State Wildlife Managers: Costs Associated with Fighting CWD to Be Cut
WEAU News
17 Apr 2007
Area: Wisconsin USA

State wildlife managers say the costs associated with fighting Chronic Wasting Disease should be cut considerably in coming years, when some testing of deer won't be needed. That announcement came Friday, as wildlife leaders gave legislators an update on their program.

The report, from Natural Resources Secretary Scott Hassett says surveillance testing has continued to confirm that the fatal brain disease of deer is contained to parts of South Central Wisconsin where it has already been found. A state audit in November showed the DNR has spent nearly $27 million on CWD efforts since the disease was first found in the deer herd in 2002.

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Related Article(s)
>>>Wisconsin Trims Deer Herd
>>>North Dakota CWD Test Results All Negative

Ticks Present a Growing Concern
SouthCoastToday.com
15 Apr 2004
D Cuddy

Scientists and medical experts have a springtime warning for anyone who loves the great outdoors: Beware of ticks. Deer ticks, which transmit the potentially crippling Lyme disease, are expected to be present in large numbers this spring, increasing the risk for anyone who works or plays outside. The rising deer population and a series of warmer-than-normal winters — capped by an especially mild winter this year — are combining to create favorable conditions for ticks, experts said. “As the tick population grows, an increasing number of people have become exposed over the past decade,” said Dr. Thomas Mather, a professor of entomology at the University of Rhode Island who has been leading an intensive study of the tick-borne diseases since 1993.

“In the last five years we have seen three of the worst years in terms of risk, and 2006 was the second-highest since we began our study 14 years ago,” he said. While Dr. Mather’s research has focused on Rhode Island, the figures in Massachusetts are similar. The incidence rate of Lyme disease in Massachusetts in 2005 was 36.4 cases per 100,000, which is almost 4½ times higher than the national rate of 7.9 cases per 100,000 according to the Department of Public Health. And even if it’s pretty clear that the deer tick population has been rising, “we don’t like to make predictions,” about what it will be like this year, said Donna Rheaume, spokesperson for the DPH.

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West Nile Virus Testing Begins
The News-Herald
16 Apr 2007
J Hutchison
Area: Ohio USA

Lake County General Health District wants reports of dead birds

Starting today, the Lake County General Health District is asking county residents to call the agency to report all dead birds they see. Reporting dead birds is part of the Ohio Department of Health's West Nile Virus Surveillance Program and is used as an indicator of the virus' presence within the county. New this year, and due to limited state laboratory capabilities, not all birds that are reported will be tested, but they will be logged into a database and monitored. Only crows and blue jays will be collected for West Nile virus testing because the state has determined these birds are the best sentinels of this activity.

Residents may call the Health District at (440) 350-2543, (440) 918-2543, or (440) 428-4348 to report all dead birds. There is no evidence that humans or pets can contract West Nile virus from touching a dead bird. But if you find a dead bird and would like to dispose of it, it is important to use gloves or a shovel and to place the bird in a garbage bag. If Health District representatives tell you they will be submitting your bird for testing, it is important to remember the following information: Dead raptor birds (owls, eagles, hawks, vultures, harriers and falcons) and waterfowl (ducks and geese) will not be collected and should be reported to Lake Metroparks Wildlife Center at (440) 256-2131.

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Ebola Outbreaks Killing Thousands of Gorillas and Chimpanzees
University of Chicago Press Journals (Posted by sciencedaily.com)
17 Apr 2007

Why have large outbreaks of Ebola virus killed tens of thousands of gorillas and chimpanzees over the last decade? Observations published in the May issue of The American Naturalist provide new clues, suggesting that outbreaks may be amplified by Ebola transmission between ape social groups. The study provides hope that newly developed vaccines could control the devastating impact of Ebola on wild apes. Direct encounters between gorilla or chimpanzee social groups are rare. Therefore, when reports of large ape die-offs first surfaced in the late 1990s, outbreak amplification was assumed to be through "massive spillover" from some unknown reservoir host.

The new study, conducted by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Cambridge University, and Stony Brook University at three sites in northern Republic of Congo, suggests that Ebola transmission between ape groups might occur through routes other than direct social encounter. For instance, as many as four different gorilla groups fed in the same fruit tree on a single day. Thus, infective body fluids deposited by one group might easily be encountered by a subsequent group. Chimpanzees and gorillas also fed simultaneously in the same fruit tree at least once every seven days.

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Warming Kicks Frogs While They're Down
LiveScience.com
16 Apr 2007
A Thompson

As if frogs and other amphibians around the world didn’t have enough to worry about with a killer fungus spreading rapidly and humans encroaching on their habitats, now global warming seems to be affecting one of the few pristine habitats the frogs have left, a new study suggests. More than one third of amphibian species in the world today are threatened, and it is estimated that more than 120 species have disappeared since 1980. A lack of long-term data on frog populations has made it difficult to determine the causes of these declines, especially in areas far from the effects of humans. Scientists know a pathogen called a chytrid fungus is causing an infection in the skin of frogs in epidemic proportions in cool, high-altitude areas, preventing their skin from taking in enough water and causing them to die of dehydration.

But the fungus fails to explain all of the decline in frog numbers in warmer, low-altitude environments where it cannot thrive as well, so a group of scientists decided to investigate at La Selva Biological Station, a pristine lowland forest in Costa Rica. They found that the population density of all the land-dwelling amphibian species at La Selva had declined by 75 percent since 1970. While the declines are not as rapid as those caused by the fungus, which can completely wipe out an entire species in a matter of months, the scientists still found them alarming, because something was “affecting species that biologists haven't been primarily concerned about,” said study team member Steven Whitfield of Florida International University in an email.

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Journal Article(s) of Interest

Salmonella Typhimurium in Hihi, New Zealand [Letter]
Emerg Infect Dis. 2007 May;13(5):[Epub ahead of print]
JG Ewen et al.