TOP STORIES
Wild birds likely caused HK H5N1 outbreak: official
ABS-CBN News - www.abs-cbnnews.com
05 Mar 2009
An outbreak of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus at a Hong Kong farm last year which led to the slaughter of 90,000 chickens was likely spread by wild birds, an investigation found Thursday.
The December outbreak was the first to be discovered at a Hong Kong poultry farm in six years, and raised fears about the city's biosecurity measures or whether the deadly H5N1 virus had mutated.
Thomas Sit, the head of the government's investigation team, said they could not be totally sure what had caused the outbreak. "As with many epidemiological studies of this nature, it is difficult to determine the exact cause of the outbreak," Sit told reporters.
But he said the virus was "most likely to have been introduced to the farm by wild birds."
Whooping crane deaths alarm wildlife officials
Houston Chronicle -www.chron.com (source: Associated Press)
05 Mar 2009
Location: Texas, USA - Map It
Eighteen whooping crane deaths around a South Texas wildlife refuge has made this winter the second-worst for whooper mortality in 20 years.
Another 34 cranes from last year failed to return to the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge and are presumed dead. Federal wildlife officials say a low food supply and malnutrition appear to be factors.
Heaters might stave off doom for bats: researchers
Google News - news.google.com (source: Associated Press)
05 Mar 2009
M Hill
Bats afflicted with a mysterious and deadly disorder might be able to make it through winter with the help of heated boxes placed in hibernation caves, a pair of researchers say.
The biologists stress that the boxes being tested this winter are not intended to cure "white-nose syndrome," which has killed upward of a half million bats in three winters from New England to West Virginia.
But, in an article published online Thursday in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, they suggest the little heated havens could help stricken bats preserve enough precious energy to survive hibernation season.
'I do everything... the bees still die'BBC News - news.bbc.co.uk
05 Mar 2009
Photo courtesy of BBC News
All over the world bees have been disappearing but nowhere has been more affected than the United States.
Scientists there have dubbed the phenomenon colony collapse disorder - but some experts argue that this is misleading, and that what's killing the bees is the way they are being exploited by commercial beekeepers.
BBC World Service science reporter Matt McGrath went to meet one beekeeper in California for whom colony collapse disorder is a very real affliction.
OTHER WILDLIFE HEATH RELATED NEWS
Photo courtesy of UPI.com
Zoo: Capture likely worsened jaguar's illness- South Dakota Animal Rabies Down for 5th Straight Year
- Five More Northwest Kansas Deer Test Positive for Chronic Wasting Disease
- World's rarest rhino caught on film
- Zoo caretakers should guard against MRSA
- Fishermen rescue endangered shark [Video - 1 min 20 sec]
- Decline Of Shorebird Linked To Bait Use Of Horseshoe Crabs
Wildlife Health Related Publications
Impact of climate change and other factor emerging arbovirus diseases
Trans R Soc Trop Med Hyg. 2009 Feb;103(2):109-21. Epub 2008 Sep 16 [online abstract only]
EA Gould and S Higgs
Avian host community structure and prevalence of West Nile virus in Chicago, Illinois
Oecologia. 2009 Mar;159(2):415-24. Epub 2008 Nov 26 [online abstract only]
SR Loss et al.
Populations of domesticated cattle and buffalo in the Western Forest Complex of Thailand and their possible impacts on the wildlife community
J Environ Manage. 2009 Mar;90(3):1448-53. Epub 2008 Nov 25 [online abstract only]
R Chaiyarat and S Srikosamatara
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