Wildlife Disease News Digest

Compound Safely Quells Bee-Killing Chalkbrood
Science Daily (Source: US Department of Agriculture)
07 Mar 2008
Photo courtesy of Peggy Greb
Area: United States

From rabbits to horses to cows, many animals love alfalfa. America's premier pollinator of that crop, the alfalfa leafcutting bee (Megachile rotundata), is vulnerable to a deadly fungal disease called chalkbrood. But the bees might be best protected from chalkbrood if their leafy nests are sprayed with an iprodione fungicide, according to Agricultural Research Service (ARS) entomologist Rosalind R. James. Caused by the Ascosphaera aggregata fungus, chalkbrood kills bees while they're larvae—wormlike young that hatch from eggs laid in nests by female bees. Healthy larvae spin cocoons within those nests, and later emerge as young bees.

But chalkbrood-infected larvae may die before cocooning, according to James. She leads the ARS Pollinating Insect Biology, Management and Systematics Research Unit in Logan, Utah. Microscopic spheres, called fungal spores, on dead larvae serve as potent reservoirs of the disease. A healthy female alfalfa leafcutting bee may—after emerging from her cocoon and nest in spring—inadvertently pick up some of those spores.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Deadly fish virus lurks off Oregon Coast
Statesman Journal - www.statesmanjournal.com
09 Mar 2008
H Miller
Area: United States

Great Lakes show devastation of its freshwater strain

Officials in the Pacific Northwest are worried that a fish virus that causes fish kills in the Great Lakes could get here. In a sense, it's already here and has been for quite awhile. Viral hemorrhagic septicemia, better known as VHS, has been found in ocean fish from Coos Bay north to the Gulf of Alaska. The seagoing strain of the virus, which does not affect humans, has devastated herring schools in Puget Sound near Seattle and Prince William Sound.

And an apparently new mutated freshwater strain has done the same in the Great Lakes, killing fish from minnows to muskies. "What seems to be the case is these marine strains don't seem to come ashore very readily. And they've had plenty of opportunity with migrating salmon," said Jim Winton, the chief of the Fish Health Section of the USGS Western Fisheries Research Center in Seattle. "We occasionally find the marine strain of VHS in a spawning salmon, mostly coho," he added. "But itdoesn't seem to have spread to freshwater species."

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Strange Malady Wreaks Havoc on Bat Population
PBS - Online News Hour - www.pbs.org/newshour
07 Mar 2008
Area: United States

New Englanders may face an uptick in mosquito swarms, insect bites and moths this summer as a strange malady has threatened the insects' top predator: bats. Bats are dying at an alarming rate in the Northeast, and wildlife biologists fear the outbreak could lead to the extinction of the already endangered Indiana bat. A typical bat cave during winter months is dark, quiet and smells faintly of guano. The winged mammals are usually found hanging upside down in a state of torpor, the decreased physiological activity of hibernation. Some hibernate alone; some in clusters.

. . . Among those threatened is the Indiana bat, which is already on the federal list of endangered species. "If we lose the Indiana bat, we're losing a species from the Northeast," von Oettingen said. "The whole species may be gone. To me, that's almost incomprehensible that on our watch, we'd lose a species." But Darling considered the little brown bat an even greater concern, since they make up a much larger portion of the bat population. About 22,500 of the 23,000 bats in Vermont's Aeolus Cave, for example, are little brown bats.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

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Solar power could save apes and Virunga’s eco tourism
Simbabwe Guardian - www.talkzimbabwe.com
10 Mar 2008
DR Kruger
Area: Africa

Avian Flu is of great concern across Europe but of equal concern deep in the jungles of Virunga National Park, (VNP) the few remaining apes are, as any primate, subject to human diseases, and should be kept away as far as possible from any human contact. Fabian Leendertz, wildlife disease epidemiologist at the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin, says: “…respiratory diseases introduced by humans have long been suspected at sites where apes in the wild have been in close contact to humans… and we need to be more proactive about instituting strict hygiene precautions at all ape tourism and research sites.”

The VNP, straddling the borders of the DRC, Uganda and Rwanda, is home to more than half of the world’s remaining mountain gorillas, with these three states sharing the huge responsibility of what is probably Africa’s oldest national park, and one of the greatest Ecotourism projects in that part of the world. For wild life enthusiasts the welfare of more than half of the apes population is of great concern now in the eastern DRC’s Gorilla Sector, where an estimated 380 mountain gorillas apes, are currently in the care of ‘very aggressive’ rebels having commandeered the area from the ICCN. (the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature).

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Reported Wildlife Mortality Events to the USGS National Wildlife Health Center Updated
USGS National Wildlife Health Center
10 Mar 2008
Area: United States

USGS and a network of partners across the country work on documenting wildlife mortality events in order to provide timely and accurate information on locations, species and causes of death. This information was updated on Mar 06, 2008 on the USGS National Wildlife Health Center web page, New and Ongoing Wildlife Mortality Events Nationwide. Quarterly Mortality Reports are also available from this page. These reports go back to 1995.

>>> Updated Wildlife Mortality Event Table

Rabies Warning For Pinal County
KOLD News 13 - www.kold.com
10 Mar 2008
J Scaupe
Area: Arizona United States

The Pinal County Public Health Services District is issuing an advisory for animal rabies to all residents of Pinal County. On March 6th, 2008 a coati, which is a member of the raccoon family native to southern Arizona, collected in the Oracle area tested positive for rabies at the Arizona State Public Health Laboratory. This is the third animal to test positive in Pinal County in 2008. There is an ongoing investigation by public health officials is ongoing to determine if there were any human exposures to this coati.

No human exposures have been identified at this point. The identification of rabid animals statewide serves as a reminder of the potential for rabies in wild animals in Arizona. Rabies is an infectious disease that affects the nervous system, including the brain and spinal cord of animals and humans. It is caused by a virus present in the saliva of infected animals and is transmitted to humans through contact with the live virus.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

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