TOP STORIES

Predicting Outbreaks Of Plague With The Help Of Satellite Images
ScienceDaily - www.sciencedaily.com
1 Aug 2008

Normally percolation theory is used to describe the movement of liquid through porous material. A good example of percolation is when hot water is forced through ground coffee in an espresso or Senseo machine. By moving through the coffee via the empty spaces between the ground coffee particles, the water picks up the flavour of the coffee. Stephen Davis and colleagues at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Utrecht University, report in Nature their discovery that the spread of the bubonic plague bacteria in Central Asia by gerbils, works much the same way.

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Cited Journal Article
The abundance threshold for plague as a critical percolation phenomenon.
2008 Jul 31; 454: 634-637 – S. Davis et al.

Mysterious disease is killing bats
The Seattle Times - http://seattletimes.nwsource.com
1 Aug 2008
A Mead
Photo courtesy of DAVID STEPHENSON / MCT

Two rabid bats were found in Lexington in July, stirring the wave of uneasiness that humans have long felt toward our tiny flying mammal cousins. But the people who study bats say we should be less concerned about what bats might do to us, and more worried about a mysterious disease that is killing them, and what that might mean to us and our entire ecosystem. It was just getting dark on a recent evening when the first bat slipped out of an expansion joint beneath a small bridge in Jessamine County, Ky., flew in a couple of graceful ovals, then headed out for a night of feasting on insects.

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West Nile virus arrives in county
Baker City Herald - www.bakercityherald.com
31 July 2008
E Merriman

Oregon's first confirmed case this year of West Nile virus in mosquitoes came from skeeters trapped last week in Keating Valley northeast of Baker City. Jim Lunders, manager of the Baker Valley Vector Control District, said the mosquito pool was collected July 22, and he received notice Monday from the state Health Division that mosquitoes in that pool tested positive for West Nile virus. The Health Division e-mailed a news release to the media on Wednesday.

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India's first wildlife diseases atlas is ready
The Times of India - http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com
1 Aug 2008

The country's first atlas of wildlife diseases, their diagnosis and management is almost ready. It is being prepared by B.M. Arora, former principal scientist at the Bareilly-based Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI). “The atlas represents and suggests treatments for various wildlife health disorders and infections that have been reported from various parts of the country.” "Moreover, the atlas, with over 1,000 photographs, also analyses cases of poaching and killings of wild animals by poisoning and other means," Arora said on phone from Bareilly.

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Last Week’s Top Read Digest Links

1. Wing damage: The mysterious death of bats has continued this summer, but researchers are closing in on a cause
2. Fish and Game ban non-slip waders from rivers
3. Mysterious disease killing Newfoundland moose
4. A different kind of bat trouble Disease threatens endangered species
5. ANIMAL PHOTOS WEEKLY: Albino Eagle, Cloned Pups, More
6. Emerging infectious diseases and animal social systems [journal article]
   
7. Wildlife officials in N.S. dealing with distemper outbreak in raccoons
8. Parasites Vastly Outweigh Predators In Estuaries: Could Have Significant Ecological Implications
   
9. Prevalence and Abundance of Fleas in black-tailed Prairie Dog Burrows: Implications for the Transmission of Plague (Yersinia pestis) [journal article]
   
10. Bovine tuberculosis in wildlife threatens endangered lynx and cattle health

OTHER WILDLIFE HEALTH RELATED NEWS

• Dead crow tests positive for West Nile – Buckhorn, Ontario, Canada - Map It

• Bat Found In Naperville Was Rabid – Will County, Illinois – Map It

• Disease facility debated : Both sides air views on federal lab being wooed by K-State

• New laboratory puts Australia at forefront of animal disease research

• CDC Finds Some Bird Flu Strains have Acquired Properties that Might Enhance

• Potential to Infect Humans

• Bird flu explodes in southern province – Dong Nai Province, Vietnam - Map It and Nghe An Province, Vietnam - Map It

• Cane toads are killing crocodiles in Australia

• Rescuers say stranded Hampshire whale has kidney failure

WILDLIFE HEALTH RELATED PUBLICATIONS

Experimental infections of herring gulls (Larus argentatus) with H5N1
highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses by intranasal inoculation of
virus and ingestion of virus-infected chicken meat
Avian Pathology. 2008; 37 (4): 393-397 2008 [online abstract only]
JD Brown et al. Authors: Brown, JD; Stallknecht, DE; Swayne, DE

Survey protocol for detecting chytridiomycosis in all Australian frog
populations
Diseases of Aquatic Organisms. 2008; 80(2): 85-94 [free full-text
available]
LF Skerratt et al.

Sodium hypochlorite denatures the DNA of the amphibian chytrid fungus
Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis
Diseases of Aquatic Organisms. 2008 Jun 19; 80(1): 63-67[online abstracr
only]
SD Cashins et al.