A second bird found sick on a remote beach in Western Australia’s south coast has now tested positive for a deadly strain of bird flu, authorities have confirmed.

Federal Agriculture Minister Julie Collins said testing at the CSIRO had confirmed both a brown skua and a northern giant petrel had tested positive for H5N1 avian influenza.

Both birds were found in Esperance, about 700 kilometres south-east of Perth, and authorities confirmed on Saturday morning that the brown skua had the disease.

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Ms Collins said there was no evidence of mass mortalities in wildlife, with the Australian poultry and agricultural systems remaining free from bird flu so far.

“We are working to determine whether the H5 bird flu has established in the wildlife or Australia, other than these two isolated birds,” she said.

This bird was the second in Australia to test positive to the virus. (Supplied: Esperance Wildlife Hospital)

The news comes as Ingham’s, one of the nation’s biggest poultry producers, announced earlier today it was locking down its entire WA operations in response to the bird flu threat.

Esperance, 700km south east of Perth, is a major migratory route and nesting ground for seabirds from around the world.

The region includes nesting grounds on the Recherche Archipelago and internationally protected RAMSAR-listed wetlands visited by hundreds of bird species each year.

Information lacking: local shire

Despite today’s second positive test, Esperance Shire president Ron Smith said there had been little communication with the local government.

He said responding agencies needed to collaborate with local leaders and officials.

“[The media] is saying that the state and federal governments have been collaborating quite a bit with different agencies around the bird flu and the possible detection of bird flu within Australia,” he said.

“It would be really good to see that now start to flow down to local governments … they’re probably going to be the ones that get hit fairly hard for information.”

Ingham’s lockdown

Earlier, Ingham’s said it was implementing a “complete lockdown, preventing all non-essential access, across all the company’s WA farms and processing operations.”

Ingham’s said it had implemented an immediate lockdown of its WA operations. (ABC News: Stephanie Chalmers)

In a statement to the Australian Stock Exchange, Ingham’s said it had “moved to a state of heightened biosecurity vigilance to mitigate against any potential risks.”

The company’s operations and supply chain are mostly located in the Wheatbelt region north of Perth, about 700 kilometres from Esperance.

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