Wildlife Disease News Digest

Congress Looks at Solutions to Yellowstone Bison Debate
New West
20 Mar 2007
S Talwani
Area: Montana, USA

Montana’s lone Congressman, Denny Rehberg raised his voice Tuesday at a Congressional oversight hearing about the bison in Yellowstone National Park, the feared transmission of calf-aborting brucellosis from bison to Montana’s cattle, and the resulting years of killing and hazing thousands of bison that wandered out of the park in search of food. “I have an answer,” Rehberg thundered in his leadoff statement to the House Natural Resources Committee panel that oversees national parks. “Why don’t you fix your herd?”

Fixing the herd—by stamping out brucellosis entirely—was central in the discussions toward solving the Yellowstone bison standoff. The hearing of the National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands Subcommittee, now chaired by Rep. Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, was the first ever to address the issue.Also new for the new Congress was testimony from the Buffalo Field Campaign, which advocates giving buffalo full access to all suitable habitat in Montana within the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, and managing cattle grazing in the area to keep them brucellosis-free.

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Missouri Begins Stepped Up Fight Against Feral Hogs
Brownfield
20 Mar 2007
J Harker
Image Courtesy of Missouri Department of Conservation
Area: Missouri, USA

Missouri’s stepping up the fight against feral hogs that are bullying their way through parts of the state, threatening livestock and wildlife. The biggest concern is that the wild swine will spread disease to domestic swine and other livestock. So, the Missouri Agriculture Department is working with the Missouri Conservation Department to start aggressively going after the wild pigs on conservation lands, starting this week.

Conservation’s Rex Martensen says a USDA helicopter crew has been hired to shoot the pigs in isolated conservation lands in western Missouri. Live traps and tracking dogs and will also be employed. So, far, Missouri livestock has not picked up disease from the feral hogs. Ag Department veterinarian Jerry Eber says feral hogs are very destructive creatures that can also hurt farm land and wildlife habitat. He’s optimistic this new eradication effort will help.

>>>TO ARTICLE

Related Media
>>>Rex Martensen interview, Missouri Dept. of Conservation, 16 min., (MP3)
>>>Dr. Jerry Eber interview, Missouri Dept. of Agriculture, 5 min., (MP3)

Related Article
>>>Hogs Wildly Out of Control: Missouri Conservation Department Struggles to Restrict Growing Ranks of Invasive Species

Four Rabid Animals Put Down: 6 People Getting Rabies Shots After Contact with Infected Livestock
The Record.com
21 Mar 2007
M Dalton
Area: Woolwich Township, Ontario, Canada

Public health officials have confirmed four animals in Woolwich Township have tested positive for rabies -- the first cases of the disease to hit the region this year. The infected animals, which were found on two farms in Woolwich Township, included two cows, a horse and a skunk. All the animals have been destroyed. Six adults who may have come in contact with the infected livestock at two different farms are being treated with rabies shots as a precaution, said Curt Monk, manager of Public Health Protection for the Region of Waterloo.

The source of the outbreak is being attributed to rabid skunks in the north end of the township.The owners of the rabid animals said both cows and the horse were exposed to a wild skunk before they fell ill, Monk said. "Rabies is endemic in the wildlife population," he said. "Right now, we are experiencing an increase in activity specifically around Woolwich Township and the increase seems to be concentrated in the skunk population." While this particular outbreak happened in north Woolwich, the threat isn't isolated to that area, he said.

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New Twist in Tale of BSE's Beginnings
NewScientist
18 Mar 2007
D MacKenzie

The discovery that a rare brain disease in cows can mutate into BSE has given new life to the theory that mad cow disease started out in cattle, rather than crossing over from sheep. When BSE emerged in British cattle in the mid-1980s, the leading theory was that they had initially contracted the disease by eating feed containing the remains of sheep infected with scrapie. Both BSE and scrapie are caused by infectious prions, misshapen forms of a normal brain protein. Having made this species jump, BSE would have spread as cattle carcasses were processed into animal fodder and fed back to cows.

Yet attempts to duplicate BSE by deliberately giving scrapie to cows have failed, and many countries included sheep remains in cattle feed without creating BSE. This has led some scientists to speculate that BSE arose as a rare spontaneous condition in cattle, which spread to other cows when they ate these animals' remains. The new twist to the story comes from studies of a disease called bovine amyloidotic spongiform encephalopathy, or BASE.

>>>FULL ARTICLE