Wildlife Disease News Digest

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AIDS-like virus threatens Qld koalas
Donnybrook-Bridgetown Mail - bridgetown.yourguide.com.au
04 Jul 2008
R Beeby
Area: Queensland Australia - Map It

Koalas across Queensland are dying from the spread of an AIDS-like virus which weakens their immune system, and could become extinct within 15 years, a leading researcher says. ''We're seeing a 100 per cent infection rate in the populations we're studying. On those figures, it should be considered a disease epidemic,'' Australian Wildlife Hospital research director Jon Hanger said. The disease, known as koala retrovirus, was genetically sequenced by Dr Hanger in 1999 and has been linked to 80 per cent of deaths in captive koalas in Queensland from leukaemia, lymphoma, malignant tumours and immune deficiency disorders.

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Rodent plague threatens ferrets
Argus Leader - www.argusleader.com
07 Jul 2008
T Gabrukiewicz
Image courtesy of T Gabrukiewicz/Argus Leader
Area: South Dakota United States - Map It

Badlands-area prairie dogs killed

The area of plague-infected black-tailed prairie dogs has more than doubled in western South Dakota since mid-May, and the disease could begin to seriously hurt the state's population of endangered black-footed ferrets. Plague is almost always fatal to infected prairie dogs and has killed a large number of the rodents, wildlife experts said. Black-footed ferrets hunt and dine almost exclusively on prairie dogs. "When ferrets eat an infected prairie dog, they'll get a massive dose" of plague, said Kevin Atchley, Wall District ranger for the U.S. Forest Service. "It's likely that some ferrets have perished." The infected area has bloomed from 4,000 acres to 9,100 acres as of last week, Atchley said. The infected area is within the 300,000-acre Conata Basin south of Wall.

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A Race To Solve White-Nose Syndrome Fatal To Bats
Courant.com - www.courant.com
07 Jul 2008
Image courtesy of Stephen Dunn
Area: United States

. . . While Dickson and her counterparts ply the field, scientists at the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis., are conducting the laboratory detective work required to understand what's happening to the Northeast's bats. And, because of a classic laboratory happenstance, they may already have made a breakthrough. Among the 30 different fungi found on white-nose bat carcasses, said Dr. Anne E. Ballmann of the center, one cold-loving fungus called geomyces has been identified as a "fungi of interest." The scientists became interested in geomyces after a culture of the fungus, left in a refrigerator to be examined later, quickly grew at low temperatures.

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Avian Malaria found in Galápagos Penguins
UNESCO World Heritage Centre - whc.unesco.org
04 Jul 2008
Area: Galapagos Islands - Map It

On July 1st the Galápagos National Park announced that the parasite causing avian malaria was found in several Galápagos penguins by researchers studying the presence and distribution of diseases in Galápagos birds. Immediate follow-up studies are needed to document the proportion of birds infected with the parasite throughout the four-island distribution of the penguin, and to begin to estimate the impact of this parasite and consider approaches to disease control to prevent its spread across the penguin population and transmission to other bird species. The Galápagos penguin is already classified as Endangered by IUCN, and its numbers have been in general decline since monitoring began in the 1980’s. IUCN estimates a total current population of only 1,770 penguins.

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'Devil-proof' fences to save Tas icon
ABC News - www.abc.net.au
07 Jul 2008
D Cooper
Image courtesy of Dave Hunt/AAP
Area: Tasmania Australia

The tasmanian devil could be living in fenced off areas of Tasmania and mainland Australia in a bid to halt the spread of a deadly cancer currently decimating its numbers. The proposals, announced today, came out of a four-day international workshop aimed at looking at ways of saving the world's largest carnivorous marsupial from extinction. Rebecca Spindler, of Taronga Conservation Society Australia, - the sponsors of the Hobart workshop - says intensive management is needed to secure disease-free populations of devils. Recommendations include captive breeding programs in zoos, translocating the dog-sized mammal to free-range enclosures in the wild on mainland Australia and erecting secure fencing around disease-free populations in the west of Tasmania.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

CO2 Pollution Could Erase Coral Reefs
Wired Science - blog.wired.com/wiredscience
03 Jul 2008
A Madrigal

Coral reefs, nature's most lively architecture, could come tumbling down and it could take millions of years for them to return, if carbon dioxide emissions aren't cut quickly, scientists warned today. The world's oceans have absorbed 40 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions produced by humans in the industrial age, but that buffering is changing the chemistry of the oceans. Already, the acidity of ocean waters, which are generally basic, has shifted about 0.1 on the pH scale, or 10 percent, since pre-industrial times, and could get far more acidic by mid-century. In a editorial in the journal Science, the researchers also noted that unlike CO2's climate impacts, which vary between models to some extent, ocean acidification is based on basic chemistry and is nearly sure to occur if we continue burning fossil fuels, with disastrous consequences for some marine life.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Cited Journal Article
>>>Carbon Emissions and Acidification. Science. 2008 Jul 4; 321(5885): 51-52.

Related News
>>>Acidifying Oceans Add Urgency To Carbon Dioxide Cuts
>>>NOAA Report States Half Of US Coral Reefs In 'Poor' Or 'Fair' Condition
>>>Smithsonian Coral Biodiversity Survey Of Panama's Pearl Islands

OTHER WILDLIFE HEALTH RELATED NEWS
Image courtesy of AP Photo/Richard Vogel