Wildlife Ecologist to Guide Devil Research
The Mercury
27 June 2006

A wildlife mathematical ecologist has been appointed to guide co-operative research into the Tasmanian devil facial tumour disease. Professor Hamish McCallum, from the University of Queensland, was announced by Primary Industries Minister David Llewellyn yesterday as the person who will co-ordinate research being done by the University of Tasmania and the Primary Industries and Water Department.

Mr Llewellyn said Prof McCallum had had an interest in the DFTD project since it began, taking part in the first workshop in 2003 and becoming involved in co-operative research projects into the disease.

He said he was chosen for the role because of his expertise in understanding the impacts of disease on wildlife populations. Prof McCallum said he was looking forward to taking on the position, which begins in October, saying the co-operative research would be expanded in a bid to determine how the fatal disease would respond to alternative management strategies.

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West Nile Virus
CBC News
26 June 06
Photo courtsey of CBC News

West Nile virus is carried and spread by mosquitoes and can cause fatal inflammation of the brain (encephalitis) or the membranes covering the brain or spinal cord (meningitis) in more than 100 bird species, and nine mammals, including humans, horses and gorillas. It is closely related to St. Louis encephalitis virus, found in North America. There is currently no vaccine against West Nile virus encephalitis.

West Nile virus was discovered in the West Nile area of Uganda in 1937, then spread to Mediterranean and temperate parts of Europe. In 1960, it was observed in horses in Egypt and France. Between the 1950s and 1999, there were sporadic epidemics in Israel, South Africa, Romania and in Russia.

Scientists in North America had assumed we were facing a strain that exists in Africa. Then birds across Canada and the U.S. started falling from the sky. That pointed to Israel, where the strain can cause more dangerous results than the traditional encephalitis symptoms.

Birds are the unwilling hosts of this virus and scientists' say that as the birds follow their migration paths north, they'll bring West Nile with them into parts of Canada and into brand new mosquito populations.

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States to Test Largemouth Bass for Virus
rutlandherald.com
26 June 2006
Stephen Seitz

Fish and Wildlife departments in Vermont and New Hampshire will be testing waters for largemouth bass virus over the summer.

The virus, known as LMBV, only affects fish; it has no effect on humans or warm-blooded animals.

"We haven't seen any damage to our bass population," said wildlife biologist Bernie Pientka of Vermont's Fish and Wildlife Department. "But we are discussing options."

According to a statement from the department, the virus first came to the nation's attention in 1995, when it killed fish in South Carolina. Since then, it has affected fish in 18 states. It was discovered in Vermont in 2003 in Lake Champlain and in Lake St. Catherine in Poultney.

Most fish carrying the virus appear completely normal and usually are not affected by it. When the virus does strike, dying bass may be near the surface of the water, having difficultly swimming and remaining upright. That's because the virus attacks the fish's swim bladder, sometimes causing the bass to lose equilibrium and appear bloated.

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Alaska is Front Line vs. Avian Virus [Includes Photo Gallery and Maps]
USA Today
20 June 2006
Martin Kasindorf

BARROW, Alaska — Within sight of an Arctic radar station built for Cold War warnings of air attacks from Soviet Siberia, government scientists are stalking birds that could be carrying a new menace from Asia: the H5N1 avian influenza virus.

Tundra swans, lesser snow geese, spectacled eiders, long-billed dowitchers, bar-tailed godwits, northern pintails, ruddy turnstones: They all come to America. Wildlife biologists don't know which of these birds, if any, will be the first to carry the killer virus from the Eastern Hemisphere over the North Pole and down the flyways to the Lower 48.

Barrow, on the icy shore of the Arctic Ocean, is the USA's northernmost settlement. Two flyways for wild birds on their spring migration from Asia cross above the predominantly Inupiat Eskimo city of 4,800 people. As the birds nest on the marshy tundra under the midnight sun, 25 biologists are checking them for the first signs that H5N1 has reached the Americas.

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