TOP STORIES

Lethal parrot disease may be caused by horse virus
New Scientist - environment.newscientist.com
11 Aug 2008
E Callaway
Image courtesy of Susan Clubb

Polly want a virus? A devastating parrot disease that has pushed one species to the brink of extinction might be spread by a newly-discovered virus. Proventricular dilatation disease – PDD for short – deadens the nerve cells that control the oesophagus and stomach. "Birds can't grind the seeds and digest their food properly, and they waste away," says avian veterinarian Susan Clubb, of the Rainforest Clinic for Birds and Exotics in Loxahatchee, Florida. Veterinarians first spotted the disease in macaws exported from Bolivia in the 1970s. The illness now afflicts dozens of species of psittacines – the group that includes parrots and cockatoos – as well as macaws.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Outbreak of avian botulism?
Erie Times-News - www.goerie.com
10 Aug 2008
R Frederick
Area: United States - Map It

Dead fish, birds point to presence of disease; zebra mussels blamed

Local biologists are bracing for an outbreak of avian botulism, a paralytic disease that kills about 10,000 Great Lakes shorebirds every summer. The conditions are right. Warm temperatures, changing lake levels and decaying vegetation stir up common bacterial spores. Toxins form, and dead fish wash up on the shore. "It hits pretty hard," said Nathan Ramsay, a wildlife disease technician at the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis. "And it's starting again."

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Reported Wildlife Mortality Events to the USGS National Wildlife Health Center Updated
USGS National Wildlife Health Center
11 Aug 2008
Area: United States

USGS and a network of partners across the country work on documenting wildlife mortality events in order to provide timely and accurate information on locations, species and causes of death. This information was updated on Aug 08, 2008 on the USGS National Wildlife Health Center web page, New and Ongoing Wildlife Mortality Events Nationwide. Quarterly Mortality Reports are also available from this page. These reports go back to 1995.

>>>Updated Wildlife Mortality Event Table

Researchers Study Mercury in the Great Salt Lake
Live Science - www.livescience.com (Source: Associated Press)
10 Aug 2008
M Stark
Area: Great Salt Lake, Utah, USA

The Great Salt Lake is so briny that swimmers bob in the water like corks. It is teeming with tiny shrimp that were sold for years in the back of comic books as magical "sea monkeys." And, for reasons scientists cannot explain, it is heavily laden with toxic mercury. Exactly where the poison is coming from — and how much danger it poses to the millions of migratory birds that feed on the Great Salt Lake — are now under investigation. "We've got a problem, but we don't know how big it is," said Chris Cline, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist who has been collecting the eggs of cinnamon teal ducks from nests along the rim of the lake so that they can be cracked open and analyzed in the lab.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Last Week’s Top Read Digest Links

1. UCSF researchers identify virus behind mysterious parrot disease
2. Mysterious disease killing Newfoundland moose
3. Underwater, a disturbing new world
4. Wild boars pose danger to local domestic swine, plants, people
5. Fish and Game ban non-slip waders from rivers
6. Assignment Earth: Sage Grouse and Ravens [video]
7. Plastic Bags -- Proof of the Necessity for a Worldwide Ban [slideshow]
8. Use of Space–Time Models to Investigate the Stability of Patterns of Disease [journal article]
9. Shark Avoids Suffocation by Turning Off Electricity
10. Bubonic Plague Reported in Western Nebraska

OTHER WILDLIFE HEALTH RELATED NEWS
Image courtesy of Marcel Antonisse/Getty Images

• Pictured: The week in wildlife

• Driving primates to the edge

• Shellfish May Invade North Atlantic As Ice Melts

• Resistant Prions: Can They Be Transmitted By Environment As Well As Direct Contact?

• New Bird Flu Strain Detected in Nigeria

• Deer deaths at golf course a mystery - Royal Colwood Golf Club, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada - Map It

• Veterinarians Adapt Human Tests For Monkeys

WILDLIFE HEALTH RELATED PUBLICATIONS

Spatial Epidemiology and GIS in Marine Mammal Conservation Medicine and Disease Research
EcoHealth. 2008; [ePub ahead of print][online abstract only]
SA Norman
>>> more ahead of print articles

Identifying areas of Australia at risk of H5N1 avian influenza infection from exposure to migratory birds: a spatial analysis.
Geospat Health. 2008 May;2(2):203-13 [free full-text available] abstract only]
IJ East et al.

Biology Letters - Ahead of Print