Winter Ticks Invade Yukon Elk Herds
CBS News
18 Apr 2007
Area: Yukon Territory Canada
Yukon wildlife officials say a recently discovered infestation of winter ticks, a new invasive species in the territory, has hit elk herds and could pose a serious risk to moose. The territorial Environment Department found the infestation in Takhini and Braeburn-area elk herds while tracking herds for a radio collaring program. The ticks were verified after being sent to B.C.'s Centre for Disease Control laboratory. The winter tick is also known as the moose tick or elk tick.
"We haven't found this tick on any other wildlife in this area," department wildlife veterinarian Michelle Oakley said Tuesday, adding the ticks are more commonly found in areas further south. "I'd say that climate change or at least different weather patterns ... definitely could have had something to do with it," she said. For now, Oakley said the elk population seems relatively unharmed. The winter tick does not pose a risk to elk or humans, but can be deadly to moose and other animals.
Biologists Probe Mercury Hot Spots in Merrimack
The Daily News (Posted by mineralwellsindex.com)
16 Apr 2007
N Pinto
Scientists recently identified a hot spot of mercury pollution in the Merrimack River watershed between southern New Hampshire and Haverhill, but there are indications that mercury pollution is even closer to home. Oksana Lane, a biologist at the Biodiversity Research Institute in Gorham, Maine, and her colleagues have been measuring the level of mercury in the blood and eggs of salt marsh sharp-tailed sparrows throughout New England and have found a hot spot in the Parker River Wildlife Refuge at the mouth of the Merrimack. Where Lane found blood mercury levels of 0.4 to 0.8 parts per million in birds at various sampling locations from Connecticut to Maine, in the Parker River Wildlife Refuge the levels are significantly higher, around 1.2 parts per million.
"It's really concerning," said Nancy Pau, a biologist at the refuge who has helped Lane collect samples. "What we're seeing is that the concentrations have actually been increasing over the last three years." The hot spots in the Upper Merrimack Valley were revealed in a study published earlier this year by the Hanover, N.H.-based Hubbard Brook Research Foundation. The team of researchers found an elevated concentration of mercury in wildlife in the Merrimack River watershed extending from southern New Hampshire to Haverhill.
Six Additional Deer Found with TB in Northwest Minnesota
Agri News
17 Apr 2007
J Willette
Area: Minnesota USA
Six additional deer have been found with suspected cases of bovine tuberculosis in northwestern Minnesota. The six bring the total number of suspected and confirmed cases of bovine TB in deer to 13 in Minnesota in 2005, 2006 and 2007. The latest suspected cases were found in the 476 deer removed from a TB Management Zone by the USDA Wildlife Services this winter, said Michelle Powell, wildlife health program coordinator for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. The TB Management Zone is roughly a 20-mile by 20-mile area that covers the corners where Roseau, Lake of the Woods, Marshall and Beltrami counties meet.
The area was drawn because it is the area were infected deer have been found. It is also where some of the state's initial infected cattle herds were found, said Malissa Fritz, communications director for the Minnesota Board of Animal Health. Minnesota had been TB-free for 34 years when a case was identified in cattle on July 12, 2005. Six additional herds were found, all in northwestern Minnesota. The herds have been depopulated.
Disease Could Boost Fish Stocking at ApplegateMail Tribune
19 Apr 2007
Area: Oregon USA
Peering at the fog-shrouded mountains as they reflect off the surface of Applegate Lake, it's hard to imagine that what this place really needs is a little disease. But that's just what some Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife officials and trout anglers hope to discover this week as they survey the lake for a virus whose presence usually makes hatchery managers wince. Finding IHN — yes, that same IHN feared as a fish-killer in hatcheries — could mean a real boon to the lake's fish-stocking scheme, thereby benefitting trout anglers who rely on it. "It's a very strange irony," says Randy Robart, the Cole Rivers Fish Hatchery manager who acknowledges that his professional life would improve dramatically if IHN was in Applegate Lake.
Having the lake deemed "yes" for IHN would make it OK to stock rainbow trout and chinook salmon raised at Cole Rivers Hatchery, where the naturally occurring disease is known to be present in adults. It also could mean that Butte Falls Hatchery could raise legal-sized rainbows for that lake as well. It would mean the return of the popular stocking at Applegate of hundreds of excess adult winter steelhead trapped each spring at the Applegate River, another "yes" water body. The lake is now stocked with trout from uninfected hatcheries, where the high demand for these IHN-free trout meant that Applegate Lake received only about 90 percent of its regular stocking.
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