Europe's first bird flu case in polar bear confirmed in Norway

Norwegian authorities announced the first documented case of bird flu in a polar bear in Europe, detected in the Svalbard archipelago. The H5N5 variant was found in a one-year-old male bear and a walrus found dead in mid-May about 1,000 km from the North Pole. The Norwegian Veterinary Institute stated that the virus is increasingly detected in mammals across Europe and has spread to the Arctic, threatening vulnerable populations and ecosystems. The governor of Svalbard noted that the presence of the virus in brain samples suggests it likely caused both deaths. A walrus died of bird flu in Svalbard in 2023, and a polar bear died in Alaska the same year from the virus.