Wildlife Disease News Digest

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Virus killing off carp at Lake Wohlford
The San Diego Union-Tribune - www.signonsandiego.com
02 Nov 2009
E Zieralski

Location: Lake Wohlford, San Diego County, California, USA - Map It

Fishermen at Lake Wohlford are being asked not to handle any carp they catch due to a virus and bacterial infections that have killed a few hundred carp in a little more than a month.

Jay Cowan, supervising ranger at Wohlford, said it appears the worst of the die-off is over, but until results of the bacteria tests are back he wants fishermen to avoid handling carp.

Cowan said the outbreak hasn't affected fishing for other species at the lake. Wohlford's trout opener is six weeks away, but this won't impact that, either, he said.

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TB strain in pig new to North Island
Radio New Zealand - www.radionz.co.nz
03 Nov 2009

Location: Tararua district, New Zealand - Map It

Routine surveying in the Tararua district has picked up a strain of bovine tuberculosis in a pig which had not been found before in the North Island.

The survey, carried out to confirm whether the East coast region was free of the disease, looked at the wild animal population in the Akitio and Herbertville areas.

Animal Health Board regional coordinator Terry Hynes says DNA testing has shown that the strain of TB the boar was infected with is similar to that found on the South Island's West Coast.

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NOAA, the Nature Conservancy address coral reef threats
EurekAlert! - www.eurekalert.org
31 Oct 2009
Photo courtesy of GA Tech

NOAA and The Nature Conservancy have entered into an agreement to protect the health of the nation's valuable but increasingly vulnerable coral reef ecosystems in the Caribbean, Florida, Hawaii and the Pacific Islands.

The four-year agreement will dedicate $3.6 million in NOAA funding and $3.6 million in matching funds from The Nature Conservancy to address the top three threats facing coral reef ecosystems: climate change, overfishing, and land-based sources of pollution. The agreement is the result of a competitive request for proposals issued by NOAA in late 2008.

The decline and loss of coral reefs has significant social, cultural, economic, and ecological impacts on people and communities in the United States and around the world. As the 'rain forests of the sea,' coral reefs provide services estimated to be worth as much as $375 billion each year.

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Oil disaster off Australia raises concerns about deepwater drilling
Daily Finance - www.dailyfinance.com
02 Nov 2009
A Salkever
Photo credit: AFP/Getty Images

Location: Timor Sea - Map It

The Montara well fire and spill is taking place off the Kimberley Coast, several hundred miles north of the city of Darwin.

Scientists are concerned that, although the oil spilled is not the thick by petroleum standards, it has landed in an area described by some environmentalists as a "marine superhighway" regularly traversed by whales, endangered turtles and other forms of wildlife. Flyovers by the World Wildlife Fund found dolphins and other marine mammals swimming in the oil slick.

Researchers had to curtail efforts to catalog the damage when they were overcome by noxious fumes from the spill, the World Wildlife Foundation reported.

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OTHER WILDLIFE HEALTH RELATED NEWS
Photo credit: Charlie Hamilton James/National Geographic