Wildlife Disease News Digest

Dead dolphins found on Texas beaches
NDTV.com (Source: Agence France-Presse)
05 Mar 2008
Area: Texas United States

Marine officials are worried that they may be facing another significant dolphin die-off in the Gulf of Mexico after 21 of the marine mammals were found washed up on Texas beaches over two days. The carcasses were discovered a year after about 70 dolphins washed up in the same area over a two week period. ''We are concerned, especially because (of) what happened last year,'' said Blair Maise, the marine mammal stranding coordinator for the national marine fisheries service. He added, ''there may be more.''

Researchers weren't able to determine a cause for last year's significant die-off because the animals' carcasses were too decomposed when they were discovered. The bottlenosed dolphins found on Monday and Tuesday on the Bolivar peninsula near Galveston, Texas were also badly decomposed, but officials are hopeful they may still be able to determine a cause. ''We're going to take a more proactive role (this time) in trying to do aerial searches for fresher carcasses so we can get better information on the cause,'' Maise said in a telephonic interview. Researchers have collected samples from the dolphin carcasses, which will be studied to see if signs of disease can be found.

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Biologist goes extra mile to help Minnesota moose
Daily News-Miner - newsminer.com
06 Mar 2008
T Mowry
Area: Minnesota United States

Mark Keech jokes that he had to go to Minnesota to get some ink. A wildlife biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in Fairbanks, Keech recently returned from a trip to Minnesota to help that state’s wildlife experts figure out why moose in a small part of the state where they exist are dying. The research project gained the attention of the local press, most notably the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and Keech found himself featured on the front page of that major metropolitan newspaper in a story about the study.

Quite a change for a guy who does that kind of stuff all the time back in Alaska and it barely raises an eyebrow, much less makes the paper, though Keech has graced the pages of both the News-Miner and Anchorage Daily News for his involvement in studies on moose and bears around McGrath. “A moose capture operation in Alaska is no big deal; it doesn’t make the paper,” Keech said. “Down there the species is not as abundant. People don’t take it as much for granted as they do up here.”

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Rising sea could end bittern boom
BBC News - news.bbc.co.uk
04 Mar 2008
Photo courtesy of A Hay/RSPB
Area: England United Kingdom

One of Britain's rarest birds whose numbers climbed back from near extinction a decade ago faces a new threat from the sea. Habitat creation helped the bittern grow from a low of 11 males in 1997 to at least 51 recorded by the RSPB and Natural England last year. The bird, known for its booming call, is commonly found in the freshwater reed beds of Suffolk and Lancashire. But the RSPB warned these coastal sites could be lost to rising sea levels.

Speaking at a conference at the Potteric Carr Nature Reserve in South Yorkshire, Dr Mark Avery, RSPB conservation director, said the Bittern population relied on breeding grounds such as the Minsmere Reserve along the Suffolk coast. "A substantial area of new reed bed will urgently need to be created away from the coast, and the threat of climate change-driven, sea level rise," Dr Avery said. "We know it takes at least 10 years for a newly created reed bed to support nesting bitterns but don't know how long existing sites will be able to survive against the ravages of climate change."

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Outdoors: CWD Stakeholders Advisory Committee not doing enough
Capital Times - www.madison.com
06 Mar 2006
T Eisele
Area: Wisconsin United States

The Chronic Wasting Disease Stakeholders Advisory Committee overlooked many options that they should have considered -- such as a statewide ban on baiting of wildlife and eliminating deer farms as a business. After all, the Department of Natural Resources assembled the committee to provide advice on how to manage CWD. Perhaps these alternatives hit too close to home for many of the committee members. Or perhaps such measures would have impacted their businesses or own hunting styles.

Had the committee members kept an eye on other states, they would have heard last week that the Wyoming Game and Fish Department announced that CWD has now been found in several new areas, including Sheridan, Park, Big Horn and Washakie counties. Wisconsin hunters outside the southern CWD zone may not give the problem much attention. But if we ease up on restrictions and don't go after the disease aggressively, it's this observer's opinion that CWD will soon be coming to an area near you. Wisconsin, which was criticized because it hasn't been able to eliminate the disease, has at least kept the disease at bay from spreading substantially.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Global warming poses deaf threat to tropical fish
New Scientist - environment.newscientist.com
06 Mar 2008
E Young
Area: Australia

Going deaf is not a problem that most of us would automatically associate with global warming. For coral reef fish, however, hotter seas could pose a real threat. Young coral reef fish with misshapen ear bones are more likely to get lost and die, and exposure to warmer waters makes the problem worse, according to a study of fish living around Lizard Island on the Great Barrier Reef, Australia. After hatching, most reef fish spend a few weeks out in the open ocean before returning to the reef to settle down.

And it seems that sound is a key factor in guiding them to the right habitat. The young fish have to home in on the high-frequency noises made by invertebrates like shrimp and sea urchins, and avoid the low-frequency noises made by crashing waves and adult fish. Monica Gagliano at the Australian Institute of Marine Science in Townsville, Queensland, and colleagues found that at hatching, just over half of Ambon damselfish had asymmetrical otoliths, or ear bones. The team had suspected that it might be harder for these fish to pinpoint the origin of a sound, increasing the chance they would get lost in the ocean.

>>>FULL ARTICLE [includes audio content]

Cited Journal Article
>>>Dispersal without errors: symmetrical ears tune into the right frequency for survival

Bovine TB testing of cattle continues in Iosco, Ogemaw
Oscoda Press - www.oscodapress.com
05 Mar 2008
J Ogden
Area: Michigan United States

The public was informed on the status of bovine tuberculosis (TB) testing during a public meeting held by the Michigan Department of Agriculture (MDA) on Tuesday, Feb. 26, in Prescott. Two new “potential risk areas” were recently identified in Iosco County, impacting neighboring Ogemaw County. Alcona is already a designated high risk area. The new areas were designated after two whitetail deer harvested in Iosco County during the fall hunting season were discovered to have the disease. MDA officials began testing of cattle on approximately 90 farms, including hobby farms, in the 10-mile radius of where the deer were found.

According to Dr. Dan Robb of MDA, the radiuses extended from the center of the sections where the deer where found. Although the locations are not precise, one deer was taken in Oscoda Township between Cooke and Five-Channels Dam. The second was harvested in Tawas Township in an area bordering Spartan, Miller and McArdle roads. Robb said there are an estimated 80 cattle herds with from 35 to 50 head of cattle in each to be tested. He said half of those animals have currently been tested.

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