Wildlife Disease News Digest

Botulism cause to worry over Michigan's loons

The Grand Rapids Press - www.mlive.com
07 Mar 2008
H Meyerson
Area: Engadine, Michigan, USA

The disease knocked out about 2,000 loons last summer. They were found scattered on northern Lake Michigan beaches, just carcasses. They weren't all Michigan birds. But some of them were. "We found one of the Seney males, dead on the shore," said Joe Kaplan, one of three principals in Common Coast, an Upper Peninsula non-profit research group that specializes in loon population studies.

"He was about 22 miles from his pool at Seney, just south of Engadine. It was a nice secluded beach." Secluded is good, I guess. Loons like seclusion. Dead is not good. Dead from botulism, even worse. Dead of old age, we understand. Dead by predation, we accept. But 2,000 dead loons from disease is neither.

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Bat deaths linked to climate change
timesunion.com - www.timesunion.com
07 Mar 2008
B Nearing
Area: Vermont, USA

A mysterious affliction that has killed thousands of hibernating bats in the Northeast is likely tied to recent mild winters, rather than a fungus around the mammals' mouths, according to a state wildlife pathologist. While an investigation by the state Department of Environmental Conservation is continuing, DEC pathologist Ward Stone said warmer winters caused by climate change, rather than a mysterious white fungus, has been killing off thousands of hibernating bats in their caves this winter.

Stone, often a renegade at DEC during his long career there, said his studies of about 150 dead bats found the milky-colored fungus that has been dubbed "white nose syndrome" has not been killing the bats. However, Stone's findings may not have the support of the sanctioned DEC team that is studying the problem and has not yet issued its conclusions.

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Captive and wild elk would be kept apart under rules
The Bulletin - www.bendbulletin.com
06 Mar 2008
J McDonald
Area: Bend, Oregon, USA
Photo Courtesy of Melissa Jansson / The Bulletin file photo

The state agency that regulates elk breeding plans next month to review several proposed rule changes — including requiring elk to be contained behind two rows of fencing — that a local rancher says could ruin his business. The state wants to prevent captive elk from interacting with wild elk and deer and possibly spreading disease to the wild herds, said Bruce Eddy, district manager for the Grande Ronde Watershed in La Grande.

Eddy served on a committee that drafted the rule changes scheduled to be presented next month to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. The requirement for double fencing within three years would cost ranchers about $25,000 per mile for materials and labor, according to an economic impact statement on the department’s Web site.

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Nano-sensor For Better Detection Of Mad Cow Disease Agent
Science Daily - www.sciencedaily.com
05 Mar 2008
Photo Courtesy of USDA-Agricultural Research Service, Photo by Keith Weller

In an advance in food safety, researchers in New York are reporting development of a nano-sized sensor that detects record low levels of the deadly prion proteins that cause Mad Cow Disease and other so-called prion diseases. The sensor, which detects binding of prion proteins by detecting frequency changes of a micromechanical oscillator, could lead to a reliable blood test for prion diseases in both animals and humans, the researchers say.

Prions are infectious proteins that can cause deadly nerve-damaging diseases such as Mad Cow Disease in cattle, scrapie in sheep, and a human form of Mad Cow Disease called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. Conventional tests are designed to detect the proteins only upon autopsy and the tests are time-consuming and unreliable.

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Visiting flocks help scientists track bird flu
The News Journal - www.delmarvanow.com
06 Mar 2008
M Murray
Area: Silver Lake, Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, USA

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 has not caused concern.

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