Thousands of Seabirds Found Dead in Southeastern U.S
Voice of America News - voanews.com
23 Jul 2007
L LaCapra
Area: United States
Greater shearwaters live out their lives on the open ocean. These gull-like birds spend most of their time criss-crossing the Atlantic, covering thousands of kilometers on their annual migrations. But this year, many of them are dying along the way, and no one is quite sure why. Greater shearwaters are one of the most abundant seabirds in the world.
An estimated 10 million pairs nest on just a few small islands in the middle of the South Atlantic, about half-way between South Africa and Argentina. Rob Ronconi, a Ph.D. candidate in biology at the University of Victoria in Canada, has been studying the birds. They weigh about one kilogram, he says, and their wingspan is just over a meter. He describes them as brown on top, and mostly white below, but with a good mix of brown and white all over their body, and a dark cap. "I tell my friends that they look like a small albatross."
Fatal Fish Disease Spreading in State
Times Union - timesunion.com
23 Jul 2007
B Nearing
Area: New York USA
A fatal fish disease first discovered in the Great Lakes two years ago has spread into three areas in the western part of the state, and for the first time, into rainbow trout, according to the state Department of Environmental Conservation. Wildlife officials don't know how the fish became infected with Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia in the Little Salmon River in Oswego County and the Seneca-Cayuga Canal in the Finger Lakes, despite rules adopted last year to stem the illness by barring people from moving fish from one water body to another. VHS is a disease that causes the hemorrhaging of fish tissues, including internal organs. Uniformly fatal, the disease is common in Europe and Japan. Biologists believe that the virus arrived in the ballast of ships that ply the Great Lakes.
DEC spokeswoman Maureen Wren said that in the third new infection case - an isolated farm pond in Niagara County - the property owner had moved fish from a nearby infected creek last summer in a futile rescue attempt. Last summer, fish that tested positive were found in Lakes Erie and Ontario, the St. Lawrence and Niagara rivers, and the farthest west of the Finger Lakes, Conesus. In November, the state adopted new rules to fight VHS that prohibits moving fish, including bait fish, from one body of water to another, and require that commercial bait be certified disease free. In the Salmon River, an angler this summer noticed a dying rainbow trout and took it to wildlife officials for a test, which came back positive, said Wren.
Elk Feedground Study Starts
Jackson Hole Star-Tribune - jacksonholestartrib.com
24 Jul 2007
B Farquhar
Area: Wyoming USA
The Bridger-Teton National Forest has started the ball rolling on whether the Wyoming Game and Fish Department should receive a long-term permit to continue elk winter feeding and related management programs on forest lands. A 45-day public comment period started Monday on the proposed special-use permit study document. Conservationists worry, however, that the planned environmental impact statement might be so narrowly drawn as to have a foregone conclusion: to approve the land-use permit without looking at what Game and Fish is actually doing on national forest lands. “I’m afraid the Forest Service might have their blinders on and ignore the widespread presence of brucellosis in feedground elk, or the threat posed by chronic wasting disease that is moving ever closer to the feedgrounds,” said Tim Preso, an EarthJustice attorney based in Bozeman, Mont.
Franz Camenzind, executive director of the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, said he’d like to see the Forest Service do more than look at how Game and Fish is using national forest ground, and look at what that use is and means to the environment. Camenzind said he didn’t like to see a planning document “loaded for one outcome.” The public has until Sept. 17 to file postmarked comments on the scope of the analysis. The draft environmental impact statement is expected in January 2008, and the final environmental impact statement is expected in May 2008. Monday’s notice was published in the Federal Register.
Colony Collapse Disorder Research Action Plan Announced by USDA
United States Department of Agriculture (Posted by sciencedaily.com)
22 Jul 2007
Photo courtesy of Stephen Ausmus
Area: United States
U.S. Department of Agriculture Under Secretary for Research, Education and Economics Gale Buchanan recently announced that USDA researchers have finalized an action plan for dealing with colony collapse disorder (CCD) of honey bees. Close-up photo of a healthy bees on a honeycomb. The ARS Bee Research Laboratory in Maryland is coordinating national efforts to identify the cause of colony collapse disorder the first step in trying to solve the problem. "There were enough honey bees to provide pollination for U.S. agriculture this year, but beekeepers could face a serious problem next year and beyond," Buchanan said.
"This action plan provides a coordinated framework to ensure that all of the research that needs to be done is covered in order to get to the bottom of the CCD problem." The action plan coordinates the federal strategy in response to CCD. It addresses four main components: (1) survey and data collection needs; (2) analysis of samples to determine the prevalence of various pests and pathogens, exposure to pesticides, or other unusual factors; (3) controlled experiments to carefully analyze the potential causes of CCD; and (4) developing new methods to improve the general health of bees to reduce their susceptibility to CCD and other disorders.
Other Wildlife Disease News
Hope for Devil Tumour Vaccine
Cuts Would Reduce CWD Budget by 60 Percent
Killer Whales Metabolize Contaminants, yet Still Show Record-High Contamination Levels
1 comment:
Greetings,
IN reply to ;
Cuts would reduce CWD budget by 60 percent
Published Monday, July 23, 2007 11:59:09 AM Central Time
By Lee Fahrney Times Outdoors Writer
http://www.themonroetimes.com/m0723cwd.htm
THIS disturbs me greatly, and should disturb every hunter in Wisconsin, and neighboring states. With CWD spreading like it is, we should not be
cutting any funding for CWD by 60 %. It makes no sense, with CWD amplifying and spreading still.
193 CONFIRMED POSITIVE CWD samples from 19,953 samples collected last time in Wisconsin, and they want to reduce funding by 60% for CWD management activities ???
this is not logical ???
do they now think that CWD is under control in Wisconsin ???
do they think that CWD is now NOT a potential threat to animal and or human health, and or the environment ???
what is the logistics behind this decision ???
2006-2007 Harvest and CWD Testing
CWD Public Dialogue to Begin
Preliminary numbers show that during the
2006-07 deer seasons, 56,593 deer were
harvested from the CWD zones. This is a
decline of more than 15 percent from the 2005-
06 season. Antlerless harvest accounts for
this drop, having decreased 31 percent from
last year. Buck harvest, however, increased
by five percent.
Of the 19,953 samples collected last
season, 193 tested CWD-positive. Thirty-five
of these deer were harvested in the herd
reduction zone. The rest were harvested in
the disease eradication zones.
This brings the total number of free ranging
CWD-positive deer to 844 for all years. Fiftyfour
of these deer were harvested in the herd
reduction zone.
As part of the effort to confirm that CWD
has not spread out of the CWD zones of southern
Wisconsin, 9,308 samples were also
collected in west-central Wisconsin and areas
of south-central and south-east Wisconsin not
in a CWD zone. None of these samples tested
positive for the disease.
http://dnr.wi.gov/org/land/wildlife/whealth/issues/cwd/doc/07_05_news.pdf
CWD Update 87
July 6, 2007
State and Provincial Updates
Illinois:
Paul Shelton, Illinois Department of Natural Resources provides the
following: Illinois
Department of Natural Resources staff collected 6,733 usable CWD surveillance samples during the period beginning July 1, 2006.
A few additional samples from suspect deer remain untested at this time. Testing yielded 41 CWD-positive deer and 6,692 ‘not detected’.
Forty-one positives were detected in four counties in northern Illinois: Winnebago (18), Boone (13), DeKalb (6), and McHenry (4). No
new counties were identified as having CWD, and no disease was detected in Ogle County, in which CWD was first identified during the
2005-2006 sampling season. However, CWD was identified in southeastern DeKalb County, more than 20 miles southeast of
previously-identified locations. Samples were collected from a variety of sources, including deer check stations in high-risk counties (3,097),
sample drop-off locations for archery hunters (175), cooperating meat processors (1,778), suspect deer (25), roadkills in CWD counties
(16), and culling efforts (1,642). Cooperating meat lockers were added as a sampling source this year to provide a statewide sampling base
outside the identified CWD area. Hunter-harvested deer accounted for 17 (41%) of the positives identified, with the remainder coming from
suspect deer (4; 10%); roadkills (1; 2%); and sharpshooting (19; 46%). Illinois DNR CWD information is available at:
http://dnr.state.il.us/cwd.
http://wildlifedisease.nbii.gov/documents/CWD%20Updates/Update%2087.pdf
Title: Susceptibility of cattle to first-passage intracerebral inoculation with chronic wasting disease agent from white-tailed deer
http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/Publications.htm?seq_no_115=194089
Title: Transmission of chronic wasting disease of mule deer to Suffolk sheep following intracerebral inoculation
Submitted to: Journal of Veterinary Diagnostic Investigation
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: June 20, 2006
Publication Date: November 1, 2006
Citation: Hamir, A.N., Kunkle, R.A., Cutlip, R.C., Miller, J.M., Williams, E.S., Richt, J.A. 2006. Transmission of chronic wasting disease of mule deer to Suffolk sheep following intracerebral inoculation. Journal of Veterinary Diagnostic Investigation. 18(6):558-565.
Interpretive Summary: Chronic wasting disease (CWD) has been identified in captive and free ranging deer and elk since 1967. To determine the transmissibility of CWD to sheep and to provide information about the disease and tests for detection of CWD in sheep, 8 lambs were inoculated with brain suspension from mule deer naturally affected with CWD. Two other lambs were kept as controls. Only 1 sheep developed clinical disease at 35 months after inoculation. The study was terminated at 72 months after the inoculation. At that time one other sheep was found to be positive for the disease. It is proposed that the host's genetic makeup may play a role in transmission of the disease to domestic sheep. Impact. This is the first study which shows that it is possible to transmit CWD to a small number of sheep.
Technical Abstract
snip...end
http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publications.htm?SEQ_NO_115=191571
0022-538X/05/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/JVI.79.21.13794-13796.2005
Copyright © 2005, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Interspecies Transmission of Chronic Wasting Disease Prions to Squirrel Monkeys (Saimiri sciureus)
Richard F. Marsh,1, Anthony E. Kincaid,2 Richard A. Bessen,3 and Jason C. Bartz4*
Department of Animal Health and Biomedical Sciences, University of Wisconsin, Madison 53706,1 Department of Physical Therapy,2 Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, Creighton University, Omaha, Nebraska 68178,4 Department of Veterinary Molecular Biology, Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana 597183
Received 3 May 2005/ Accepted 10 August 2005
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is an emerging prion disease of deer and elk. The risk of CWD transmission to humans following exposure to CWD-infected tissues is unknown. To assess the susceptibility of nonhuman primates to CWD, two squirrel monkeys were inoculated with brain tissue from a CWD-infected mule deer. The CWD-inoculated squirrel monkeys developed a progressive neurodegenerative disease and were euthanized at 31 and 34 months postinfection. Brain tissue from the CWD-infected squirrel monkeys contained the abnormal isoform of the prion protein, PrP-res, and displayed spongiform degeneration. This is the first reported transmission of CWD to primates.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, Creighton University, 2500 California Plaza, Omaha, NE 68178. Phone: (402) 280-1811. Fax: (402) 280-1875. E-mail: jbartz@creighton.edu .
Deceased.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Journal of Virology, November 2005, p. 13794-13796, Vol. 79, No. 21
0022-538X/05/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/JVI.79.21.13794-13796.2005
Copyright © 2005, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
http://jvi.asm.org/cgi/content/abstract/79/21/13794?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=cwd&searchid=1129736446553_4280&stored_search=&FIRSTINDEX=0&volume=79&issue=21&journalcode=jvi
Chronic Wasting Disease and Potential Transmission to Humans
Ermias D. Belay,* Ryan A. Maddox,* Elizabeth S. Williams,† Michael W. Miller,‡ Pierluigi Gambetti,§ and Lawrence B. Schonberger*
*Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA; †University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming, USA; ‡Colorado Division of Wildlife, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA; and §Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, USA
Suggested citation for this article: Belay ED, Maddox RA, Williams ES, Miller MW, Gambetti P, Schonberger LB. Chronic wasting disease and potential transmission to humans. Emerg Infect Dis [serial on the Internet]. 2004 Jun [date cited]. Available from: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol10no6/03-1082.htm
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) of deer and elk is endemic in a tri-corner area of Colorado, Wyoming, and Nebraska, and new foci of CWD have been detected in other parts of the United States. Although detection in some areas may be related to increased surveillance, introduction of CWD due to translocation or natural migration of animals may account for some new foci of infection. Increasing spread of CWD has raised concerns about the potential for increasing human exposure to the CWD agent. The foodborne transmission of bovine spongiform encephalopathy to humans indicates that the species barrier may not completely protect humans from animal prion diseases. Conversion of human prion protein by CWD-associated prions has been demonstrated in an in vitro cell-free experiment, but limited investigations have not identified strong evidence for CWD transmission to humans. More epidemiologic and laboratory studies are needed to monitor the possibility of such transmissions.
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol10no6/03-1082.htm
May 2007
NIAID Research on Prion Diseases
OVERVIEW
snip...
More research is necessary to determine whether CWD poses any risk to
humans, particularly because it is spreading over a wider geographical area
in the United States. There have been several reported cases of CJD in
individuals who have consumed venison, most much younger than the typical
age associated with CJD. In each of these instances, careful investigations
by CDC have shown no causal link between CJD and CWD in deer and elk
populations. Continued surveillance is important, however, to assess any
possible risk of CWD transmission to humans.
http://www.niaid.nih.gov/factsheets/priondis.htm
> In each of these instances, careful investigations by CDC have shown no _causal_ link between CJD and CWD in deer and elk populations.
WRONG !
BELAY ET AL STATES ;
''Our conclusion stating that we found no _strong_ evidence of CWD transmission to humans''
THERE'S a big difference between ''casual'' and ''strong''. ...TSS
Colorado Surveillance Program for Chronic Wasting Disease
Transmission to Humans (TWO SUSPECT CASES)
From: TSS (216-119-163-189.ipset45.wt.net)
Subject: CWD aka MAD DEER/ELK TO HUMANS ???
Date: September 30, 2002 at 7:06 am PST
From: "Belay, Ermias"
To:
Cc: "Race, Richard (NIH)" ; ; "Belay,
Ermias"
Sent: Monday, September 30, 2002 9:22 AM
Subject: RE: TO CDC AND NIH - PUB MED- 3 MORE DEATHS - CWD - YOUNG HUNTERS
Dear Sir/Madam,
In the Archives of Neurology you quoted (the abstract of which was
attached to your email), we did not say CWD in humans will present like
variant CJD.
That assumption would be wrong. I encourage you to read the whole
article and call me if you have questions or need more clarification
(phone: 404-639-3091). Also, we do not claim that "no-one has ever been
infected with prion disease from eating venison." Our conclusion stating
that we found no strong evidence of CWD transmission to humans in the
article you quoted or in any other forum is limited to the patients we
investigated.
Ermias Belay, M.D.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
full text ;
http://lists.ifas.ufl.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A2=ind0704&L=sanet-mg&T=0&P=1165
SEE STEADY INCREASE IN SPORADIC CJD IN THE USA FROM
1997 TO 2006. SPORADIC CJD CASES TRIPLED, with phenotype
of 'UNKNOWN' strain growing. ...
http://www.cjdsurveillance.com/resources-casereport.html
Diagnosis and Reporting of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease
Singeltary, Sr et al. JAMA.2001; 285: 733-734.
http://jama.ama-assn.org/http://www.neurology.org/cgi/eletters/60/2/176#535
BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL
BMJ
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/319/7220/1312/b#5406
BMJ
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/320/7226/8/b#6117
JOURNAL OF NEUROLOGY
MARCH 26, 2003
RE-Monitoring the occurrence of emerging forms of Creutzfeldt-Jakob
disease in the United States
Email Terry S. Singeltary:
flounder@wt.net
I lost my mother to hvCJD (Heidenhain Variant CJD). I would like to
comment on the CDC's attempts to monitor the occurrence of emerging
forms of CJD. Asante, Collinge et al [1] have reported that BSE
transmission to the 129-methionine genotype can lead to an alternate
phenotype that is indistinguishable from type 2 PrPSc, the commonest
sporadic CJD. However, CJD and all human TSEs are not reportable
nationally. CJD and all human TSEs must be made reportable in every
state and internationally. I hope that the CDC does not continue to
expect us to still believe that the 85%+ of all CJD cases which are
sporadic are all spontaneous, without route/source. We have many TSEs in
the USA in both animal and man. CWD in deer/elk is spreading rapidly and
CWD does transmit to mink, ferret, cattle, and squirrel monkey by
intracerebral inoculation. With the known incubation periods in other
TSEs, oral transmission studies of CWD may take much longer. Every
victim/family of CJD/TSEs should be asked about route and source of this
agent. To prolong this will only spread the agent and needlessly expose
others. In light of the findings of Asante and Collinge et al, there
should be drastic measures to safeguard the medical and surgical arena
from sporadic CJDs and all human TSEs. I only ponder how many sporadic
CJDs in the USA are type 2 PrPSc?
http://www.neurology.org/cgi/eletters/60/2/176#535
doi:10.1016/S1473-3099(03)00715-1
Copyright © 2003 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Newsdesk
Tracking spongiform encephalopathies in North America
Xavier Bosch
Available online 29 July 2003.
Volume 3, Issue 8, August 2003, Page 463
“My name is Terry S Singeltary Sr, and I live in Bacliff, Texas. I lost my
mom to hvCJD (Heidenhain variant CJD)
and have been searching for answers ever since. What I have found is that we
have not been told the truth. CWD
in deer and elk is a small portion of a much bigger problem.”
............................
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473309903007151/fulltext
http://download.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/1473-3099/PIIS1473309903007151.pdf
thank you,
kindest regards,
Terry S. Singeltary Sr.
P.O. Box 42
Bacliff, Texas USA 77518
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