Wildlife Disease News Digest

TOP STORIES

Why are the deer dying in Ashland? - Wildlife biologists are trying to find out
Mail Tribune - www.mailtribune.com
12 Dec 2008
M Freeman
Location: Ashland, Oregon, USA - Map It

State wildlife biologists are trying to uncover why seemingly healthy black-tailed deer are dying in droves within Ashland's city limits.

At least a dozen healthy-looking deer have died in city backyards in the past two weeks, prompting Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist Steve Niemela to seek lab tests for diagnoses.

Field necropsies done on two deer this week revealed that these animals did not die from ruminitis, a disease killing Jacksonville-area deer that were fatally fed corn by residents there, Niemela said.

"They had lots of fat and looked like healthy animals, but were dead," Niemela said.

Organ-tissue samples from two deer found dead Tuesday were shipped Wednesday to the ODFW's veterinarians for tests.

One of those two deer showed possible signs of the adenovirus, a highly contagious disease that earlier this decade wiped out deer around Ashland, Jacksonville and other areas where the animals had unnaturally concentrated because some people were feeding them.

>>> FULL ARTICLE

Researchers see grim future for Minnesota moose
Timberjay Newspapers - www.timberjay.com
12 Dec 2008
M Helmberger

If you want to see a moose in Minnesota, you’d better start looking soon, because this symbol of the northwoods could be all but gone from the state within a matter of years.

That’s the bottom line of an alarming trend that has already virtually wiped out the moose herd in northwestern Minnesota and is now taking aim at moose in the northeastern part of the state. The stunning decline in the population of the state’s largest mammal drew dozens of moose researchers to a conference in Duluth this week to discuss the latest research, as wildlife managers search for ways to head off the disappearance of the moose.

But many of the scientists working on the issue believe that saving the moose in Minnesota and in other states at the southern edge of moose range may not be possible, because of a warming climate that appears to be exacerbating a long list of threats to moose survival.

Moose have traditionally faced a number of challenges to their health, including Lyme Disease and a parasitic brainworm (both carried by whitetail deer), liver flukes and high tick loads. But the added burden of heat stress, from mild winters and increasingly hot and humid summers, may be pushing moose over the edge, researchers say.

>>> FULL ARTICLE

Elk death in the Red Rim-Daley Wildlife Habitat Management Area
Wildlife Society and Wyoming Fish and Game (Posted by YouTube - www.youtube.com)
08 Dec 2008
Location: Red Rim-Daley Wildlife Habitat Management Area (Sweetwater - Map It

and Carbon County - Map It

Wyoming, USA)

In early 2004 and again in 2008, scores of elk began to die on their winter range in south-central Wyoming. The Wildlife Society investigates the die-off and how wildlife researchers finally linked it to a toxin in lichen consumed by the elk.

>>> VIDEO

Reversing Coral Reef Decline in Hawaii — A New Look at a Critical Problem
USGS Newsroom - Nov/Dec Science Pick
Dec 2008

New discoveries about how even small amounts of sediment can severely impact fragile ocean coral and suggestions about solutions are illustrated and described in a new book written by a team of USGS scientists and their colleagues. Coral reefs are in decline worldwide, and a leading cause is the runoff of sediment and pollutants from nearby land surfaces. Scientists conducted a multiyear study of the long fringing coral reef off south Molokai.

In the new book, they explain the geologic evolution and natural processes that shape the reef, outline impacts to the reef that are a result of human activity on the land, and explore alternatives for the future. To view the publication, "The Coral Reef of South Moloka'i, Hawai'i - Portrait of a Sediment-Threatened Fringing Reef," visit http://pubs.usgs.gov/sir/2007/5101/.

>>> FULL SUMMARY AND OTHER SCIENCE PICKS

More Coral Reef News

>>> 1 / 5 of Coral Reefs Already Lost, Much More Feared

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