Wildlife Disease News Digest

Bird flu kills endangered carnivores
IOL - www.int.iol.co.za
11 Mar 2008
Photo courtesy of Xinhua
Area: Ninh Binh Vietnam

Bird flu has killed four endangered civets in northern Vietnam, the first time the H5N1 virus has been confirmed in the species, officials said on Tuesday. Four Owston's palm civets, a catlike carnivorous species that the International Union for the Conservation of Nature lists as endangered, died between February 7 and 18 at Cuc Phuong National Park, 120 kilometres south of Hanoi, said Truong Quang Bich, director of the park. "Tests on the civets' samples showed earlier in March that the animals were positive for H5N1," Bich said, referring to the strain of bird flu that can also be deadly in humans. The civets, which have pointed faces similar to a shrew, are the first mammals, other than humans, to have died from bird flu in Vietnam, said Hoang Van Nam, deputy director of the Ministry of Agriculture's Animal Health Department.

"We haven't been able to confirm that the virus has mutated to easily infect mammals, but we are afraid it has," Nam said. The H5N1 virus has been found in numerous animal species other than birds in other countries, including cats, pigs and tigers. Bich said the civets, which were being kept in a semi-wild enclosure at the park's conservation centre, had not been fed poultry but he suspected that infected wild birds might have entered their habitat and spread the disease. "Another civet died at the centre earlier in March, but tests showed it was negative for H5N1," Bich said.

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Wildlife deaths puzzle officials
Redding.com - www.redding.com
11 Mar 2008
D Darling
Area: California United States

Sharon Pierce, who has lived in Redding since 1974, said she hadn't come across dead or dying animals on walks from her home on the west side of town -- until last week. In a span of three days she found a dead raccoon along Jenny Creek, then a dead skunk and another skunk close to death near the Sacramento River Trail. "It was just lying there, panting and twitching," she said. Pierce isn't alone in her grisly finds.

In the past month, Redding Animal Regulation has responded to 27 calls of sick or dead animals -- 25 skunks and two raccoons -- mostly in west Redding, said Dori Mullings, Animal Regulation's office supervisor. "We've had a lot of calls on strange acting skunks," she said. She's plotted the discoveries with pushpins on a map at her office. There's a cluster of pins in the Magnolia neighborhood and another in southwest Redding along Highway 273.

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State believes disease responsible for big horn die-off
Record-Courier - www.recordcourier.com (Source: Nevada Division of Wildlife)
10 Mar 2008
J McKay
Area: Nevada United States

The Nevada Department of Wildlife has been investigating an apparent bighorn sheep die off in the Hay’s Canyon Range, a chain of mountains in northwestern Nevada. The news of a possible disease event in this area came from a 2007 bighorn sheep tag-holder after the hunter observed what appeared to be a sick ewe that was found dead a few hours later. Game wardens retrieved the carcass, which was submitted for veterinary diagnostic work-up and a thorough necropsy examination. The results of the examination, backed up by various laboratory results, confirmed that the ewe died from severe bacterial pneumonia.

With funding from Nevada Bighorns Unlimited, the state performed a follow-up aerial survey of the Hay’s Canyon area immediately following the discovery of the first dead ewe and only seven live sheep were observed. Increasingly intensive ground surveys in October and November followed. State biologists and club members were able to locate several decomposed carcasses as well as several sick bighorn sheep. A number of samples were obtained from both sick and dead animals. As expected, bacterial pneumonia was identified in all animals.

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Waterways tainted with drugs affect wildlife too
Herald-Leader - www.kentucky.com (Source: Associated Press)
11 Mar 2008
J Donn, M Mendoza and J Pritchard
Area: United States

Severe reproductive problems showing up in fish

Second of a three-part series on drug traces in America's drinking water supplies -- and growing concerns about the effects. On this brisk, glittering morning, a flat-bottomed boat glides across the massive reservoir that provides Las Vegas its drinking water. An ominous rumble growls beneath the craft as its two long, electrified claws extend into the depths. Moments later, dozens of stunned fish float to the surface. Federal scientists scoop them up and transfer them into 50-quart Coleman ice chests for transport to a makeshift lab on the dusty lakeshore.

Within the hour, the researchers will club the seven-pound common carps to death, draw their blood, snip out their gonads and pack them in aluminum foil and dry ice. The specimens will be flown across the country to laboratories where aquatic toxicologists are studying what happens to fish that live in water contaminated with at least 13 different medications -- from over-the-counter pain killers to prescription antibiotics and mood stabilizers. More often than not these days, the laboratory tests bring unwelcome results.

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>>>Alabama does not test wildlife for drug residues

Bovine tuberculosis in Michigan dropped last year, state says
Mlive.com (Source: Associated Press)
10 Mar 2008
Area: Michigan United States

The prevalence of bovine tuberculosis in Michigan deer dropped during last year's hunting season, state wildlife officials reported Monday. The prevalence rate was 1.4 percent in the northeastern Lower Peninsula — the core area of TB cases. The rate was 2.3 percent in 2006. Steve Schmitt, a wildlife veterinarian with the state Department of Natural Resources, said there's still a long way to go to eradicate the disease because of deer baiting and supplemental feeding. "This creates situations where the disease transmits easily from deer to deer," he said in a news release.

TB is a deadly lung disease. The DNR tested more than 8,300 deer statewide for bovine TB; 27 were positive. The state also tested animals for chronic wasting disease, a contagious neurological disease affecting deer and elk. None of about 1,350 deer, 190 elk or seven moose tested had chronic wasting disease, Schmitt said. It hasn't been detected in Michigan since surveillance efforts began in 1998.

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OTHER WILDLIFE HEALTH RELATED NEWS
Photo courtesy of Wikipedia