Wildlife Disease News Digest

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Biologists call for balloon ban
BBC News - news.bbc.co.uk
12 Jun 2008
D Savage
Area: Blackpool, England United Kingdom - Map It

Marine conservationists are calling for a ban on mass balloon releases because birds and mammals are dying from eating discarded balloons. The Marine Conservation Society (MCS) says organisers of balloon releases should look for different ways to publicise their cause. The Balloon Association says there is no proof latex balloons kill animals. But the MCS says it has photographs of dead marine birds and mammals washed up on the beach in Blackpool.

A graphic photo from the examination of a dead turtle shows an old balloon in its gut. The suspicion is that the turtle thought the brightly coloured fragment floating on the water was something edible. It appears the consequences were fatal. There is also an image of a decomposed razorbill - a bird which lives on islands off the British coast during the breeding season - with its legs entangled in the string from a balloon. It is not clear if this is what killed the bird, but it certainly would have hindered its mobility.

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The Downward Spiral of Global Amphibian Populations
CO2 Science - www.co2science.org
11 Jun 2008

Lips et al. (2008) begin an analysis of the possible role of historical climate change in triggering disease outbreaks of chytridiomycosis -- an emerging infectious disease of amphibians caused by the fungal pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) -- with the statement that "amphibian populations are declining across the globe at an alarming rate, with over 43% of species in a state of decline." Noting that the role of Bd in these population declines "has been linked to interactions with climate change" via the climate-linked epidemic hypothesis (CLEH) of Pounds et al. (2006) and Bosch et al. (2007), they indicate they have some serious reservations about this idea, because, as they continue, "both field studies on amphibians (Briggs et al., 2005; Lips et al., 2006) and on fungal population genetics (Morehouse et al., 2003; Morgan et al., 2007) strongly suggest that Bd is a newly introduced invasive pathogen."

Consequently, and "from an ethical standpoint," as they put it, they cite as the primary reason for their further study of the subject, the "need to understand, as quickly as possible, the global patterns and causes of amphibian declines to prevent further losses of biodiversity." In pursuit of the basic knowledge required to achieve this important goal, the four researchers evaluated data pertaining to population declines of frogs of the genus Atelopus, as well as similar data from other amphibian species, in Lower Central America and Andean South America, based on their own work and that of others recorded in the scientific literature, seeking to determine if the documented population declines were more indicative of an emerging infectious disease or a climate-change-driven infectious disease.

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Dolphins found dead off Cornish coast 'committed suicide', wildlife expert claims
Mail Online - www.mailonsunday.co.uk
11 Jun 2008
Area: Cornwall, England United Kingdom - Map It

A leading scientist has compared the deaths of 26 dolphins in Cornwall to a "mass suicide" - a natural phenomenon found in the species. Veterinary wildlife pathologist Vic Simpson, who has examined the bodies, says the animals died after they inhaled debris and mud that clogged their insides. He said the scenes in the River Percuil, where 26 dolphin carcasses were washed up on Monday, looked like "some sort of mass suicide". Experts say dolphins have been known to take their own lives whilst living in captivity after becoming distressed and confused at their conditions.

In several cases the creatures repeatedly slammed their head against sides of a pool - or simply stopped coming up for air. The largest known cases of dolphin suicide was in September and October last year when 152 striped dolphins washed up on the coast of southern Iran. Locals who battled to save them by taking them back out to sea were distraught when the dolphins refused and persistently re-beached themselves to die. The best known case of dolphin suicide is that of a dolphin named Cathy, one of the bottle nose dolphins that performed in the television series Flipper.

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Unraveling the mystery of _Toxoplasma gondii_ in marine mammals - Archive Number 20080611.1839
ProMED-mail - www.promedmail.org
10 Jun 2008

Response to Posting
communicated by:
ProMED-mail rapporteur Brent Barrett

[It is not true as stated in the message that "only known reservoir of the infectious form ... are cats." Cats are the main host and only cats and other feline excrete oocysts in their feces. However, mammals and birds infected with _T. gondii_ will harbor infective tissue cysts in their muscles and brains for the rest of their lives, and carnivorous sea mammals may get infected from eating carcasses floating in the water or eating slaughterhouse waste dumped into the water.

The hypothesis that sea mammals are infected from cat feces floating in water is quite hypothetical and requires that oocysts may survive in such saline conditions and the feces may soon dissolve and free the oocysts. As noted in the text, detecting DNA does not prove that herrings contain live _T. gondii_ oocysts, but this could be tested quite easily by inoculating _T. gondii_ mice with _T. gondii_ DNA containing anchovy. - Mod.EP]

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OTHER WILDLIFE HEALTH RELATED NEWS Photo courtesy of John Harding/BTO