Wildlife Disease News Digest

"The Gravest Threat to Bats Ever Seen": White Nose Syndrome Could Quickly Lead to Extinction
The Daily Green – www.thedailygreen.com
05 Feb 2008
D Shapley
Area: United States
Photos courtesy of The Daily Green

"White Nose Syndrome," a mysterious, new and deadly disease, is killing thousands of bats in New York, Vermont and possibly elsewhere. The endangered Indiana bat is at risk of extinction, as its numbers plummet in some of its last strongholds in the Northeast.

One of the foremost U.S. bat experts, Alan Hicks of the New York Department of Environmental Conservation, called the die-off sudden and "unprecedented." "Most bat researchers would agree that this is the gravest threat to bats they have ever seen," he said.

Cavers from New Jersey to Vermont are being asked to stop spelunking to avoid spreading the disease inadvertently from cave to cave. Scientists are working to understand the disease before time runs out.

>>> FULL ARTICLE (includes county map showing Indiana bat distribution)

Live Gharials helping investigate Mass Gharial Deaths on river Chambal
India PRwire – www.indiaprwire.com
06 Feb 2008
Area: Chambal Sanctuary, Etawah, Uttar Pradesh, Indian

In a first of its kind conservation effort, the Uttar Pradesh Forest Department in association with NGOs – Wildlife S.O.S, Gharial Conservation Alliance, WWF and a team of international crocodile veterinary experts has successfully captured live Indian Gharials for their urine, blood and joint fluid samples in order to investigate the causes behind the rapid and mysterious deaths of over 90 Critically Endangered Indian Gharials on the Chambal River. This will help establish crucial baseline data on the Indian Gharial (Gavialis gangeticus) 800 of which live in the wild in India with the Chambal Sanctuary being their major stronghold.

In 2007, the Indian Gharial became the only crocodile to be re-classified "Critically Endangered" by the World Conservation Union (IUCN). The latest IUCN Red List puts the number of breeding adult Gharials in Nepal and India at under 200.

The past two months have seen the unprecedented and shocking death of the Gharials on the Chambal River, while other animals such as marsh (mugger) crocodiles and turtles appear unaffected. The National Chambal Sanctuary is spread across Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh and protects a 425 km stretch of the Chambal River. The mortalities have been confined to a 70 km stretch of the Lower Chambal from Etawah to Gwalior. The epicenter of this disaster is near Etawah (Uttar Pradesh), at the confluence of the Yamuna and Chambal rivers.

>>> FULL ARTICLE

Birds may have been dead drunk
The Seattle Times - seattletimes.nwsource.com
05 Feb 2008
Photo courtesy of Seattle Times
Area: Portland, Oregon

It's a case fit for wildlife CSI: 55 robins, all dead within a few nearby backyards in Portland's Mount Tabor neighborhood.

Toxic spill?

Mystery virus?

Maybe not. The leading theory is the birds were fatally intoxicated, said Bob Sallinger of the Audubon Society of Portland's wildlife care center, where the birds ended up last week.

That's right: The birds drank themselves to death.

Not from a bottle, though. The birds' bellies were chock full of holly berries, skins and seeds. Sallinger isn't dismissing other explanations yet, but the current thinking is that the birds ate aged and fermented berries that killed them.

Lethal doses of ethanol may have formed in the berries as natural sugars fermented over the fall and winter.

>>> FULL ARTICLE

Dust Storms Overseas Carry Contaminants to U.S.:Scientists Study Whether Diseases Are Also Transported
Washington Post - www.washingtonpost.com
06 Feb 2008
D Struck

Seventy-five years ago, aviator Charles Lindbergh turned the controls of his pontoon plane over to his co-pilot, wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh, while flying above Iceland. He thrust a makeshift metal arm holding a sticky glass plate from the cockpit. He wanted to see if the winds high aloft the Earth were as clean as they seemed.

They were not.

Now, with NASA satellites and sampling by researchers around the world, scientists know that great billowing clouds of dust waft over the oceans in the upper atmosphere, arriving in North America from deserts in Africa and Asia.

Researchers have also found that the dust clouds contain not only harmful minerals and industrial pollutants, but also living organisms: bacteria, fungus and viruses that may transmit diseases to humans. Some say an alarming increase in asthma in children in the Caribbean is the consequence of dust blown from Africa, and predict they will find similar connections in the Southeast and Northwest United States.

>>> FULL ARTICLE

Alta. employs choppers to keep province CWD free
The Star Phoenix –www.canada.com/saskatoonstarphoenix
06 Feb 2008
D Mario
Area: Saskatchewan and Alberta, Canada

Saskatchewan is sticking to the ground when it comes to dealing with Chronic Wasting Disease -- unlike our neighbours in Alberta. Alberta wildlife officials are killing hundreds of deer along the Saskatchewan border using of a contracted helicopter gunman to thwart the westward spread of CWD from this province.

The fatal brain-wasting disease, similar to BSE in cows, has only been reported in Alberta and Saskatchewan in Canada, with a significantly higher frequency in our province.

. . . Shawn Burke of Saskatchewan Environment's Wildlife Management Unit, said this province is still struggling to control the spread of CWD, while Alberta may have a chance to eliminate it completely because it has been contained to areas near the border.

"That's why we're trying to be as intensive and aggressive as we can right now," said Dave Ealey, spokesperson for Alberta Sustainable Resource Development.

>>> FULL ARTICLE

Another northern Turkish city hit by bird flu
The New Anatolian – www.thenewanatolian.com
04 Feb 2008
Area: Yorukler, Samsun Province, Turkey

The Turkish Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Affairs said Sunday that bird flu was detected in Yorukler town of Black Sea province of Samsun.

. . . "Laboratories of our ministry detected bird flu in the samples. We have determined that the wild waterfowls in the region are the source of the disease," the ministry said.

>>> FULL ARTICLE

>>> Bulgaria vulnerable to bird flu outbreaks

Sharpshooters to return to bovine TB deer area later this month [News Release]
Minnesota DNR - news.dnr.state.mn.us
05 Feb 2008
Area: Minnesota, USA

Sharpshooters for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will assist the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) later this month in agency efforts to reduce the deer population in the designated bovine tuberculosis (TB) deer management zone of northwestern Minnesota.

“Our goal is to use all the tools we have available to get ahead of this disease and ensure it doesn’t persist in Minnesota’s deer population,” said Michelle Carstensen, DNR wildlife health program coordinator. “Sharpshooters are one of those tools.”

DNR helicopter surveys taken in January show that there about 800 deer, an estimated five deer per square mile, in the 140-square mile area that is managed for bovine TB. Last year, similar helicopter surveys in the same area showed 920 deer, an estimated 6.5 deer per square mile. Deer numbers were high enough in 2007 to prompt DNR officials to seek assistance from USDA sharpshooters to help reduce the bovine TB area’s deer population.

DNR officials tested more than 1,100 hunter-harvested deer for bovine TB in 2007. They discovered four infected animals, bringing the total number of infected deer to 17 since surveillance efforts began in 2005.

>>> FULL PRESS RELEASE

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