TOP STORIES
Smallest turtle in the land becoming more scarce
The Wildlife Conservation Society's Bronx Zoo veterinarians, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, and the Massachusetts Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program have joined forces to answer a perplexing wildlife question: Why are bog turtles getting sick?
The dilemma shines a light on North America's smallest turtle; an adult bog turtle reaches only 4.5 inches in length and as many ounces. Wildlife managers working in a few known bog turtle habitats in the Northeast have reported higher than average mortality rates for these threatened reptiles in the past few years.
To determine the cause of the increase in mortality at some sites and identify the baseline health condition at other sites, WCS's Global Health Program—based at the Bronx Zoo—is lending its expertise in wildlife health assessments. WCS health experts have joined federal and state wildlife managers in the field at locations in New York State and Massachusetts.
Vampiric ticks drain region's moose of blood
This is shaping up to be the year of the tick, a fatal development for some animals. In some parts of the Granite State, moose are dropping dead, and not because of what’s often called “moose sickness,” a neurological disorder brought on by a parasitic worm that affects the moose’s ability to function normally.
What’s killing them now is anemia — a lack of healthy red blood cells — the result of winter tick infestation. “It takes a lot of blood out of the moose,” said Ted W. Walski, a wildlife biologist for N.H. Fish and Game in Keene. “Particularly, the 1-year-olds (and younger moose) don’t have the blood volume or body size (to cope with tick infestations), which makes them more susceptible to things like pneumonia.”
As one might imagine, it takes a lot of winter ticks to take down a moose. “In a regular year, you can have up to 30,000 ticks on a single moose (in a given season),” said Kristine M. Rines, the moose project leader for Fish and Game in New Hampton. “In a bad year, like it’s shaping up to be this year, you can have up to 150,000 ticks per moose in late winter/early spring.”
09 May 2011
K Jarvis
4th Dead Porpoise found on Victoria Beach
Another dead harbour porpoise was found on a Victoria beach on Tuesday--the fourth found on the shoreline of southern Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands in nine days. Workers with the B.C. Marine Mammal Response Network recovered the porpoise off a beach near Beacon Hill Park.
Leah Thorpe with the B.C. Marine Mammal Response Network says the Department of Fisheries and Oceans will likely perform a necropsy on the animal, but thus far, none of the animals has shown evidence of disease or external trauma.
11 May 2011
Location: Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
]Marine lab research tracks pollutants in beluga whales and dolphins
Bottlenose dolphins and beluga whales, two marine species at or near the top of their respective food webs, accumulate more chemical pollutants in their bodies when they live and feed in waters near urbanized areas, according to scientists working at the Hollings Marine Laboratory (HML), a government-university collaboration in Charleston, S.C.
In papers recently published online by the journal Environmental Science & Technology, one research team looked at the levels of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) found in male dolphins along the U.S. East and Gulf of Mexico coasts and Bermuda, while the other group examined the levels of perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) in beluga whales at two Alaskan locations. Data gathered in both studies are expected to serve as baseline measurements for future research to define the health effects and impacts of these pollutants on the two species.
11 May 2011
OTHER WILDLIFE HEALTH-RELATED NEWS
- Hawaiian Monk Seals in Crisis
- Foot and Mouth Disease May Spread Through Shedding Skin Cells
- Two bats fast-tracked to Vermont's endangered species list
- Darkness stifles reproduction of surface-dwelling fish
- Veterinary shortage needs may be answered with Veterinary Services Investment Act
- Wales' wildlife population reflects changing environment
- Three Rivers Region of China to gradually restore wildlife populations [translated from Chinese]
- Wildlife Disease Emergency Act of 2011
