TOP STORIES
Parasites of Madagascar's Lemurs Expanding With Climate Change
Rising temperatures and shifting rainfall patterns in Madagascar could fuel the spread of lemur parasites and the diseases they carry.
By combining data on six parasite species from ongoing surveys of lemur health with weather data and other environmental information for Madagascar as a whole, a team of Duke University researchers has created probability maps of likely parasite distributions throughout the island today.
Then, using climate projections for the year 2080, they estimate what parasite distributions might look like in the future.
Duke Today - today.duke.edu
23 Jan 2013
Journal Reference
Meredith A, et al. Climate change, predictive modeling and lemur health: Assessing impacts of changing climate on health and conservation in Madagascar. Biological Conservation, 2013; 157: 409 DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2012.09.003
Erratic bat behavior at Great Smoky park may be linked to lethal syndrome
In the dead of winter, bats should be in a deep sleep. But at Great Smoky Mountains National Park, they’re out and about, flying erratically in many cases, acting crazy.
Officials say they probably haven’t gone mad from rabies, something humans should fear. More than likely, it’s another troubling sign: Large groups of bats in the nation’s most popular national park appear to be stricken with white-nose syndrome, a deadly fungus that’s wiping out a variety of bat species up and down the East Coast, a possible extinction event, some biologists say.
“We can’t say 100 percent that it’s white-nose, but it most likely is,” said Bill Stiver, the supervisor of wildlife biologists at the park, which straddles the Tennessee-North Carolina border. He said biologists are likely to confirm it when they venture into the caves in mid-February for a yearly census. “Our gut feeling is the disease is starting to manifest itself in the caves.”
Washington Post - articles.washingtonpost.com
20 Jan 2013
D Fears
Location: Great Smokey Mountains National Park, Southeastern States, USA
Wild Animals May Contribute to the Resurgence of African Sleeping Sickness
Wild animals may be a key contributor to the continuing spread of African sleeping sickness, new research published in PLOS Computational Biology shows. The West African form of the disease, also known as Gambiense Human African trypanosomiasis, affects around 10,000 people in Africa every year and is deadly if left untreated.
Despite numerous previous studies showing that animals can be infected with the parasite, the prevailing view has been that the disease persisted in its traditional areas almost only because of human-to-human transmission.
A new study, from an international team of researchers led by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, challenges this assumption by using a mathematical model to show that the disease not only can persist in an area even when there are no human cases, but probably requires the presence of infected wild animals to maintain the chain of transmission.
The authors' model was based on data collected in active screening campaigns between November 1998 and February 1999 in the Bipindi area of Cameroon. One of the species in the data group was the White-eyelid mangabey,....
Science Daily - www.sciencedaily.com
17 Jan 2013
Journal Reference
Sebastian Funk et al. Identifying Transmission Cycles at the Human-Animal Interface: The Role of Animal Reservoirs in Maintaining Gambiense Human African Trypanosomiasis. PLoS Computational Biology, 2013; 9 (1): e1002855 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002855
OTHER WILDLIFE HEALTH RELATED NEWS
- Bad weather to blame for dead starfish washed up in Cleethorpes area [Cleethorpes, England - Map It
] - Pygmy Sperm Whale Euthanized after Washing Ashore in South NJ [Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey, USA - Map It ]
- Gadvasu establishes centre for wildlife [India]
- An Emerging Fungal Disease in the Pacific Northwest [CCWHC healthwildlife.ca blog]
- ProMED: Undiagnosed deaths, red deer - Request for Information [Belarus, Vitebsk]
- Diseased wild boars plague neighborhood [Charlotte Co., Florida, USA]
- Rabies detection rises to 91 animals testing positive [Cumberland Co., Maine, USA]
Avian Botulism News
- Botulism blamed for duck deaths [Nowra, Australia - Map It ]
- Birds and fish affected by bacteria outbreak at Capalaba Regional Park [Capalaba, Australia - Map It ]
One Health News Corner
- A global approach to monitoring biodiversity loss
- Rabid bat scratches Calgary wildlife volunteer [Canada]
- Hudson River: New Report Confirms Extensive Contamination [New York, USA]
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