Wildlife Disease News Digest

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Why Are So Many Infectious Diseases Jumping From Animals To Humans?
ScienceDaily - www.sciencedaily.com (Source: Emory University)
18 Nov 2008
Image courtesy of Emory University

Why are so many infectious diseases jumping from animals to humans? Why do we have so little capacity to predict epidemics, or avoid them? Some answers, and possible solutions, can be found in the first trench-to-bench guide to wild primate infectious diseases, to be published Nov. 17 in the Yearbook of Physical Anthropology. "There is growing awareness that the majority of emerging pathogens in the world are coming from wildlife. And most of that wildlife is in tropical forests – in places where we have the least disease surveillance," says Thomas Gillespie, assistant professor of environmental studies at Emory University, and lead author of the article.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Cited Journal Article
>>>Integrative approaches to the study of primate infectious disease: Implications for biodiversity conservation and global health. Yrbk Phys Anthropol. 2008 Nov 10; 51: 53-69.

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Parvovirus is killing wolf pups in Minnesota
Star Tribune - www.startribune.com
19 Nov 2008
T Meersman
Area: Minnesota, United States

A new study by Minnesota researchers suggests that the virus has stalled the growth of the gray wolf in the state because the disease hits the young hardest.

About half of the wolf pups born in Minnesota each year are killed off by a highly contagious disease called canine parvovirus, according to new research published by a team of Minnesota researchers in a national journal. The disease has stunted the growth of the state's gray wolf population at a time when wolves are increasing rapidly in number and expanding their range in Wisconsin, Michigan and western states.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

What's killing our seals?
The Times - women.timesonline.co.uk
19 Nov 2008
S Barnes
Area: United Kingdom

Common seals are not so common any longer. Studies show there's no single reason why. So what's the next step?

. . . Dave Thompson, a seal biologist at the lab, is involved with aerial surveys and counting. The figures are complex and confusing, but their summing-up is not: a 50 per cent decline in common seals in most of the Scottish population, with a similar but less drastic decline in England. We are losing common seals at a great rate. The complex process of trying to stop it can't begin until we have found out what started it: and here, right at the start, there are two problems. The first is that it is very hard to get good scientific information about a creature as elusive as a marine mammal. The second is that, as more and more data are collected, the more likely it seems that there is no single reason.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Farmers along US west coast face new pesticide restrictions
Guardian - www.guardian.co.uk
18 Nov 2008
Area: United States

Restrictions on three popular pesticides have been issued in the name of protecting salmon

Farmers in Washington state and along the entire US west coast face extensive new restrictions on three popular pesticides in the name of protecting salmon. The pesticides are common in the state's apple and cherry orchards, potato fields and berry farms. Restrictions could cover big swaths of Washington farmland where streams carry a variety of federally protected salmon and steelhead, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

How air imperils the sea
Christian Science Monitor - features.csmonitor.com
18 Nov 2008
GM Lamb
Image courtesy of Reuters

If the rising level of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere is a slowly ticking time bomb, some scientists say, the CO2 building in seawater is a depth charge about to explode. The world’s oceans are growing more acidic at an increasing – and some say alarming – rate. More and more environmentalists and scientists are saying it may take a severe lowering of CO2 levels to keep ocean life from facing major disruptions, including possible mass extinctions of species. Seawater absorbs carbon dioxide from the air. But the huge amounts oceans have taken in since the Industrial Revolution began 250 years ago are beginning to make it more acidic.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

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Toxic Toads Killing Australian Crocs
Discovery News - dsc.discovery.com (Source: AFP)
18 Nov 2008
Area: Australia

Toxic cane toads are killing alarming numbers of Australia's freshwater crocodiles as the alien pests hop inexorably across the continent, research showed Tuesday. The warty amphibians, which have poisonous sacs on their heads, have cut the number of crocodiles in some Northern Territory rivers by more than half, said Professor Keith Christian of Charles Darwin University. "A recent survey on the Victoria River showed that in a one-year period as many as 77 percent of the crocodiles have died as a result of eating cane toads," he said. The marauding toads, Bufo Marinus, were introduced to Australia in 1935 from their native Central and South America in an attempt to control beetles ravaging sugar cane fields in the tropical northeast.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

OTHER WILDLIFE HEALTH RELATED NEWS
Image courtesy of Discovery News - dsc.discovery.com