Wildlife Disease News Digest

Sun-loving frogs aid fungus fight
BBC News - news.bbc.co.uk
24 June 2008
R Morelle

Sunbathing tree frogs may hold the key to understanding how a deadly fungus is wiping out amphibians around the world. The chytrid fungus has been implicated in many amphibian extinctions. Now scientists are using non-invasive imaging technology to find out how some frogs from Central America may be able to beat this deadly disease. They believe that the frogs' unusual skin is allowing the animals to bask in hot sunlight, possibly boosting their temperatures to kill off the fungus.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Bacteria could be coral's killer
ScienceAlert - www.sciencealert.com (Source: Australian Institute of Marine Science)
25 Wed 2008
Image by AIMS LTMP
Area: Australia

Researchers from the Australian Institute of Marine Science and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University have identified the possible cause of a virulent coral disease that until now has been mysterious. Coral disease has emerged as a serious threat to coral reefs, including the Great Barrier Reef, and this research is a step towards understanding it and finding ways to deal with it. A paper published in the online peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE (Public Library of Science) has set out for the first time a possible bacterial cause for some types of White Syndrome (WS), a suite of diseases that have caused significant coral death throughout the Indo-Pacific region.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Related News
>>>Coral Pathogens Identified for White Syndrome (WS) Epizootics in the Indo-Pacific. PLoS ONE 3(6): [Epub ahead of print].

Case of Sonar's Effect on Whales Heads to High Court
Christian Science Monitor - www.csmonitor.com
24 June 2008
W Richey
Image courtesy of Wikipedia
Area: United States

At issue: Can a judge enforce environmental rules at the expense of national defense training?

The US Supreme Court announced on Monday it would examine whether a federal judge acted properly in ordering the US Navy to alter its sonar training procedures to protect whales and dolphins off the California coast. At issue is whether the judge – and a panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld the judge's ruling – overstepped their authority by enforcing environmental regulations at the expense of national defense training in wartime. US environmental regulations are "not a suicide pact," the Bush administration argued in its brief urging the high court to take up the case. The case, Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, will be heard in the high court's next term, which begins in October.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Baltic Sea gasps for air as marine dead zones spread: WWF
Yahoo News - news.yahoo.com (Source: AFP)
23 June 2008
Image courtesy of AFP/File photo
Area: Baltic Sea

The World Wildlife Fund cautioned Monday that the spread of so-called marine dead zones, where nothing can survive due to lack of oxygen, could cause the Baltic Sea ecosystem to collapse. "In the Baltic Sea, the marine dead zones could cause a total collapse of the entire ecosystem if their spread is permitted to continue," head of the WWF's Swedish branch Lasse Gustavsson said in a statement. Ironically, marine areas are drained of life when they receive excess nutrients, mainly nitrogen and phosphorus from agriculture and other runoff, that act as fertilisers and enhance plant growth. When the excess algae and other organisms die and sink to the bottom, they are decomposed by bacteria that suck up all the available oxygen, in a process called eutrophication.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

OTHER WILDLIFE HEALTH NEWS
Image courtesy of Associated Press