TOP STORIES
Coral reef growth is slowest ever
BBC News - news.bbc.co.uk
2 Jan 2009
J Morgan
Photo credit: J. Freund
Area: Australia - Map It
Coral growth in Australia's Great Barrier Reef has slowed to its most sluggish rate in the past 400 years. The decline endangers the species the reef supports, say researchers from the Australian Institute of Marine Science. They studied massive porites corals, which are several hundred years old, and found that calcification has declined by 13.3% since 1990. Global warming and the increasing acidity of seawater are to blame, they write in Science journal.
More Polar Bears Going Hungry
New Scientist - newscientist.com
01 Jan 2009
K Ravilious
Warmer temperatures and earlier melting of sea ice are causing polar bears to go hungry. The number of undernourished bears has tripled in a 20-year period. Seth Cherry of the University of Alberta, Canada, and colleagues monitored the health of polar bears in the ice-covered Beaufort Sea region of the Arctic during April and May in 1985, 1986, 2005 and 2006. They immobilised the bears using tranquilliser darts and measured the ratio of urea to creatinine in their blood. A low ratio means that nitrogenous waste material is being recycled within the body and indicates the animal is fasting - a state which usually only occurs temporarily in males during the spring breeding season.
A Whiff of Mad Cow
Science - sciencemag.org
23 Dec 2008
R Zelkowitz
Photo Credit: C Le Pichon and M Valley
Talk about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Misfolded proteins known as prions cause mad cow disease and other fatal neurodegenerative illnesses. But in their properly folded form, the proteins may be important to survival, helping mice and other animals keep their sniffing skills sharp, new research shows.
Local Herd Target of Sheep Study
Gunnison County Times - gunnisontimes.com
1 Jan 2009
W Shoemaker
Photo Credit: Gunnison County Times
Area: Colorado - Map It
An icon of the Rocky Mountains may see better days thanks to a study involving local Colorado Division of Wildlife staff and a few of the Gunnison Valley's bighorn sheep. Wildlife managers hope that the experimental program -- which is set to commence early in 2009 and will focus partly on sheep in the Gunnison Basin -- will give them a proven course of action for improving "lamb recruitment." Disease in bighorn sheep is widespread throughout the West. Locally, the Fossil Ridge and Taylor Canyon herds have seen die-offs in recent years and have struggled to bounce back.
OTHER WILDLIFE RELATED NEWS
- Migratory birds under threat [VIDEO]
- First phase of deer management plan completed
- Farming can do without yet another health scandal
- Billion-gallon sludge flood could change utility
- Researchers Find Key to 1918 Flu Pandemic
- Structure of Virulent Pathogen Revealed
- Calif. sues to block Bush endangered species rules
- 12 Elegant Examples of Evolution
- The year's weirdest animals
WILDLIFE HEALTH RELATED PUBLICATIONS
Wildlife Research - Dec 2008 Issue
Volume 35, Number 8
Acuaroid nematodes in the common kestrel (Falco tinnunculus) in the south of Spain
The Veterinary Journal. 2008 [Epub ahead of print][online abstract only]
I Acosta et al.
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