Wildlife Disease News Digest

TOP STORIES

California brown pelicans found frail and far from home
Los Angeles Times - www.latimes.com
06 Jan 2009
L Sahagun
Photo credit: Mark Boster
Area: California, United States - Map It

Wildlife rescuers from San Diego to San Francisco suddenly are facing a distressing biological mystery: Disoriented and bruised California brown pelicans are landing on highways and airport runways and in farm fields, alleys and backyards miles from their normal coastal haunts. In the last week, the big brown birds known for flying in formation over beaches have been reported wobbling across Culver Boulevard in Playa del Rey and on a Los Angeles International Airport runway. Two dead pelicans were found on the 110 Freeway. Elsewhere, one smacked into a car. "We're a little freaked out by this," said Rebecca Dmytryk, spokeswoman for the nonprofit WildRescue. "We've never seen anything like it."

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Mixed News on Mercury in Indiana’s Water
USGS Newsroom - www.usgs.gov/newsroom
05 Jan 2009
Area: Indiana, United States

Rain and snow falling in Indiana contains less mercury than it did in years past. Yet some of the state's major waterways have mercury levels that could be harmful to humans and wildlife. According to a U.S. Geological Survey report about mercury in streams, nearly six percent of water samples collected from 2004 to 2006 had mercury levels that exceeded the Indiana water-quality standard protecting human health. Mercury concentrations in 73 percent of the samples exceeded the more restrictive state water-quality standard protecting wildlife. More than 80 percent of the water samples had detectable methylmercury, the most toxic form of mercury that accumulates in fish, birds, and mammals at the top of food chains.

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Lead Poisoning and California Condors
Environment Report - www.environmentreport.org
05 Jan 2008
S Babits
Photo credit: US Fish and Wildlife Service
Area: United States

It’s been decades, but there are now more California Condors in the wild than there are in captivity. That’s thanks to two condor chicks who recently left their nests in the Grand Canyon. As Sadie Babits reports, biologists are thrilled, but one of the problems that caused the decline in condors still exists:

At the World Center for Birds of Prey in Boise, Idaho, there’s a wood fence that protects the California Condors that live behind it.

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2008 saw jump in newborn manatee deaths
St. Petersburg Times - www.tampabay.com
06 Jan 2008
C Pittman
Area: Florida, United States

A record number of newborn manatee calves turned up dead last year, but the state's manatee biologists cannot explain why. In all, 101 of the 337 carcasses that scientists collected in 2008 were very young calves, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute in St. Petersburg announced Monday. By comparison, they found 59 dead calves in 2007, and 70 in 2006. That nearly a third of all dead manatees were newborn or stillborn calves poses a baffling mystery for the state's necropsy laboratory — a sort of CSI for sea cows — located on a corner of the Eckerd College campus.

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Reported Wildlife Mortality Events to the USGS National Wildlife Health Center Updated
USGS National Wildlife Health Center
06 Jan 2009
Area: United States

USGS and a network of partners across the country work on documenting wildlife mortality events in order to provide timely and accurate information on locations, species and causes of death. This information was updated on Jan 05, 2009 on the USGS National Wildlife Health Center web page, New and Ongoing Wildlife Mortality Events Nationwide. Quarterly Mortality Reports are also available from this page. These reports go back to 1995.

>>> Updated Wildlife Mortality Event Table

Mice with Hantavirus Found in San Diego
San Diego 6 News - www.sandiego6.com
23 Dec 2008
Area: San Diego County, California - Map It

Three more wild mice trapped in San Diego County have tested positive for hantavirus. A harvest mouse was found in the Tijuana River Valley and two Northern Baja mice were discovered in San Marcos and Carlsbad, according to the San Diego County Department of Environmental Health. So far, 11 mice have been confirmed to have hantavirus locally this year, according to the DEH. Typically, there are between two and eight cases of the disease detected in wild mice in the county annually. This year, however, county Vector Control officials have stepped up surveillance.

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OTHER WILDLIFE RELATED NEWS
Photo credit: National Geographic News - news.nationalgeographic.com