Wildlife Disease News Digest

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Fungus devastates 'chicken' frog
BBC News - news.bbc.co.uk
17 Mar 2009
R Black
Photo credit: Gerardo Garcia/Durrel
Area: Monserrat, Leeward Islands - Map It

Montserrat's "mountain chicken" frog has become the latest victim of the killer fungal disease that is devastating amphibians worldwide. UK researchers say that only two small pockets of the animals on the tiny Caribbean island remain disease-free. The mountain chicken (Leptodactylus fallax) is one of the world's largest frogs, and appears on the coat of arms of neighbouring Dominica. Conservationists plan to take surviving frogs into captive breeding programmes.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Reported Wildlife Mortality Events to the USGS National Wildlife Health Center Updated
USGS National Wildlife Health Center
17 Mar 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 Mar 17, 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

Devastating Winter For New England's Bats
Hartford Courant - www.courant.com
17 Mar 2009
R Buck
Area: Connecticut, United States

White-nose syndrome, the persistent and lethal condition that is killing the Northeast's bat population, left a horrendous toll on Connecticut's bats over the winter, killing up to 90 percent of the 3,000 bats in one Litchfield County cave sampled by state wildlife officials last week. With additional losses as famished bats continue to leave their caves before there are insects to eat, mortality rates could climb even higher as the spring progresses, posing an enormous risk to agriculture and recreation this year. At a Hartford press conference this morning, state wildlife biologist Jenny Dickson briefed reporters on the findings of her visits to bat caves in Litchfield County during the past two weeks. In one important bat hibernaculum, or bat cave, Department of Environmental Protection biologists estimated that 83 percent of bats had died.

>>>FULL ARTICLE