Wildlife Disease News Digest

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Fishing Bans May Save Corals from Killer Starfish
Scientific American - www.sciam.com
21 Jul 2008
A Hadhazy
Image courtesy of Australian Institute of Marine Science
Area: Great Barrier Reef, Australia

Good news for the world's vanishing corals: a new study shows that commercial fishing bans in Australia's Great Barrier Reef kept a lid on coral-gobbling starfish. "This is definitely good news for coral," says John Bruno, an associate professor of marine science at the University of North Carolina (U.N.C.) at Chapel Hill. Researchers found that there were as many as seven times fewer outbreaks of coral killing crown-of-thorns starfish—which can have up to 20 spike-covered arms and grow up to two feet (0.6 meter) in diameter—in so-called "no-take" regions as there were in those where commercial fishing is allowed. Lead author Hugh Sweatman, a marine ecologist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science in Queensland, says scientists are not sure why this translates into fewer starfish given that these fish (the ocean's top predators) such as coral trout, eat other fish, not the barbed starfish.

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Veterinary Convention Stresses Connection Between Human, Animal Health
Medical News Today - www.medicalnewstoday.com
22 Jul 2008

It's hard to read the headlines these days and not get the message, loud and clear, that human health is directly affected by the health of animals. Salmonella from infected wildlife or livestock spreads to produce and leads to the poisoning of hundreds across the United States. Millions of pounds of ground beef are pulled from stores after dozens become ill with E. coli-related illnesses. West Nile virus, spread from infected birds to humans via mosquitoes, continues its summer spread across the country.

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Conference Information
>>>AVMA annual convention in New Orleans July 18-22

Wind farm taking toll on bats, birds
Billings Gazette - www.billingsgazette.net (Source: Associated Press)
21 Jul 2008
Area: Montana United States

A study shows an estimated 1,200 bats, most of them probably migrating through Montana, were killed by wind turbines at the Judith Gap Wind Farm between July 2006 and May 2007. The high number surprised Invenergy, which owns the farm, as well as government and private wildlife experts. "That's a lot more than anybody anticipated," said Janet Ellis of Montana Audubon, a bird conservation group. Each of the 90 turbines is 262-feet tall with blades that sweep 253 feet in diameter. . . . The bird fatality rates are similar to those at other wind plants in the United States, the study states. But the estimated number of bat fatalities was higher than those reported at other wind farms in the Western United States, according to the study.

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Deadly Midwest fish virus may reach Mississippi River
San Francisco Chronicle - www.sfgate.com (Source: Washington Post)
20 Jul 2008
K Lydersen
Area: United States

A deadly fish virus has been found for the first time in southern Lake Michigan and an inland Ohio reservoir, spurring fears of major fish kills and the virus' possible migration to the Mississippi River. The Illinois Department of Natural Resources invoked emergency fishing regulations June 30 to stop the spread of viral hemorrhagic septicemia, often described as "fish Ebola," which was found in round gobies and rock bass tested at a marina near the Wisconsin border in early June. A few days earlier, the virus was detected in round gobies and yellow perch just outside Milwaukee. And weeks earlier, muskellunge in the Clear Fork Reservoir north of Columbus, Ohio, tested positive for the virus. That was the first time the virus was found in a waterway outside of the Great Lakes basin.

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WILDLIFE HEALTH RELATED NEWS
Image courtesy of Jonathan Linus Fiely