A local elderly couple in the central west found an injured magpie on the side of the road and took it to the WIRES-approved vets listed on their smartphone; it’s then that the real drama started!

Restrictions have now been placed on NSW veterinary surgeries, with some local facilities now refusing entry for bird species, whether pets, domestic fowl, or wild varieties, due to bird flu.

This is part of a strategy aimed at controlling a devastating exotic disease that scientists fear could not only decimate flocks of not only native and domestic bird species, but also many other animal families.

Indicating the urgency of the threat, the State Government recently launched a mass roll-out of targeted vaccinations for vulnerable species aiming to isolate them from the H5 avian influenza (bird flu).

The State Coordination Centre in Orange has also been managing the emergency animal disease hotline and statewide preparedness for the pandemic.

Back to the injured magpie... The couple took the bird to a local veterinary surgery and saw on the front door a sign warning them not to just walk in. The sign declared: “Bringing a Bird Into the Clinic? Please ring reception before entering”.

The sign then said a series of screening questions would then be asked, with the aim of reducing the likely spread of the disease and to “Help Us Keep Everyone Safe”.

Once inside, the wildlife rescuer was put a series of further questions regarding where they had picked the animal up, its likely cause of injury, and its general condition. These answers were then forwarded to the Exotic Disease Hotline, with the vet confirming that the surgery had stocks of the vaccine on-hand themselves before treating the magpie.

One local vet in the Dubbo region said that phone calls concerning injured birdlife are being forwarded to local Wildlife Information, Rescue and Education Service (WIRES) representatives.

“We can’t take any birds at all at the moment,” a spokesperson for a local clinic told Dubbo Photo News.

“We usually just direct them to WIRES, because it’s such a contagious disease,” they added.

Another said that, on top of the strict NSW Department of Primary Industries' restrictions, they had introduced some of their own.

“We don’t have a note or anything on the window, but we do have our own in-clinic protocols with things like PPE and other measures,” the spokesperson said.

“We’re doing a lot on the phone, but we also have to consider the welfare of the bird and what contact it has had,” they added.

As of October 2026, this strain has spread extensively through wild animal populations across multiple states, triggering mass mortality events but remaining absent from commercial poultry flocks, with 70 reported cases in NSW alone.

Mammal species that have also been infected include a long-nosed fur seal, a red fox and Australian sea lions and Australian fur seals, all in South Australia’s coastal zones, the centre of the Australian outbreak.

In seeking to combat the disease which has devastated wild and commercial bird flocks around the world, Taronga Conservation Society Australia had recently vaccinated the first local birds last week with a trial on Little Penguins, Carnaby’s Black Cockatoos, and Red-tailed Black Cockatoos among the first species to receive the initial dose of the two-dose vaccine course.

More than 5000 calls have been received by the Hotline which has been up and running since June at the State Coordination Centre in Orange, Minister for Agriculture, Regional and Western NSW, Tara Moriarty said.

“This targeted vaccination program is another important step in NSW’s ongoing work to prepare for and respond to H5 bird flu,” Ms Moriarty stated.

“Vaccination is not a silver bullet, but it is one practical tool we can use alongside surveillance and preparedness planning to help protect vulnerable native wildlife,” she concluded.