Initiative to Fight Illegal Wildlife Trade Launched
The Standard
12 Feb 2007
W Ojanji
A new global initiative to fight the Sh700 billion illegal trade in wildlife has been launched in Nairobi. The initiative, the Coalition Against Wildlife Trafficking (CAWT), aims at countering the poachers, smugglers and dealers whose activities threaten the existence of endangered animals like the rhino and the elephant in Kenya and the tiger in Asia. CAWT — an alliance of governments, conservationists, industry and scientists — plans to boost wildlife enforcement, create consumer awareness and reduce consumer demand for illegally traded wildlife. Through CAWT, customs officials would be trained on identification of illegal animal products.
Assistant secretary of the US Department of State Claudia McMurray said lack of awareness is fuelling the illegal trade. "Most of the consumers, the general public and most of the law enforcers cannot tell what is illegal from what is legal." The coalition also intends to catalyse political support to end the illegal trade that is threatening human health, as trafficking contributed to the spread of deadly diseases such as Ebola, Sars and the bird flu. Kenya earns about 50 billion from tourism revenues yearly.
Brucellosis Less Prevalent in New StudyThe Associated Press (Posted by billingsgazette.net)
09 Feb 2007
Area: Wyoming
Biologists recently detected fewer cases of brucellosis exposure in elk in the Buffalo Valley north of here than they did a year ago. But they say there are too many research uncertainties to draw clear conclusions from either set of results. Researchers captured 41 adult female elk and fitted them with radio collars. They also implanted transmitters to monitor where calving occurs or where calves are aborted.
The researchers got 39 suitable blood samples to test for exposure to brucellosis, a bacterial disease that can cause elk to abort their calves and can spread to cattle. Of those 39 samples, two came back positive for brucellosis exposure. That was a rate of 5 percent, down from 20 percent a year ago. "This is why we don't make broad assumptions on a single year's data," said Terry Kreeger, a wildlife veterinarian for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.
How Badger Culling Creates Conditions for Spread of Bovine TB
Innovations Report
12 Feb 2007
Area: UK
A stable social structure may help control the spread of bovine tuberculosis (TB) among badgers, ecologists have found. The findings – published online in the British Ecological Society's Journal of Animal Ecology – have important implications for the role of badger culling as part of the strategy to control bovine TB in the UK.
According to the authors from the Central Science Laboratory and the Instituto de Investigación en Recursos Cinegético in Spain: “The evidence suggests that movement of individuals between groups may be instrumental in driving disease dynamics at the population level, and adds further support to the contention that the social disruption of badger populations, for example by culling, is likely to promote disease spread.” Data for the study came from an undisturbed high-density badger population in the Cotswolds, Gloucestershire, that has been intensively studied by ecologists for more than 15 years.
The authors analysed almost 9,000 trapping records involving 1,859 different badgers between 1990 and 2004. Each time a badger was trapped it was sexed, weighed and samples of blood, sputum, urine and faeces were taken before it was released. They found that TB rates were lowest when there was the least movement of individual badgers between groups.
USDA to Distribute Oral Rabies Vaccine in Florida [Press Release]
USDA (Posted by thehorse.com)
09 Feb 2007
Area: Florida
Wildlife Services, a program within the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, will distribute oral rabies vaccine baits across portions of west central Florida beginning on, or about Feb. 14, to prevent the spread of raccoon rabies. Baits containing oral rabies vaccine will be distributed over rural areas using low-flying twin-engine aircraft and helicopters while hand baiting will occur in populated regions using ground-based vehicles. The projected four-week program will target raccoons and result in the distribution of approximately 540,000 baits covering roughly 2,950 square miles across six counties.
Since 2002, USDA has been cooperating with the Florida Departments of Health and Agriculture and Consumer Services, in addition to the counties of Hernando, Hillsborough, Lake, Pasco, Pinellas, Polk and Sumter to vaccinate raccoons where this variant of rabies threatens wildlife populations and pets, as well as public health and safety. Baits are made of fishmeal polymer and are packaged in one-inch square cubes surrounding a sachet containing the vaccine. Humans and pets cannot get rabies from coming into contact with the baits but are asked to leave the baits undisturbed should they encounter them. This vaccine has been shown to be safe in more than 60 different species of animals, including domestic dogs and cats.
Bird Flu Sparked by Market Trade, Not Wildlife: UNThe Associated Press (Posted by globeandmail.com)
09 Feb 2007
E Lederer
Photo courtesy of K Wigglesworth/AP Photo
Experts suspect the current spread of bird flu in Asia, Africa and Europe is mainly a result of trade in infected live birds rather than transmission through wild birds, the U.N. official co-ordinating the global fight against avian influenza said Friday. Dr. David Nabarro said investigators looking into the cause of a bird flu outbreak at a commercial turkey farm in Britain are now focusing on a possible link with the transfer of partly processed birds from a farm in southeastern Hungary where there was an outbreak last month. Britain's Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said preliminary inquiries indicated the strain of H5N1 bird flu found at the British farm was identical to the strain found last month in Hungary.
Environment Minister Ben Bradshaw said the government was investigating whether there were “bio-security breaches” at the British farm, owned by Bernard Matthews PLC, Europe's biggest turkey producer. Movement of poultry — either live or dead — from an area where H5N1 bird flu had been found violates U.N. guidelines, Dr. Nabarro said. The U.N. bird flu chief said the recent upsurge in H5N1 bird flu outbreaks around the world is not a surprise, explaining that there have been seasonal spikes in each of the past few years.
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