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A polar bear has been killed by bird flu as the highly contagious H5N1 virus spreads into the most remote parts of the planet.
The death was confirmed in December by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation. “This is the first polar bear case reported, for anywhere,” Dr Bob Gerlach, Alaska’s state veterinarian, told the Alaska Beacon.
It was found near Utqiagvik, one of the northernmost communities in Alaska, two years after this latest strain was detected in North America. Gerlach said it was likely the bear was scavenging on the carcasses of infected birds.
. . .
The current outbreak of the highly infectious variant of H5N1 – which started in 2021 – is estimated to have killed millions of wild birds. Globally, thousands of mammals have also died of the virus, including black bears and brown bears. Bald eagles, foxes and kittiwakes are among the species to have died of the virus in Alaska in recent months.
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2020 - S05E02 - Polar Bear Bird Flu
A polar bear has been killed by bird flu as the highly contagious H5N1 virus spreads into the most remote parts of the planet. TV-MA, 52 mins
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Imma wait till the season finale and binge watch then
Would this not be s05e01?
sadly, no…
2020 - S05E01 - Earthquake Aftershock Plane Crash [Season Premier]
The death toll from the 7.5 magnitude earthquake that struck Japan’s west coast on Monday has risen to at least 30, according to Ishikawa prefecture authorities. More than 35 aftershocks greater than a magnitude of 2.5 have struck near the epicenter of Japan’s earthquake in the past 24 hours, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS). Later, Japan Airlines jet bursts into flames after collision with earthquake relief plane at Tokyo Haneda airport. TV-MA, 104 mins
SHD, UHD, Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos, Dolby Surround
You should make a series list of episodes, it’s a pretty good format to remember all the crazy stuff that has rolled through lately
check shitty headlines tomorrow!
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Ep. 1 was a clip show.
I would really appreciate help processing this.
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Ok, but… polar bears eat birds?
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Yes, pretty much anything that is available.
Polar bears have evolved to prey on seals. But they are curious and will eat other foods when available — including geese, bird eggs, whales that wash up on the beach, and even the occasional small mammal.
https://polarbearsinternational.org/polar-bears-changing-arctic/polar-bear-facts/diet-prey/
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If only AI summaries were half as good as this.
And if you’re a bot… fucking bravo.
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Not necessarily; while ripping the bird apart to eat it, if blood and whatever other residues get on/in soft tissues like nose or around eyes, infection spreads easily that way.
Polar bears are birds.
In seriousness I don’t know if this is fucked up or just something that happens sometimes.
Viruses can jump between species , especially if their target proteins are non-specific. It’s not necessarily rare, but nonetheless destructive.
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Wait I thought birds wer… ohhhh
That might be true in the future.
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If the bird flu can penetrate the Arctic it can penetrate the Antarctic. If that happens we’ll lose a lot of penguins, far more than we can “afford”.
A lot of penguins aren’t in the Antarctic, so it may already be spreading through populations in places like South Africa and the Galapagos Islands.
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It’s not clickbait.
Ecosystems in polar regions are particularly vulnerable to bird flu because they contain many animals found nowhere else in the world which have never been exposed to similar viruses. They are also among the places most affected by climate breakdown.
They’re aren’t saying that it wasn’t thought possible for the virus to infect polar bears. It’s news because the virus has reached a vulnerable species in a highly vulnerable ecosystem for the first time. That was predicted previously but not known until now.
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Pretty sure that’s the same bear. Utqiagvik is the largest city in North Slope and one of just a few cities in the Arctic. The virus was detected 3 weeks ago but we don’t know when it was reported on that USDA site. That still makes the detection in polar bears and in the Arctic very recent. That information was probably only publicly available more recently than 3 weeks ago.
The earliest reporting I could find was 3 days ago in Alaskan press and earlier today in nonlocal reporting.
I still say it’s legit news, and not click bait. Appreciate the civil discussion though!
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We still have polar bears?
Not anymore.
While H5N1 gaining the ability to spread human to human is scary, it is an influenza virus which doesn’t mutate as quickly as coronaviruses do. We know how to make vaccines for the flu and have the ability to make one rather quickly.
Yeah except like 30% of the population is anti-vax :|
Well… Maybe that number will go lower.
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