TOP STORIES
Officials closing in on cause of mysterious bat die-off at bridge
Arizona Game and Fish officials are a few steps closer to unraveling the mystery behind the death of 69 bats under an east-side bridge even as more are found dead.
Another dozen bats were found dead Tuesday and Wednesday under a bridge on East Speedway where the road crosses the Pantano Wash.
. . . Now Game and Fish officials are investigating whether the bat die-off was caused by a liquid de-icing agent that was sprayed on the bridge Dec. 23.
Arizona Daily Star - azstarnet.com
K Matas
30 Dec 2010
Location: Tucson, Arizona, USA - Map It 
Majestic birds, with horrific injuries, though what’s causing them to die is now up for debate.
“From what we have right now we don’t think anybody is maliciously harming the pelicans,” said Sara Schweitzer from the Wildlife Resources Commission.
. . . We've thought for weeks that these pelicans were dying at someone's hand, but maybe thats not the case at all.
Eyewitness News 9 - www2.wnct.com
C Brown, G Crocker
29 Dec 2010
Photo courtesy of Eyewitness News 9
Location: North Topsail Beach, North Carolina, USA - Map It
>>> FULL ARTICLE [scroll down for full text]
Related News
>>> Federal agency investigates rash of pelican killings [North Carolina, USA]
Parapoxvirus Infections Caused by Contact With Deer
In 2009, the CDC confirmed infections with parapoxvirus in two deer hunters in the eastern U.S., according to a brief report.
As is typical of human parapoxvirus infection, lesions and eventually nodules developed slowly on both individuals' fingers where they had nicked themselves while field-dressing deer that appeared healthy at the time of death, Inger Damon, MD, PhD, of the CDC, and colleagues reported in the Dec. 30 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
Such infections may become more common as deer populations continue to increase, putting them in greater contact with both humans and cattle, according to the researchers.
MedPage Today - www.medpagetoday.com
T Neale
30 Dec 2010
Journal Article Cited
OTHER WILDLIFE HEALTH RELATED NEWS
Photo courtesy of BBC Earth News- Rare northern elephant seal washes up on Unalaska beach [Unalaska, Alaska, USA - Map It ]
- Urban marmosets avoid pet threat [Brazil]
- '250 billion' plastic fragments in Mediterranean
- Aujeszky's disease, Luxembourg [domestic dog contact with wild animal]
- Animal rescue centers sought for future oil spills [Gulf Coast, USA]
- Deer poaching investigation in Carson County [Texas, USA]
