Wildlife Disease News Digest

Lesser Flamingos Find Refuge at Kenyan Lake
Earthwatch Institute (Posted by YubaNet.com)
13 Nov 2006
Photo courtesy of Tania Taranovski

Lesser flamingos are surprising scientists by flocking to one of Kenya's smallest lakes for the first time, by the thousands. Earthwatch-supported scientist Dr. David Harper, of the University of Leicester, reports that Lake Oloidien recently turned saline for the first time, making it good feeding habitat for the near-threatened birds. "Word is spreading that there is food at Oloidien," said Harper, principal investigator of Earthwatch's Lakes of the Rift Valley project.

"Last time I looked there were nearly a quarter of a million flamingos there. Oloidien water, though far too saline for humans or cattle to drink, is not too saline for flamingos. What we have is a remarkable and rare spectacle of groups of lesser flamingos feeding, drinking, and bathing in the same place." Lake Oloidien is a volcanic crater lake found at the southwest corner of Lake Naivasha, home to Kenya's largest flower farms and a popular tourist attraction. Oloidien, which used to be connected to Naivasha, has steadily been going saline since its water levels fell and it became a separate lake in 1979.

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Officials Worried over Bacterial Infection Brought by Migratory Birds
Newindpress.com
13 Nov 2006

With the influx of migratory birds into major water bodies of Orissa including the vast Chilka lake, wildlife officials and eco-watchers are jittery about the possibility of outbreak of baterial infection taking its toll. A disease had caused the death of around 2000 migratory birds, who are known to come to the chilka from far-off places like Siberia, the Himalayas, Iran and Afghanistan to escape the bitter cold in those places, in the blue lagoon last winter. Wildlife authorities say they have initiated several measures to ensure the safety of the birds this year. The deaths were attributed to a bacterial infection.

As the birds have started arriving in the lagoon since the last week of October - about three weeks behind schedule as winter is yet to make its presence felt-nature lovers are keeping their fingers crossed. The afflicted birds had died at the rate of 40 to 50 per day in January last while the death count came down drastically in February and March. However, no death was caused by the much-feared bird flu in the state, the sources said. The bacterial infection might have been caused by the deterioration of chilka’s eco-system, Prasanta Kumar Behera, professor of botany at the Berhampur University, said.

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Increase in Blue Tongue Reported
Clarionledger.com
12 Nov 2006
Bobby Cleveland

An increase in reported cases of hemomorrhagic disease in Mississippi's deer herd is not related to drought, according to biologists. Actually, the spread of the disease, also known as blue tongue, was predictable. "It's cyclic, in that we see an increase every few years," said Chad Dacus of the Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks. "We have cases every year, but every once in a while we see a sharp increase. It is not weather-related.

"The last two or three years, we haven't had that many cases, so yeah, it was predictable." The virus that causes blue tongue is transmitted by bites from tiny midges, also called no-see-ums, Dacus said. The mortality rate of infected deer is usually 25 percent, but can be as high as 50. Infected deer usually seek water, so carcasses are usually found near creek bottoms, ditches or ponds.

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Researchers Developing New Strategy to Combat Prion Diseases
Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (Posted by ScienceDaily.com)
01 Nov 2006

Researchers at the Animal Health Research Centre (CReSA) are developing immunotherapeutical strategies against diseases produced by prion, such as Bovine Spongiform Encephalitis. The most recent results, published in the Journal of Virology, show that important advances have been made in tests using DNA vaccines on animal models, enabling a significant delay in the arrival of symptoms. In the long term, this research could lead to the production of treatment for humans.

The infectious agent responsible for transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, also known as prion diseases, (which include mad cow disease), is a protein known as the infectious prion (PrPi), which has no nucleic acid and which produces contagious neurodegenerative diseases in different species of animals. The PrPi changes shape to that of an existing natural protein in the organism, the cellular prion (PrPc), but does not change its amino acid sequence. In certain circumstances, when the PrPi comes into contact with the original proteins, the proteins take on the shape of the in the infectious protein. Once this accumulates in the central nervous system, it destroys neural mass and makes the brain of affected animals take on a sponge form, which is where the term "spongiform diseases" comes from.

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Ebola Heads for Last Great Apes
New Scientist
12 Nov 2006

Yet more evidence is in that the Ebola virus is spreading in a wave across Africa - putting the world's last big populations of lowland gorillas directly in its path.

In 2003, an outbreak of Ebola struck gorillas living in the Congo. Bats in the area at that time were also carrying the virus, researchers recently discovered (New Scientist, 3 December 2005, p 20). That meant either the virus had always been lurking in bats, and spread to the gorillas, or that the bats were newly infected as the epidemic crossed their territory.

Now researchers have found that the bat viruses all descended recently from a common ancestor, confirming that the virus was new to the bats and is on the march (PLoS Pathogens, vol 2, e90).

Recent Journal Articles Related to Wildlife Disease

Rabies Virus Maintained by Dogs in Humans and Terrestrial Wildlife, Ceará State, Brazil [CDC - Emerging Infectious Diseases Journal]

Serologic Evidence of Widespread Everglades Virus Activity in Dogs, Florida [CDC - Emerging Infectious Diseases Journal]