PESCADERO, Calif. (KRON) — A bird flu outbreak that killed dozens of elephant seals on the Bay Area coast this year is declared officially over, officials with the University of California, Davis announced Tuesday. The outbreak, which started on Feb. 12, marked the first cases of HPAI H5N1 in marine mammals in California and the first detection in northern elephant seals.
The UC Davis Institute for Pandemic Insights wrote that the outbreak ended March 24 after no new positive cases were confirmed in tested marine mammals for over 30 days.
Of the 233 marine mammals tested during the outbreak, 64 were confirmed cases of avian influenza. The total positive cases include 57 northern elephant seals, five California sea lions and one southern sea otter.
“The majority of cases in marine mammals (57) were concentrated in San Mateo County, with additional positive cases in Santa Cruz, Monterey, and San Luis Obispo counties,” officials wrote…