Study Confirms Ammunition as Main Source of Lead Poisoning in Condors
UC Santa Cruz
30 Aug 2006
A study led by environmental toxicologists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has confirmed what wildlife biologists have long suspected: Bullet fragments and shotgun pellets in the carcasses of animals killed by hunters are the principal sources of lead poisoning in California condors that have been reintroduced to the wild.
Lead poisoning is a major factor limiting the success of efforts to rebuild populations of the endangered California condor. Since the mid-1980s, condors have been bred in captivity and released back into the wild in California, Arizona, and Baja California. The birds, which feed on carrion, can ingest lead from ammunition in animal carcasses or gut piles left behind by hunters.
The UCSC researchers used a "fingerprinting" technique based on the unique isotope ratios found in different sources of lead. The technique enabled them to match the lead in blood samples from condors to the lead in ammunition. Their findings were published online today by the journal Environmental Science & Technology.
Mystery Disease Leaves Bats in the Dark
The Dominion Post (Posted by stuff.co.nz)
31 Aug 2006
Britton Broun
Researchers are stumped by a mystery disease that could kill a small breed of endangered bats by destroying their ability to hear and navigate in the dark.
Suffering from extreme dermatitis on their ears, two native short-tailed bats were taken from their home on Kapiti Island and are being treated at Massey University's wildlife centre near Palmerston North. The bats are an endangered species.
Veterinarians performed biopsies and used antibiotics to treat later infections, but surgeon Brett Gartrell said they had not found the cause of the dermatitis. "That's been quite frustrating. We still haven't worked out the route cause and it doesn't occur in bats anywhere else in New Zealand or overseas," he said.
Otters Killed on Roads Shed New Light on Lead Pollution
Medical News Today
31 Aug 2006
Otters found dead on our roads are providing important new information on the ecology of this secretive species - and evidence of how successful the ban on lead in petrol has been in reducing levels of lead pollution. Speaking at the British Ecological Society's Annual Meeting next week, Dr Liz Chadwick of Cardiff University's Otter Project will report the results of collaborative research with Cornwall's Wildlife Veterinary Investigation Project.
Both have been conducting post mortems on otters killed by cars and reported by members of the public since 1992, in an initiative funded by the Environment Agency. “We measured the level of lead in rib-bones taken from over three hundred otters found dead in south-west England between 1992 and 2004, collected by wildlife veterinary pathologist Vic Simpson.
We compared this with levels of lead found in stream sediment by the British Geological Society, and airborne emissions recorded by the National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory. While some variation related to geology, we found an extremely strong decline over time, reflecting declining emissions from car fuel: otter bone lead levels in 2004 were less than a quarter of those in 1992,” Dr Chadwick will tell the meeting in Oxford.
Biologists Test for Bird Flu in Alaska
Associated Press (Posted by Forbes.com)
29 Aug 2006
H. Josef Hebert
Hundreds of miles above the Arctic Circle, biologists working in the frosty marshes of Alaska's North Slope are keeping a lookout for migratory birds that might bring a deadly avian flu strain to the United States. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, visiting a bird nesting site outside Barrow, reported Tuesday that 13,000 bird samples have been tested.
While some less virulent forms of the flu were found, there has been no sign of the deadly H5N1 strain, linked to the death of at least 141 people, mostly in Asia. "I think it's going very well," Kempthorne told The Associated Press after he helped a volunteer biologist gather a test sample from a young Dunin shorebird at a site on Beaufort Sea, near the northernmost point in the United States.
The fowl offspring's parents likely flew here from Japan or Korea, Audrey Taylor, the volunteer, told Kempthorne. Deborah Rocque, the bird flu testing coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Alaska, said the program is concentrating on testing on the North Slope and the Yukon Delta.
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