Wildlife Disease News Digest

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Crawling the Web to Foretell Ecosystem Collapse
Wired Science - blog.wired.com
19 Mar 2009
A Madrigal

The Interwebs could become an early warning system for when the web of life is about to fray. By trawling scientific list-serves, Chinese fish market websites, and local news sources, ecologists think they can use human beings as sensors by mining their communications. "If we look at coral reefs, for example, the Internet may contain information that describes not only changes in the ecosystem, but also drivers of change, such as global seafood markets," said Tim Daw, an ecologist at the UK's University of East Anglia in a press release about his team's new paper in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. The six billion people on Earth are changing the biosphere so quickly that traditional ecological methods can't keep up.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Cited Journal Article
>>>Can web crawlers revolutionize ecological monitoring? Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. 2009. Epub ahead of print.

Dead birds found in Kharkiv region not killed by bird flu, according to preliminary tests
KyivPost - www.kyivpost.com
24 Mar 2009
Area: Krasnopavlivka, Kharkiv, Ukraine - Map It

Dead migrating birds found in Kharkiv region near Krasnopavlivka village were not killed by bird flu or Newcastle disease, the press service of the Emergencies Ministry has reported, referring to the preliminary tests. According to the press service, the number of dead birds reached almost one thousand on Monday. The regional Committee on industrial and environmental safety and emergency situations, a task group of the Main office of the Emergencies Ministry, the Veterinary service, the regional Sanitary and Epidemiological station, the environmental service and the police are operating at the site where the dead birds were found. The members of the committee set up preliminary measures to isolate the location.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Study: Nearly all native birds in Hawaii in peril
MSNBC - www.msnbc.msn.com (Source: Associated Press)
20 Mar 2009
Photo credit: USGS
Area: Hawaii, United States

Hawaii's native avian population is in peril, with nearly all the state's birds in danger of becoming extinct, a federal report says. One-third of the nation's endangered birds are in Hawaii, said the report issued Thursday by the Interior Department. Thirty-one Hawaiian bird species are listed as endangered, more than anywhere else in the country. "That is the epicenter of extinctions and near-extinctions," said John Fitzpatrick, director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, which helped produce the study. "Hawaii is (a) borderline ecological disaster."

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Advice to Vultures: Avoid Spanish Livestock
ScienceNow - sciencenow.sciencemag.org
20 Mar 2009
M Enserink
Photo credit: Jaroslav Pap/AP Photo
Area: Spain

Eating carcasses of livestock treated with antibiotics is wreaking havoc on the health of Spanish vultures, a new study carried out in Spain suggests. The researchers say that the practice of feeding vultures livestock carrion--although promoted by bird lovers--may actually threaten the species and should be ended. Spain is the European stronghold of vultures; it's home to the griffon vulture (Gyps fulvus), the cinereous vulture (Aegypius monachus), and the endangered Egyptian vulture (Neophron percnopterus). Traditionally, Spanish vultures have lived off dead livestock, deposited by farmers at dumping sites called muladares.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Cited Journal Article
>Cellular and humoral immunodepression in vultures feeding upon medicated livestock carrion. Proc. R. Soc. B. 2009 March 18. Epub ahead of print.

U-M researcher's idea jells into potential new disease-detection method
Biology News Net - www.biologynews.net
22 Mar 2009

Relying on principles similar to those that cause Jell-O to congeal into that familiar, wiggly treat, University of Michigan researchers are devising a new method of detecting nitric oxide in exhaled breath. Because elevated concentrations of nitric oxide in breath are a telltale sign of many diseases, including lung cancer and tuberculosis, this development could prove useful in diagnosing illness and monitoring the effects of treatment. Assistant professor of chemistry Anne McNeil and graduate student Jing Chen will discuss the work at the spring meeting of the American Chemical Society in Salt Lake City, Utah.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Reef Fish Threatened by Coral Loss
ScienceNow - sciencenow.sciencemag.org
19 Mar 2009
J Grom
Photo credit: Michelle Paddack
Area: Caribbean

Populations of Caribbean reef fish have plummeted between 32% and 72% over the past decade in response to widespread disappearance of coral, according to a new study. If the trend continues, it could worsen the already unprecedented deterioration of reef habitats and disrupt Caribbean countries that rely on the fish as a source of food and income. Scientists became increasingly concerned about Caribbean reef fish after a 2003 paper reported an 80% reduction in the sea's hard coral--the main part of the reef that provides a foundation for other types of coral--between 1975 and 2000. Coral reefs provide refuge from predators and a rich food source, so researchers assumed that the deterioration in the reefs, which resulted primarily from coral diseases, storm damage, pollution, and sedimentation from soil erosion, would mean bad news for fish.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Cited Journal Article
>>>Recent Region-wide Declines in Caribbean Reef Fish Abundance. Current Biology. 2009 Mar 19. Epub ahead of print.

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