TOP STORIES
Famed Tasmanian devil euthanized after tumor found
A Tasmanian devil named Cedric, once thought to be immune to a contagious facial cancer threatening the iconic creatures with extinction, has been euthanized after succumbing to the disease, researchers said Wednesday.
The death of the devil — previously heralded as a possible key to saving the species — is another blow for scientists struggling to stop the rapid spread of the cancer, which is transmitted when the furry black marsupials bite each other.
"It was very disappointing indeed," said scientist Alex Kreiss of the Menzies Research Institute in Hobart, Tasmania, which has led the studies on Cedric. "It's just made us more determined to keep the research going."
Yahoo! News - news.yahoo.com [Associated Press]
K Gelineau
01 Sept 2010
Many Urban Streams Harmful to Aquatic Life Following Winter Pavement Deicing
The use of salt to deice pavement can leave urban streams toxic to aquatic life, according to a new U.S. Geological Survey study on the influence of winter runoff in northern U.S. cities, with a special focus on eastern Wisconsin and Milwaukee.
More than half of the Milwaukee streams included in this study had samples that were toxic during winter deicing. In eastern and southern Wisconsin, all streams studied had potentially toxic chloride concentrations during winter, with lingering effects into the summer at some streams. Nationally, samples from fifty-five percent of streams studied in 13 northern cities were potentially toxic; twenty-five percent of the streams had samples that exceeded acute water quality criteria.
USGS Newsroom-www.usgs.gov
01 SEP 2010
Cited Journal Article
SR Corsi et al. A Fresh Look at Road Salt: Aquatic Toxicity and Water-Quality Impacts on Local, Regional, and National Scales. Environ. Sci. Technol. 2010; [Epub ahead of print]
Dry climate might save bats: Scientists watching for signs killer fungus moving into Nevada
Biologists are hoping that Nevada's arid climate will keep a fungus from taking hold in caves and mines where hibernating bats would be vulnerable to white-nose syndrome, a condition that has killed more than 1 million bats in the Northeast....No cases of white-nose syndrome have been reported in Nevada, but wildlife officials are worried that it could be transmitted by bats from the East that migrate to Texas, a destination as well for millions of bats that migrate southward through Nevada in the late summer and early fall.
...The BLM's Stay Out, Stay Alive campaign discourages the public from entering abandoned mines for safety reasons. The agency's news releases warns that exploring mines where bats lives "increases the likelihood of spreading the white-nose syndrome fungus."
Las Vegas Review-Journal - www.lvrj.com
01 Sep 2010
K Rogers
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- Dammed if they don't: Cost to protect endangered sturgeon in South Carolina could be $100 million, utility says [South Carolina, USA]
- New Bee Species Discovered in Downtown Toronto [Toronto, Canada]
- Veterinarians say human health closely tied to that of animals
- Virus Related to Smallpox Rising Sharply in Africa [Democratic Republic of Congo]
- Police seize turtle in swoop [Tasmania]
- Man Arrested At Airport With 97 Snakes [Malaysia]
- Millions of Songbirds Killed for Recipe [Europe]
