Otter Deaths Stump Wildlife Trust
BBC News
11 Sep 2006
Photo Courtesy of BBC News
A cluster of unexplained otter deaths on the Somerset Levels this summer is baffling wildlife experts.
Eight corpses have been found on either side of the Polden Hills - six of them were discovered in just one month.Somerset Wildlife Trust is not certain if the deaths are linked to a parasite which is known to affect otters.
Spokesman James Williams said: "It is extremely worrying and unusual because this is the time of year when we don't get much trouble from dead otters." He added: "We get a steady trickle of otter deaths scattered all over the county - a fluctuating amount, with July normally being a very low month. We don't know why it's happening."
The marked increase in deaths in Somerset comes at a time when the species is under increasing pressure, said Mr Williams. The creatures are vulnerable to a fluke, believed to have come from Eastern European ornamental fish released into the county's watercourses.
Crows Eyed in War Against West Nile Virus
Central Valley Business Times
11 Sep 2006
Where there are communal crow roosts, look for the West Nile virus, say scientists at the University of California, Davis. Corvids, including American crows, yellow-billed magpies, western scrub-jays and other members of the Corvidae family, serve as the primary reservoirs or incubators for the mosquito-borne virus, according to research entomologist William Reisen of the Center for Vectorborne Diseases at UC Davis.
"Corvid surveillance is crucial to stopping the transmission of the virus," he says. September is a crucial month in the war against the virus, which usually peaks in late August and September and ends in October.
"Communal crow roosts help drive the West Nile virus into the Culex (mosquito) populations -- that's why it's so important for people to find and report dead birds," says Mr. Reisen, a professor with the Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine.
Probing the Mysterious Migration of Swans Suspected in Spread of Avian Flu
New York TimesDonald G. McNeil Jr.
Photos Courtesy of New York Times
Tracking avian flu sometimes comes down to moves that have a lot of slapstick potential, like sprinting down a muddy Mongolian beach trying to tackle a scared but temporarily flightless swan.
“They’re pretty fast, even when they can’t fly, and the 100-yard dash is not my specialty,” said John Takekawa, a research wildlife biologist with the United States Geological Survey. Dr. Takekawa was part of an international team that spent part of August on the shores of Lake Khorin Tsagaan in Mongolia catching whooper swans and strapping tiny transmitters to their backs.If all goes well, the transmitters will help unveil an ornithological mystery: which way whoopers migrate. The issue became more important last year when field veterinarians from the Wildlife Conservation Society who were investigating the deaths of hundreds of migratory birds on remote lakes in China and Mongolia found that whoopers were among those infected with A(H5N1) influenza.
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