Wildlife Disease News Digest

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Polarized Light Leads Animals Astray: 'Ecological Traps' Cause Animal Behaviors That Can Lead To Death
ScienceDaily - www.sciencedaily.com (Source: Ecological Society of America)
07 Jan 2009
Photo credit: iStockphoto

Human-made light sources can alter natural light cycles, causing animals that rely on light cues to make mistakes when moving through their environment. In the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, a collaboration of ecologists, biologists and biophysicists has now shown that in addition to direct light, cues from polarized light can trigger animal behaviors leading to injury and often death. Artificial light that occurs at unnatural times or places – often called light pollution – can attract or repulse animals, resulting in increased predation, migrating in the wrong direction, choosing bad nest sites or mates, collisions with artificial structures and reduced time available to spend looking for food, just to name a few.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Cited Journal Article
>>>Polarized light pollution: a new kind of ecological photopollution. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. 2009 07 Jan 2009. [Epub ahead of print].

Google Earth Used To Track Bird Flu Evolution
InformationWeek - www.informationweek.com
08 Jan 2009
T Claburn
Area: United States

Google Flu Trends has helped medical researchers track flu outbreaks. Now scientists have used Google Earth to understand how the avian flu virus is gaining resistance to antiviral drugs through evolutionary selection. Researchers from the University of Colorado at Boulder recently found that the avian flu, a subtype of influenza A known as H5N1, is evolving resistance to adamantanes, one of two classes of antiviral medications used to treat the flu. Paul Connolly, VP of marketing and business development for Right90, talks about the company's software as a service, which does sales forecasting for manufacturers. SocialCast takes many of the social network tools from the consumer world and makes them available in an on-demand service for the enterprise. Spigit brings makes many web 2.0 concepts ready for a collaborative enterprise environment with its software as a service model.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Deformities threaten moose
Chronicle Herald - thechronicleherald.ca
10 Jan 2009
S Borden Colley
Photo credit: Scott McBurney
Area: Nova Scotia, Canada

Whatever is causing severely deformed antlers and early shedding among mainland moose in Nova Scotia could threaten the ability of this endangered species to produce offspring, says a wildlife expert looking into this mystery. "That can have a major implication for the population," Dr. Scott McBurney, a wildlife pathologist with the Canadian Cooperative Wildlife Health Centre, Atlantic region, said in an interview Thursday. "I guess what you want to have (is) an understanding of — knowing that this is a population in decline — how those antler deformities may relate to the ability of that population to reproduce and multiply itself up to normal levels again." Apparently, with female moose size does matter.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

DNR probes dead crows in Ann Arbor
Ann Arbor News - www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor
09 Jan 2009
J Mathis
Area: Ann Arbor, Washtenaw County, Michigan, USA - Map It

Federal, state and local officials are investigating the possible poisoning of 19 crows in Ann Arbor. And officials say that if the birds were poisoned, it will likely lead to more deaths of other animals that may have eaten the crows. A man walking his dog on a trail near the Amtrak station Dec. 26 found 15 dead crows and two that were dying, authorities said. A necropsy on the dead crows was performed at Michigan State University. Although the results aren't in yet, poison is suspected, said Dan Sheill, a special agent with the Ann Arbor office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

National HPAI Early Detection Data System (HEDDS) Update
NBII Wildlife Disease Information Node
12 Jan 2009
Area: United States

Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Early Detection Data System (HEDDS) is an avian influenza data sharing repository. NBII and a network of partners across the nation have created HEDDS to hold data from different surveillance strategies and to provide a comprehensive view of national sampling efforts.

Recent HEDDS Activity

Jan 12, 2009: The LPAI H5N1 results table has been updated with information on samples collected on Dec 29, 2008 from a Canada goose in Goshen county, WY.
Jan 9, 2009: 992 samples and tests were added to HEDDS for 2008. Total is now 75,105.
Jan 7, 2009: 231 samples and tests were added to HEDDS for 2008. Total is now 74,113.

>>>HEDDS' LPAI H5N1 Results Table
>>>For more about HEDDS

OTHER WILDLIFE HEALTH RELATED NEWS
Photo credit: AP Photo/Lincoln Children's Zoo