Wildlife Disease News Digest

Chemicals In Our Waters Are Affecting Humans And Aquatic Life In Unanticipated Ways
SeaWeb (Posted by sciencedaily.com)
16 Feb 2008

American and Canadian scientists are finding that out of sight, out of mind can no longer be the approach we take to the chemicals in our waters. Substances that we use everyday are turning up in our lakes, rivers and ocean, where they can impact aquatic life and possibly ourselves. Now these contaminants are affecting aquatic environments and may be coming back to haunt us in unanticipated ways. Derek Muir of Environment Canada and colleagues have determined that of the 30,000 or so chemicals used commercially in the United States and Canada, about 400 resist breaking down in the environment and can accumulate in fish and wildlife.

These researchers estimate that of this 400, only 4 percent are routinely analyzed and about 75 percent have not been studied. These "emerging chemical contaminants," or ECCs, are not necessarily all new substances. But with improved detection technologies, their unexpected potential impacts on the environment and human health are just now coming to light. John Incardona and Nathaniel Scholz at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Northwest Fisheries Science Center and the West Coast Center for Oceans and Human Health found that polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) left in Pacific waters after the Exxon Valdez oil spill caused heart defects in herring and pink salmon embryos.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Three cases of tularaemia in southern Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany, November 2007
Eurosurveillance - www.eurosurveillance.org
14 Feb 2008
W Schätzle and R Schwenk
Area: Germany European Union

After contact with a dead rabbit in Baden-Wuerttemberg in southern Germany, three members of a family were infected with tularaemia in late summer 2007. The patients were a forest worker (Patient A) in his twenties, and his parents, both in their fifties. Tularaemia is very rare in Germany. From 2002 to 2006, between one and five cases were reported annually, with the exception of 2005 with 15 reported cases [1]. In 2007, 19 cases were reported, 11 of them in Baden-Wuerttemberg [2]. In the district in which the three cases occurred, no tularaemia cases had been reported in recent years.

In late August 2007, a hare was run over by a car driven by patient A and the local forester. The animal was heavily injured and was put down by the forester. Patient A took the dead hare home and skinned it together with his father on the same day. His mother then stored the hare in the freezer. Three days later, Patient A's father complained of influenza-like symptoms, fever of 39-40°C, headache, and joint pain. On the next day, Patient A and his mother developed the same symptoms, and also experienced dizziness.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Threat of deer diseases in Ohio keeps biologists busy
Toledo Blade - toledoblade.com
17 Feb 2008
Area: Ohio United States

When it comes to the alphabet soup that categorizes deadly deer diseases in Ohio, the news is mostly good. No CWD, no TB. But when it comes to EHD, well, pray for rain. Here are the details: For the sixth straight year of testing, no much-feared CWD was found in Ohio deer, based on testing of 941 hunter-harvested animals taken during shotgun week last fall. The testing was done by the Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory of the Ohio Department of Agriculture.

CWD - the equivalent of mad cow disease - in deer, elk, and moose, now is known in wild and/or captive deer or elk in 14 states and two Canadian provinces. It first was detected in the western United States in the late 1960s. Since CWD was discovered, there has been no evidence that the disease can be transmitted to humans. But it's always fatal to members of the deer family, including elk, and consistently has raised the most concern because of its similarity to mad cow disease, which has infected a very limited number of European beef-eaters and raised alarms there. A chilling example of problems that can develop on poorly overseen or managed game farms came a year ago in Wisconsin, where 60 of 76 deer at a preserve tested positive for CWD.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Searching for Bird Flu in ND
KXMC - www.kxmc.com
15 Feb 2008
Area: North Dakota United States

Wildlife officials want you...to help them locate sick birds. As the season nears for some birds to once again begin their migration north, officials are keeping a close eye on their behavior. But they say they can't do it alone. They need your help in spotting sick or even dead birds.

Debbie Kuehn has more... Yes, it's been bitter... but if you look closely there are small signs spring is on the way. Every day, the sun peeks out from behind the eastern horizon a wee bit earlier... and drops behind the western one a wee bit later. Pretty soon we'll be towing the ice houses home, and listening for the tell-tale honking of one of nature's traffic jams.

>>>FULL ARTICLE [includes video]

Related News
>>>Migratory birds not main source of bird flu: WWF

Bat disease, already found in Ulster County, turns up in New England
Associated Press (Posted by www.dailyfreeman.com)
15 Feb 2008
Area: New York, Massachusetts, Vermont United States

The mysterious affliction ravaging bat populations in Ulster County and other parts of New York state has been confirmed in two more caves, in Massachusetts and Vermont. The disease, called "white nose syndrome" because of the white ring of fungus found on some stricken bats, has turned up in a Chester, Mass., mine and the Aeolus Cave in Dorset, Vt., according to Alan Hicks, a wildlife biologist with the New York Department of Environmental Conservation. "White nose syndrome" previously was discovered in more than a dozen caves, almost all of them in eastern New York state, including one in the Ulster County town of Rosendale.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Agency tries to distinguish brucellosis, similar ailment
Associated Press (Posted by www.billingsgazette.net)
17 Feb 2008
Area: Wyoming United States

The Wyoming Game and Fish Department has trapped 123 elk and will use some of them for a study of whether new testing can differentiate between brucellosis and a type of bacterial infection that sometimes appears to be the disease in test results. Brucellosis occurs in elk and bison and can spread to cattle, causing them to abort their calves. Wildlife biologists routinely trap and test elk for brucellosis at western Wyoming's elk feedgrounds. With the latest trapping, researchers hope to send 40 female calf elk to the Thorne/Williams Wildlife Research Center near Laramie. There, the elk will be infected with a strain of brucellosis and a strain of yersinia bacterium.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

OTHER WILDLIFE HEALTH RELATED NEWS