Wildlife Disease News Digest

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What's ailing the Klamath's salmon?
Times-Standard - www.times-standard.com
25 Mar 2009
J Driscoll
Photo credit: Farallones Marine Sanctuary Association
Area: Klamath River, Oregon, United States

Researchers struggling to understand an epidemic of parasites infecting the Klamath River's salmon raised questions and offered some answers at a gathering of biologists Tuesday. Among the findings were that significantly more young salmon died faster from the parasite called Ceratomyxa shasta during tests in the river's disease hot spots in 2008 than the year before. Rich Holt with Oregon State University told a conference that chinook and coho salmon exposed to the parasite in the most infested areas below Iron Gate Dam to the Scott River, then taken to a lab, died faster than even rainbow trout with no immunity. A higher proportion of salmon died, too, nearly twice that of 2007, Holt said. C. shasta targets the intestines of salmon and trout. Adult fish release the parasite's spores when they die, and the spores then move into an interim host, a tiny polychaete worm.

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Drug Used To Treat Skin Conditions Is A Marine Pollutant
ScienceDaily - www.sciencedaily.com (Source: University of Gothenburg
24 Mar 2009

Clotrimazole is a common ingredient in over-the-counter skin creams. Recent results from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, now show that it is associated with major environmental risks. "The pharmaceuticals and chemicals in everyday use form a mixture in the ocean that has a direct impact on the growth and reproduction of organisms", says scientist Tobias Porsbring. When Euorpean authorities assess environmental risks, they often do so for one chemical at a time. Recent research, however, shows that the hazardous chemicals that humans spread in the environment do not work alone.

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The Prestige oil spill caused changes in the cell structure of mussels
EurekAlert - www.eurekalert.org
25 Mar 2009

The oil spill from the Prestige petroleum oil tanker in 2002 caused serious damage to the ecosystems in the Bay of Biscay. A PhD thesis at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) has studied the consequences of this spill for the mussels inhabiting this northern coast of the Iberian peninsula. The author of the PhD thesis is the biologist Ms Larraitz Garmendia Altuna, who entitled her work, Monitoring of the biological effects of the Prestige oil spill, based on the biomarker approach: mussel watch from Galicia to the Basque coast. The director of the thesis was Mr Ionan Marigómez Allende from the Department of Zoology and Animal Cell Biology at the UPV/EHU's Faculty of Science and Technology. In order to undertake the thesis Ms Garmendia visited the Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory, belonging to the Institute of Marine and Coastal Science of Rutgers State University (Port Norris, New Jersey, USA).

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Are cavers spreading lethal bat disease?
New Scientist - www.newscientist.com
22 Mar 2009
Area: United States

VIRGINIA has became the third US state to temporarily ban cavers from caves where bats are dying from white nose syndrome (WNS). New York and Vermont both issued similar appeals in February. Since 2007, thousands of bats have died from the condition, which is characterised by a white fungus covering their noses, ears and wings. The US Fish and Wildlife Service is trying to find out how the disease kills the animals and how it spreads. "We believe WNS is likely to spread through direct bat-to-bat and cave-to-bat contact," says Diana Weaver, a spokeswoman for the FWS, "but it's possible that human activity may be spreading the causative agent."

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OTHER WILDLIFE HEALTH RELATED NEWS
Photo credit: Scientific American - www.sciam.com