Racing to Save the Penguins

For the first time in recorded history, in recent years, avian flu reached Antarctica, threatening animals in an already fragile ecosystem. Griffin Catalyst responded proactively to this potential crisis—which, gone unchecked, had the potential to devastate Antarctica’s penguin, seal, and seabird populations, with global consequences. By supporting a new scientific monitoring and surveillance effort led by researchers at Cornell University, Griffin Catalyst helped scientists understand the nature and spread of the new virus and what immunity looks like for previously infected animals, with important implications for mitigation strategies and poultry, fishing, and tourism policies that may reduce its spread.
The Race to Save the Penguins (2:44)

In 2023, scientists grew increasingly fearful that a potentially fatal viral pathogen would spread across Antarctica and kill large colonies of seabirds and marine mammals. 

This strain of H5N1 avian influenza that has infected poultry farms and wild birds around the globe has now spread to mammals, reaching places previously untouched by high-pathogenicity avian flu. The virus caused major outbreaks in the islands off the southern tip of South America, including South Georgia Island, which has lost thousands of seal pups, and Scotland, which has lost 80% of its population of scavenging skua birds. In the Falkland Islands, just 750 miles from Antarctica, thousands of albatrosses and seals—and hundreds of penguins—have died due to the disease.   

Alarmingly, the virus has also made its way to Antarctica, where it threatens to devastate already vulnerable populations, including the familiar and beloved symbol of the continent: penguins. Scientists feared that the virus could travel quickly among species that had never previously been exposed to any strain of avian influenza, just as they were beginning their seasonal congregation and breeding in September 2024.  

Though H5N1 appears to be a “super” virus—with the capacity to kill its host and still spread—there was far too little data about its nature, spread, and animal immune response, limiting our understanding of the potential impact among penguins and other species on the continent of Antarctica. Support from Griffin Catalyst aimed to change that, to guide mitigation and policy responses to protect this fragile ecosystem. 

Who We’re Supporting

Griffin Catalyst’s support enabled a research team from the Cornell University School of Veterinary Medicine, with multidisciplinary experience in ecology, ornithology, and microbiology, to carry out research to better understand this threat.   

Working under the direction of Dr. Amandine Gamble, a professor in the Department of Public & Ecosystem Health at the K. Lisa Yang Center for Wildlife Health at Cornell, the team deployed new mobile field research labs to enable real-time monitoring and sequencing in targeted locations in the Falklands, South Georgia Island, and Antarctica itself in time for penguin breeding season in September 2024. The successful mission compiled the most comprehensive collection of viral sequences from the Antarctic and Subantarctic regions to date.  

Researchers collected and processed samples, offering the scientists a clearer picture of the H5N1 virus’s spread, impact, and immunity, informing mitigation approaches and helping to better understand current and future threats to penguins and other species.  

Why It Matters

Though it is difficult to control the spread of infectious diseases in wild populations, the data collected by the mobile labs has been critical for the scientific community’s understanding of the severity and spread of the outbreak and international work to evaluate strategies to prevent spread and reduce risk.   

In the short term, the surveillance has offered a fuller understanding of which species are spreading the disease (including “silent spreaders” which have no symptoms themselves), how closely related the various cases are, and why and how immunity is achieved in certain species.   

This information, in turn, is helping to establish long-term surveillance and response strategies to reduce or mitigate threats that can be at least partly controlled, especially non-natural, human-mediated factors that can lead to the introduction of dangerous new viruses, such as fisheries, invasive species, and high-risk tourism.  

In addition to their focus on the 2024 outbreak, the mobile labs can remain active for any potential future viral threat, and for general epidemiological research.   

What’s the Impact

Currently, Griffin Catalyst is one of the few philanthropic organizations supporting scientific research connected to this urgent conservation issue. With the persistence of the virus in South Atlantic Ocean animal populations, Cornell’s research has improved an understanding of virus dynamics in the region and broader bird-mammal transmissions. 

In addition to providing this better scientific picture of the current threat to Antarctica’s penguins and other species, the research aims to help shape longer-term public policy recommendations to reduce future risks to the species that inhabit the Antarctic region. 

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