Wildlife Disease News Digest

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Birds in "Big Trouble" Due to Drugs, Fishing, More
National Geographic News - news.nationalgeographic.com
9 Oct 2008
C Dell'Amore
Photo by Marek Jobda/rarebirdsyearbook.com/courtesy BirdLife International

Bird species are in "big trouble" worldwide, a sign that the planet's health is also faltering, according to a new report released today at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) meeting in Barcelona, Spain. Not only are rare birds getting rarer, but migratory songbirds, seabirds, and even common backyard birds are also plummeting, according to the State of the World's Birds, a report by the U.K. nonprofit BirdLife International.

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Map reveals species most at risk from climate change
NewScientist Environment - www.environment.newscientist.com
8 Oct 2008
C Brahic
Image courtesy of World Conservation Union (IUCN)

...In order to assess which species need protection first, experts working with the IUCN have spent the past few years reviewing 17,000 species of birds, amphibians and warm-water corals to assess how susceptible they are to climate change. They first had to decide what made a species likely to suffer from the effects of climate change. For instance, a frog called the spotted snout-burrower (Hemisus guttatus), relies on the rain to kick off a season of explosive breeding each year. If the rains change, or fail, the species may not survive.

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>>>Read the Report (pdf)

Tracking Down The Cause Of Mad Cow Disease: First Synthetic Prion Protein With An Anchor
ScienceDaily - www.sciencedaily.com
10 Oct 2008
Image courtesy of Wiley-VCH

The cause of diseases such as BSE in cattle and Creutzfeld–Jakob disease in humans is a prion protein. This protein attaches to cell membranes by way of an anchor made of sugar and lipid components (a glycosylphosphatidylinositol, GPI) anchor. The anchoring of the prions seems to have a strong influence on the transformation of the normal form of the protein into its pathogenic form, which causes scrapie and mad cow disease.

A team headed by Christian F. W. Becker at the TU Munich and Peter H. Seeberger at the ETH Zurich has now “recreated” the first GPI-anchored prion in the laboratory... This new concept will allow production of sufficient quantities of proteins modified with GPI anchors for in-depth studies. Experiments with the artificial GPI prion protein should help to clarify the influence of membrane association on conversion of the protein into the pathogenic scrapie form. This should finally make it possible to track down the infectious form of the prion.

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Cited Journal Article

Semisynthesis of a Glycosylphosphatidylinositol-Anchored Prion Protein.
Becker et al.
Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 2008

Judge upholds Michigan's ban on deer baiting, feeding to battle chronic wasting disease
mlive - www.mlive.com
9 Oct 2008
Photo courtesy of mlive.com

A judge Thursday let stand a ban on feeding and baiting deer in Michigan's Lower Peninsula, ruling the state had authority to issue the emergency rule after its first case of chronic wasting disease was detected...After hearing arguments, Ingham County Circuit Judge Joyce Draganchuk acknowledged that a number of people earn a living by growing and selling the bait. But she said the Michigan Department of Natural Resources based its decision on "sound scientific management principles."... State attorneys defended the policy as a necessary precaution to prevent the spread of the disease.

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HANTAVIRUS INFECTION - VIET NAM: (HO CHI MINH CITY) - ProMed-Mail Archive Number 20081009.3202
ProMed-Mail - www.promedmail.org
9 Oct 2008
Area: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam - Map It

A 25-year-old woman who lives in District 12 [of Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC)], has a hantavirus [infection], which is transmitted by inhaled dust exposed to rodent feces or urine, or transmitted by rodent bites, according to Phan Ngoc Nam, head of Internal Medicine and Infectious Disease at People's Hospital 115. The woman fell ill late last month [September 2008], but was not diagnosed correctly until a couple of days ago as the disease is very rare in Viet Nam, he said.

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OTHER WILDLIFE HEALTH RELATED NEWS
Photo courtesy of ANIMAL PHOTOS WEEKLY - National Geographic - news.nationalgeographic.com