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Four more turtles found dead

Four more green turtles were found dead on Capricorn Coast beaches at the weekend.

Two were found on Farnborough Beach, one at Coorooman Creek and another was handed to the Yeppoon Coast Guard.

This is on top of the three that were found dead on Farnborough Beach on Friday by The Bully and a Yeppoon resident.

One large green turtle was alive and rescued. Senior Ranger for the Rosslyn Bay Marine Parks Oliver Lanyon yesterday said the turtle was re-hydrated, soaked in fresh water to get rid of parasites and was released into Kinka Creek for rehabilitation.

The Morning Bulletin - www.themorningbulletin.com.au
10 Aug 2011

Location: Queensland, Australia
>>> FULL ARTICLE

Unlocking the mystery of the disappearing bats

Jianping Xu, an associate professor of biology and member of the Institute for Infectious Disease Research, is collaborating with leading microbiologists across the continent to better understand the Geomyces destructans fungal disease, better known as white-nose syndrome. The fungus grows on the bats' skin while they hibernate, causing them to wake up and deplete their deposits of fat prematurely. The infection eventually kills them.

First discovered in 2006 in caves and mines around Albany, New York, the fungus, thought to have already killed more than one million bats, is now rampant throughout the northeastern U.S., Ontario and Quebec. Research indicates that at the current rate of infection, the little brown bat could be nearly extinct in less than 20 years.

To understand the fungus, its origin and spread, researchers analyzed the DNA of 16 strains from caves in seven New York counties and one from Vermont. They then compared Geomyces destructans with a closely related species called Geomyces panoma and found that all the Geomyces destructans strains were genetically identical. This led them to believe that white-nose syndrome in northeastern North America is caused by a single strain that has undergone rapid dispersal to cause all of the bat deaths, from New York to Tennessee and from Oklahoma to Quebec.

PhysOrg - www.physorg.com
08 Aug 2011
C Van Raay

Cited Journal Article
SS Rajkuma, et al. Clonal genotype of Geomyces destructans among bats with white nose syndrome, New York, USA. Emerg Infect Dis [serial on the Internet]. 2011 Jul. doi: 10.3201/eid1707.102056

>>> FULL ARTICLE

Other White-Nose Syndrome News
Mysterious disease may wipe out Nova Scotia's brown bats

Reported Wildlife Mortality Events to the USGS National Wildlife Health Center Updated

USGS and a network of partners across the country work on documenting wildlife mortality events in order to provide timely and accurate information on locations, species and causes of death.

This information was updated on Aug 05, 2011 on the USGS National Wildlife Health Center web page, New and Ongoing Wildlife Mortality Events Nationwide.

Quarterly Mortality Reports are also available from this page. These reports go back to 1995.

USGS National Wildlife Health Center
05 Aug 2011
Area: United States

>>>Updated Wildlife Mortality Event Table

OTHER WILDLIFE HEALTH-RELATED NEWS