Wildlife Disease News Digest

Marine life in peril
The Post and Courier - www.charleston.net
28 Feb 2008
B Petersen
Photo courtesy of Deborah Laska-Shelton/NOAA-NOS
Area: South Carolina United States

The blubber of dolphins swimming in Charleston Harbor holds some of the worst concentrations of a man-made flame retardant ever recorded in the mammals. And half of the tested dolphins weren't healthy. Loggerhead turtles studied along the South Carolina coast have concentrations of a stain repellent that laboratory animal tests suggest weakens the immune system, making them more vulnerable to diseases, and damages the liver. Tests on humans elsewhere have shown the same concentrations of the repellent. The gleaming waters of the Lowcountry aren't as clean as they seem.

Everyday life is leaching into them "contaminants of emerging concern," a catch-phrase that includes chemicals used in products such as carpets, furniture, Gore-Tex clothes, non-stick pans, plastic casings and automobile trim. The pollutants are pervasive, but these chemical compounds are mostly unstudied, much less monitored or cleaned up. Studies now under way suggest they might be a bigger danger to human health than realized. Tests by Charleston-area researchers suggest the health of marine animals here already has been affected.

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Doctoral Students Join Investigation in Mysterious Bat Deaths
Indiana State University (Posted by Newswise - www.newswise.com)
27 Feb 2008
Area: United States

When Jonathan Storm and Justin Boyles journeyed to New York to investigate what is killing entire colonies of bats, the two Indiana State University doctoral students found bats in crisis. Last year at four caves near Albany, N.Y., more than 10,000 bats died from a mysterious disease involving a white fungus growing on some bats’ noses, leading researchers to dub it “white-nose syndrome.” The mounting death toll stopped last year when spring arrived and the bats left the caves. But the deaths returned with a vengeance after the bats went into hibernation this winter. With 14 known caves infected across New York, Vermont and Massachusetts, scientists estimate as many as 500,000 bats may currently be affected with the syndrome.

“Our only hope at this stage is we’re not too far from the spring thaw,” said Dale Sparks, assistant director of the Center for North American Bat Research and Conservation at Indiana State University. Storm and Boyles, who are working on doctorates in the ecology and organismal biology department, were selected by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to take part in the research hoping to unravel the mystery of what is leading to the bats’ deaths. Using a thermal imaging camera, Boyles and Storm entered caves in the Catskill Mountains of New York to record the hibernating animals’ body temperatures during several days in February. “What we expected to find and what the bats were doing are two different things,” said Boyles, who is from Osceola, Mo.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Related Article
>>>Bat disease taking its toll

Wind Farms May Threaten Whooping Cranes
Associated Press - www.ap.org
28 Feb 2008
MS Fisher
Photo courtesy of Kathy Willens/AP Photo
Area: United States

Whooping cranes have waged a valiant fight against extinction, but federal officials warn of a new potential threat to the endangered birds: wind farms. Down to about 15 in 1941, the gargantuan birds that migrate each fall from Canada to Texas now number 266, thanks to conservation efforts. But because wind energy has gained such traction, whooping cranes could again be at risk — either from crashing into the towering wind turbines and transmission lines or because of habitat lost to the wind farms. "Basically you can overlay the strongest, best areas for wind turbine development with the whooping crane migration corridor," said Tom Stehn, whooping crane coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The service estimates as many as 40,000 turbines will be erected in the U.S. section of the whooping cranes' 200-mile wide migration corridor. "Even if they avoid killing the cranes, the wind farms would be taking hundreds of square miles of migration stopover habitat away from the cranes," Stehn said. The American Wind Energy Association says the industry grew by 45 percent last year, providing about 1 percent of the nation's energy. It says its 1,400 member companies don't want their turbines, power lines, transmission towers and roadways to hurt the cranes, which are protected by the Endangered Species Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Texas tries to control invasion of exotic snakes
Houston Chronicle - www.chron.com
27 Feb 2008
S Tompkins
Area: Texas United States

Non-native species can do lots of damage to environment

Texas, like the rest of the nation, continues losing ground in its war against non-native, invasive species. . . . The negative impact of non-native species on native plants, animals and fish is as pervasive as it is hard to exaggerate. Competition, predation or other impacts of invasive species are considered the primary risk factors facing about 400 of the approximately 1,000 species listed as threatened or endangered under this country's Endangered Species Act, according to a 1998 study. Faced with the onslaught of invasive species and spending billions fighting them, state and federal governments have begun trying to address the root causes of the problem — humans transporting and introducing non-native species. Texas has imposed a prohibition on possessing dozens of non-native species of plants, fish, animals — a list that grows longer each year.

. . . And beginning April 1, any person in Texas possessing or offering for sale any venomous snake not native to Texas or any of five species of non-native constrictors will have to obtain a permit from the state. Acting on a mandate from the 2007 session of the Legislature, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission this past month adopted rules creating a "controlled exotic snake permit." Under terms of the regulations, any person possessing or transporting a venomous snake not native to Texas, a green anaconda, or any of four species of python (African rock, Asiatic rock, reticulated, southern African) must buy an annual permit from TPWD. Private owners of the regulated species will be required to annually purchase a $20 "recreational controlled exotic snake " permit.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

SUSSEX: Del. officials monitor ducks for avian flu
The News Journal - www.delmarvanow.com
28 Feb 2008
M Murray
Photo courtesy of Gary Emeigh/The News Journal
Area: Delaware United States

Delaware’s largest population of canvasback ducks spends the winter in an unlikely place – Silver Lake in Rehoboth Beach. There isn’t a marsh here but the birds, a flock of about 300, keep returning year after year to this safe haven amid the swank oceanfront homes and private gazebos that line the lake. For state wildlife officials, the resting area has become a perfect laboratory – to band and track the movements of these ducks and to study the population for Avian Influenza. The canvasbacks are one of seven species of migratory birds that will be tested for the virus in Delaware this year.

“We have bird flu all the time,” said Jack Gelb Jr., chairman of the University of Delaware’s Animal and Food Science Department and Director of the Avian Biosciences Center. But what scientists and researchers have seen in the wild bird population hasn’t caused concern. Still, scientists and government officials worry that some strains from the wild could infect Delaware’s economically vital poultry industry. They also say a more potent strain of a specific bird flu could come to North America and make people seriously ill. After years of monitoring, researchers throughout the county have found lots of bird influenza strains in the wild population but none is the potentially lethal, highly pathogenic variety that has been blamed for more than 100 human deaths in Asia.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

DNR easing approach to fighting deer disease
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - www.jsonline.com
27 Feb 2008
L Bergquist
Area: Wisconsin United States

The state Department of Natural Resources on Wednesday opted to take a less aggressive approach to fighting chronic wasting disease. When the fatal deer disease was discovered six years ago, the DNR embarked on a controversial plan virtually to wipe out deer populations in which the malady was found. But after acknowledging that deer numbers had not been reduced, the agency proposed regulations aimed at killing far fewer deer in the 2008 hunting season. After Natural Resources Board members voted unanimously to send proposals to public hearings, an official said the agency's lowered expectations shouldn't be viewed as a sign that the DNR was less serious about controlling the spread of the disease.

"These were designed to be goals that hunters will feel are reachable," said Alan Crossley, the DNR coordinator on chronic wasting disease. Getting hunters and landowners to buy into efforts to kill more deer since the disease was discovered in February 2002 hasn't been easy. Initiatives such as payments to sharpshooters and lengthy seasons failed to reduce deer populations and alienated many people by turning a prize into a commodity. Another big stumbling block was the DNR's plan to cut population densities sharply, to as low as five deer per square mile.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Related News
>>>DNR plans meetings in Baraboo, other cities on new CWD hunt options

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