seals and crabeater seals dying en masse have come in from across the region.

Vanstreels and Bamford say there’s no way to know the full extent of the virus’ toll on these animals. Many of these species, such as crabeater seals, are so remote that there are few, if any human observers to witness the devastation.

More than 30,000 sea lions in Peru and Chile died between 2022 and 2024. In Argentina, roughly 1,300 sea lions and fur seals perished.

A researcher launches a drone on the island of South Georgia, home to the world’s largest southern elephant seal population.

(British Antarctic Survey)

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Vanstreels said researchers don’t yet have any clear idea about why northern elephant seals and marine mammals in the north Pacific, including those that breed along the California coast, have been spared.

He said the strain circulating off the North American Pacific coast doesn’t carry the mutations seen in South America, so that may be why. There may also be differences in population densities or in the local marine ecosystem.

“We think the South American sea lion played a big role in transmission, carrying the virus along the coast and perhaps introducing it to the elephant seal population,” he said. “Maybe the areas where the Northern elephant seal lives don’t have as good a vector for the infection to be spread.”

Bamford and Vanstreels say the loss of this many animals will probably affect the broader ecosystem as well.

For example, elephant seal placentas are a major source of food for a variety of coastal animals, such as birds and crabs. In addition, the seals’ deep-sea foraging brings nutrients to the ocean surface, where fish, kelp, shrimp and other sea life depend on their waste and refuse for sustenance.

“You get rid of half of their population, that’s going to have an impact,” Vanstreels said.

A rural legal aid group is suing the California Department of Food and Agriculture for refusing to disclose the locations of dairies infected with H5N1 bird flu.

More than half of the 70 confirmed human cases of H5N1 bird flu infection in the United States in the last year and a half have been in California dairy workers.

California Rural Legal Assistance, a nonprofit that provides free civil legal services to low-income rural residents, together with the First Amendment Coalition, says the California agriculture department is withholding information that could protect the public and allow front-line responders, such as health clinics and labor groups, to assist farmworkers and others at risk of infection.

“As a matter of first principle, the California Constitution and the California Public Records Act enshrine the strong right of the public to inspect the conduct of its public officials and to ensure that they are basically executing the duties that are given to them,” said David Cremins, an attorney with the rural legal group. The suit was filed Monday in Sacramento County Superior Court.

A spokesman for the state’s agriculture agency said he could not provide comment “because the matter is in litigation.”

Anja Raudabaugh, chief executive of Western United Dairies — California’s largest dairy trade group — also declined to comment.

It was a surprise when H5N1 bird flu was found to have infected Texas dairy cattle in March 2024. It soon spread to workers. Most cases in the U.S. have been mild, but one person in Louisiana died, and several others were hospitalized.

Globally, H5N1 has killed hundreds of people. Until recently, its mortality rate was considered roughly 50%. It has also killed millions of wild birds, mammals, domestic cats and commercial poultry. The virus was first discovered in China’s Guangdong province in 1996.

Public health officials, epidemiologists and infectious disease researchers worry it would only take a minor mutation in the virus now circulating in dairy cows and commercial poultry to enable it to spread easily between people, or cause serious illness, or both. The more opportunities the virus has to move between individual animals or jump into new species, the greater the likelihood such changes could occur.

In December 2024, Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in response to H5N1 and said he wanted to make sure that “Californians have access to accurate, up-to-date information” about the disease.

The state did release information on outbreaks at poultry facilities and in wild animals at the county level. But it did not do so for dairy outbreaks.

Agriculture officials described the infected cattle only as being in “the Central Valley” — an area encompassing roughly 20,000 square miles — or Southern California — a roughly 56,000 square mile area.

More than 770 dairies in California have been infected since the outbreak began in 2024.

Such vague information is “completely useless in terms of trying to figure out how the flu is spreading around,” said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan’s Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization in Canada.

“It’s a bit mystifying why that information isn’t clear and transparent,” she said. “I mean, when you’re dealing with an outbreak that has major implications in terms of both people’s livelihoods and in terms of the nation’s food supply, to not be more transparent about that, I think is actually really harmful in the long run, because it’s like, what are you guys doing? Like, why are you keeping this a secret?”

Cremins, the attorney, said it’s possible infections among dairy workers could have been avoided had location information been shared, because groups like his and “other members of the public” could have targeted “outreach and education to at-risk workers and communities.”

The plaintiffs also allege in their filing that the agriculture department’s “refusal to disclose the locations of H5N1 outbreaks … perpetuated a stark and unjustifiable information asymmetry: CDFA (the ag agency) and dairy producers know where and when bird flu outbreaks are occurring; CRLA (the legal organization), dairy workers, and the broader public do not.”

Other states, including Michigan, Arizona and Nevada, reported outbreaks at the county level.

The plaintiffs are seeking disclosure of quarantine records, a declaration from a judge that the agriculture agency violated the state’s open record laws, and — should they succeed — payment of attorney’s fees.

A strange scene unfolded at the Adams/Vermont farmers market near USC last week.

The pomegranates, squash and apples were in season, pink guavas were so ripe you could smell their heady scent from a distance, and nutrient-packed yams were ready for the holidays.

But with federal funding in limbo for the 1.5 million people in Los Angeles County who depend on food aid from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — or SNAP — the church parking lot hosting the market was largely devoid of customers.

Even though the market accepts payments through CalFresh, the state’s SNAP program, hardly anyone was lined up when gates opened. Vendors mostly idled alone at their produce stands.

As thousands across Southern California lined up at food banks to collect free food, and the fight over delivering the federal allotments sowing uncertainty, fewer people receiving aid seemed to be spending money at outdoor markets like this one.

“So far we’re doing 50% of what we’d normally do — or less,” said Michael Bach, who works with Hunger Action, a food-relief nonprofit that partners with farmers markets across the greater L.A. area, offering “Market Match” deals to customers paying with CalFresh debit cards.

The deal allows shoppers to buy up to $30 worth of fruit produce for only $15. Skimming a ledger on her table, Bach’s colleague Estrellita Echor noted that only a handful of shoppers had taken advantage of the offer.

All week at farmers markets where workers were stationed, the absence was just as glaring, she said. “I was at Pomona on Saturday — we only had six transactions the whole day,” she said. “Zero at La Mirada.”

CalFresh customers looking to double their money on purchases were largely missing at the downtown L.A. market the next day, Echor said.

A volunteer loads up a box of free food for a family at a drive-through food distribution site in the City of Industry.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

“This program usually pulls in lots of people, but they are either holding on to what little they have left or they just don’t have anything on their cards,” she said.

The disruption in aid comes as a result of the Trump administration’s decision to deliver only partial SNAP payments to states during the ongoing federal government shutdown, skirting court order to restart funds for November. On Friday night, Supreme Court Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson temporarily blocked the order pending a ruling on the matter by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

But by then, CalFresh had already started loading 100% of November’s allotments onto users’ debit cards. Even with that reprieve for food-aid recipients in California, lack of access to food is a persistent problem in L.A., said Kayla de la Haye, director of the Institute for Food System Equity at USC.

A study published by her team last year found that 25% of residents in L.A. County — or about 832,000 people — experienced food insecurity, and that among low-income residents, the rate was even higher, 41%. The researchers also found that 29% of county residents experienced nutrition insecurity, meaning they lacked options for getting healthy, nutritious food.

Those figures marked a slight improvement compared to data from 2023, when the end of pandemic-era boosts to state, county and nonprofit aid programs — combined with rising inflation — caused hunger rates to spike just as they did at the start of the pandemic in 2020, de la Haye said.

“That was a big wake-up call — we had 1 in 3 folks in 2020 be food insecure,” de la Haye said. “We had huge lines at food pantries.”

But while the USC study shows the immediate delivery of food assistance through government programs and nonprofits quickly can cut food insecurity rates in an emergency, the researchers discovered many vulnerable Angelenos are not participating in food assistance programs.

Despite the county making strides to enroll more eligible families over the last decade, de la Haye said, only 29% of food insecure households in L.A. County were enrolled in CalFresh, and just 9% in WIC, the federal nutrition program for women, infants and children.

De la Haye said participants in her focus groups shared a mix of reasons why they didn’t enroll: Many didn’t know they qualified, while others said they felt too ashamed to apply for aid, were intimidated by the paperwork involved or feared disclosing their immigration status. Some said they didn’t apply because they earned slightly more than the cutoff amounts for eligibility.

Even many of those those receiving aid struggled: 39% of CalFresh recipients were found to lack an affordable source for food and 45% faced nutrition insecurity.

De la Haye said hunger and problems accessing healthy food have serious short- and long-term health effects — contributing to higher rates of heart disease, diabetes and obesity, as well greater levels of stress, anxiety and depression in adults and children. What’s more, she said, when people feel unsure about their finances, highly perishable items such as fresh, healthy food are often the first things sacrificed because they can be more expensive.

The USC study also revealed stark racial disparities: 31% of Black residents and 32% of Latinos experienced food insecurity, compared to 11% of white residents and 14% of Asians.

De la Haye said her team is analyzing data from this year they will publish in December. That analysis will look at investments L.A. County has made in food system over the last two years, including the allocation of $20 million of federal funding to 80 community organizations working on everything from urban farming to food pantries, and the recent creation of the county’s Office of Food Systems to address challenges to food availability and increase the consumption of healthy foods.

“These things that disrupt people’s ability to get food, including and especially cuts to this key program that is so essential to 1.5 million people in the county — we don’t weather those storms very well,” de la Haye said. “People are just living on the precipice.”