Wildlife Disease News Digest

New 'battle of Midway' over plastic
BBC News - news.bbc.co.uk
26 Mar 2008
D Shukman
Photo courtesy of M Georgiou
Area: Midway Island United States

On the coral atoll of Midway in the central Pacific - famous for America's first victory over the Japanese fleet in World War Two - wildlife experts are facing a new battle against a rising tide of plastic waste. The Midway Islands are home to some of the world's most valuable and endangered species and they all are at risk from choking, starving or drowning in the plastic drifting in the ocean. Nearly two million Laysan albatrosses live here and researchers have come to the staggering conclusion that every single one contains some quantity of plastic. About one-third of all albatross chicks die on Midway, many as the result of being mistakenly fed plastic by their parents.

I watched as the deputy manager of the wildlife refuge here, Matt Brown, opened the corpse of one albatross and found inside it the handle of a toothbrush, a bottle top and a piece of fishing net. He explained how some chicks never develop the strength to fly off the islands to search for food because their stomachs are filled with plastic. "It is disheartening to see such a monumental problem. It's really going to take not just people in a refuge or people working with birds like this - it's really a global effort to solve this problem."

>>>FULL ARTICLE [includes video]

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WDIN Highlights Bulletin - Global Wildlife Disease News Map Version 2.0
NBII - Wildlife Disease Information Node - wildlifedisease.nbii.gov
Issue Date: 15 Mar 2008
Volume 03, Issue 03

The Wildlife Disease Information Node (WDIN) is excited to announce the release of version 2.0 of the Global Wildlife Disease Map. In addition to adding a number of new features, the look of the map has been updated to make keeping on top of wildlife disease news as easy as visiting our website. Here’s a quick overview of the new features. . . .

>>>FULL BULLETIN

>>>List of all WDIN Highlights issues

Big game disease always a concern
Williston Herald - www.willistonherald.com
26 Mar 2008
D Leier
Area: North Dakota United States

A few weeks ago, top officials from North Dakota’s game and fish and agriculture departments attended a public meeting in Grygla, Minn., to get an up-close look at the fall-out from the increasing presence of bovine tuberculosis only 50 miles from North Dakota’s border. . . . The North Dakota Game and Fish Department is equally concerned because bovine TB is not just a cattle disease. It can also infect deer, and once the disease is established in a wild deer population, it is very difficult to eliminate. And if it’s not eliminated from wildlife populations, it will always be a threat to cattle and wildlife.

. . . By itself, TB is not a major concern within a wild deer population. It is not usually fatal to infected deer, and is not a risk to humans as long as meat is cooked thoroughly and the deer are handled with normal precautions. In Minnesota, only a small percentage of the thousands of deer killed and tested in the TB zone actually had the disease. But it only takes one to elevate the risk. Once TB is detected in wild deer (elk can get it, too), they can spread it to other deer which can spread it to other cattle which can spread it to other deer and the cycle continues.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

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>>>Too early to bait deer again in bovine TB hot zone

OTHER WILDLIFE HEALTH RELATED NEWS
Photo courtesy of Fredy Mercay/WWF