The Real Bat-Man Story
The Boston Globe
April 24 2006
Gareth Cook
True, bats carry deadly diseases, but it's human beings who cause the outbreaks
Last fall, a team of scientists tied bats to the deadly SARS outbreaks. Bats in China, they said, are likely where the virus hides between human outbreaks. Then, in December, another group of researchers suggested that bats in Africa serve as a reservoir for the vicious virus for Ebola hemorrhagic fever, which causes its human victims to bleed to death. Bats have also been definitively tied to two other recently discovered viruses that are lethal to humans: Nipah and Hendra.
But as researchers have worked to uncover the mysterious links between bats and these emerging viruses, they say they have stumbled upon an even wilier culprit working behind the scenes: humans. It now seems that these outbreaks, and likely many others, were set off when people encroached on rain forests, expanded wild animal markets, or made other changes that removed the natural barriers that keep diseases at bay.
''This is not a wildlife problem, it is a human problem," said Jonathan Epstein, an American researcher who spoke by phone from Bangladesh, where he has been investigating the causes of Nipah outbreaks.
Saline Systems. 2006; 2(5):1-31
April 19 2006
Wayne W Carmichael, Renhui Li
The Salton Sea (SS) is the largest inland body of water in California: surface area 980 km2, volume 7.3 million acre-feet, 58 km long, 14-22 km wide, maximum depth 15 m. Located in the southeastern Sonoran desert of California, at its lowest point it is 85 m below sea level. It was formed between 1905 and 1907 from heavy river flows of the Colorado River.
Since its formation, it has attracted both people and wildlife, including flocks of migratory birds that have made the Salton Sea a critical stopover on the Pacific flyway. Over the past 15 years wintering populations of eared grebe (Podiceps nigricollis) at the Salton Sea, have experienced over 200,000 mortalities.
The cause of these large die-offs remains unknown. The unique environmental conditions of the Salton Sea, including salinities from brackish freshwater at river inlets to hypersaline conditions, extreme daily summer temperatures (>38 degreesC), and high nutrient loading from rivers and agricultural drainage favor eutrophic conditions that encourage algal blooms throughout the year.
A significant component of these algal blooms are the prokaryotic group--the Cyanophyta or blue-green algae (also called Cyanobacteria). Since many Cyanobacteria produce toxins (the cyanotoxins) it became important to evaluate their presence and to determine if they are responsible for at least some of the eared-grebe mortalities.
Rabies Vaccine Bait 'Worth a Try'
Cape Cod Times
April 24 2006
Robin Lord
Optimistic that rabies can be eliminated since its resurgence on Cape Cod two years ago, wildlife officials will begin a new round of baiting next month.
The disease now has been found in every Cape town.
"It's still worth a try and we intend to stay at it," said Monte Chandler, state wildlife services director for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
About 60,000 3-inch-square cubes of fish-meal bait laced with rabies vaccine will be tossed from cars and helicopters starting in Yarmouth going out to Provincetown beginning May 1. It will cover all roads in the towns and will likely end sometime the following week, said Yarmouth natural resources director Karl von Hone, a member of the Cape Cod Rabies Task Force.
Funding will come from the USDA, with matching state funds funneled through Tufts School of Veterinary Medicine last year.
The task force has been monitoring rabies activity in the region ever since it was first discovered on Cape Cod in a raccoon in Bourne in March 2004. Since then, more than 150 animals on the Cape have tested positive for the disease. Provincetown was the last town to fall, when a raccoon tested positive for rabies last month.
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