Wildlife Disease News Digest

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Bee parasite devastates colonies as hives go unregistered and uninspected
Guardian - www.guardian.co.uk
04 Mar 2009
Photo credit: Haraz Ghanbari/AP
Area: United Kingdom

A deadly Asian parasite that threatens to wipe out millions of bees across England and Wales has become endemic because Whitehall does not know the location of more than half the hives in the country, the National Audit Office reveals today. The auditors estimate that at least 20,000 beekeepers are unregistered, which means they are never inspected and no action can be taken to eradicate the parasite before it destroys the bee colony, the report warns. The registered number of beekeepers stands at 17,000.

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Related News
>>>Bee collapse could have been handled better - auditors
>>>Honeybees under threat from amateur keepers who fail to spot parasite

Infectious diseases from Animals to Humans
Bihar Times - bihartimes.com
04 Mar 2009
M Gandhi
Area: India

In 2007 the The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) published their Community Zoonoses Report for 2007, which analyses the occurrence of infectious diseases that can be transmitted from animals to humans. Infection via zoonoses can be acquired either by direct contact with infected animals, or by consuming contaminated food products. Consequently, EFSA has analysed data in human, animals and foodstuffs.

These are the findings of the report:
Most zoonotic diseases are not through bites and stings – rabies and Lyme’s disease from deer ticks for instance but are transmitted through bacteria in food – the eating of animal flesh,dairy and eggs according to the EFSA’s Director of Scientific Cooperation Hubert Deluyker Campylobacter infections topped the list of zoonotic diseases in the European Union followed by Salmonella infections and listeriosis.

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Worldwide She-Male Fish Mystery Widens
Discovery News - dsc.discovery.com
04 Mar 2009
E Sohn

Around the world, increasing numbers of male fish are developing female traits -- growing new sexual organs and sometimes even producing eggs. The phenomenon has been blamed mostly on chemicals that get into the water and mimic the female hormone estrogen. But a new study puts some of the blame on an entirely different class of chemicals -- ones that block the action of male hormones called androgens. It isn't the first study to suggest that anti-androgens might be contributing to the feminization of fish.

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Invasive Parasite Spreading Among West Coast Estuaries
Media Newswire - media-newswire.com
03 Mar 2009
Photo credit: USDA
Area: Canada and United States

A parasitic isopod that scientists identified five years ago has all but decimated mud shrimp populations in coastal estuaries ranging from British Columbia to northern California – with the exception of a handful of locations in Oregon from Waldport to Tillamook. And those surviving mud shrimp all are heavily infested with the parasite, known as Orthione griffenis, or Griffen's isopod, which threatens their existence as well, experts say. “From Bamfield, Canada, down to Willapa Bay, Wash., the mud shrimp are either gone or the populations are severely depressed,” said John Chapman, an Oregon State University invasive species specialist who works out of OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, Ore. . . . It is prudent to say that we have a serious problem,” he said, “and that this is a disaster.”

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