Wildlife Disease News Digest

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Deformed Bird Beaks Mystify Bird Watchers & Researchers
OPB News - news.opb.org
07 Nov 2008
T Banse
Image courtesy of WSA-VTH
Area: Washington, United States

Researchers are struggling to find the cause for appalling deformities being spotted among Northwest birds. Grotesquely misshapen and overgrown beaks are turning up, most commonly among birds of prey and crows. Living and dead birds are providing clues to a stubborn avian mystery. Correspondent Tom Banse reports from the raptor ward at Washington State University.

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'Clean-up' bees could save endangered hives
Guardian - www.guardian.co.uk
09 Nov 2008
Area: United Kingdom

A British scientist is hoping to reverse the critical decline of the honeybee by breeding 'cleaner bees' to protect hives from potentially devastating diseases. Francis Ratnieks, the UK's only professor of apiculture, is undertaking pioneering research based on a breed of worker bee genetically programmed to keep hives clean. So-called 'hygienic' bees are responsible for removing dead pupae and larvae from hives, but they only exist in very small numbers. The Sussex University academic believes that, if more of them can be artificially bred, they will protect hives from parasites such as the varroa mite which last year killed two billion honeybees and wiped out one in three colonies.

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Sea eagle poisoning thwarts bird of prey surveillance programme
Guardian - www.guardian.co.uk
10 Nov 2008
Image courtesy of Winfried Wisniewski/Getty Images
Area: Dundee, Isle of Mull, Scotland, UK - Map It

. . . Just over a month later, White G was found dead some 124 miles to the east, in a glen north of Dundee, by a local landowner, Richard de Klee, who had been out shooting rabbits with his son. His family have an estate on Mull, where they have guarded another of the island's 10 sea eagle nests for nearly 20 years. That coincidence was "slightly eerie but very sad," de Klee told The Guardian. "There's some particular sadness at seeing a bird come over from Mull to die. The police believe it was poisoned."

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Virus keeps tiger musky program on hold
Salt Lake Tribune - www.sltrib.com
06 Nov 2008
Image courtesy of Ben Nadolski/Utah Division of Wildlife Resources
Area: Utah, United States - Map It

Plans to bolster Utah's population of one of the state's most popular sport fish have encountered another setback. Division of Wildlife Resources fisheries officials recently learned that one of the last certified disease-free populations of musky tested positive for a virus. The musky would have been mixed with a population of northern pike caught at Recapture Reservoir this fall to create tiger musky - a sterile hybrid that frequently grows longer than 50 inches and is widely sought after by Utah anglers. State wildlife officials have been trying to acquire a disease-free population of true musky since 2006, but an outbreak of viral hemorrhagic septicemia (VHS) shrunk the number of available fish considerably.

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Dead manatee found in Croydon
Bucks County Courier Times - www.phillyburbs.com
07 Nov 2008
D Adler
Area: Croydon, Bucks County, Pennsylvania - Map It

A dead manatee was found earlier this week near the banks of the Delaware River in Croydon. The mammal, an endangered species concentrated in Florida, was spotted in cold waters Sunday in Neshaminy State Park near the park's marina ramp in Bristol Township. Rescuers worked for more than an hour Monday morning removing the manatee from the river bank, according to Josh Swartley, the park's manager. This is the first for Neshaminy State Park, he said. While manatee sightings up north are becoming more common, a Florida nonprofit organization confirmed that manatees swimming around Pennsylvania waters are rare.

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Image courtesy of Enrique De La Osa/Reuters: Guardian - This Week in Wildlife