Wildlife Disease News Digest

TOP STORIES

Web Tool Puts Wildlife Diseases on the Map [Press Release]
USGS Newsroom - www.usgs.gov/newsroom
02 May 2008

A new on-line map makes it possible, for the first time, to track disease outbreaks around the world that threaten the health of wildlife, domestic animals, and people. The Global Wildlife Disease News Map, developed jointly by the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the U.S. Geological Survey, can be accessed at http://wildlifedisease.nbii.gov. Updated daily, the map displays pushpins marking stories of wildlife diseases such as West Nile virus, avian influenza, chronic wasting disease, and monkeypox. Users can browse the latest reports of nearly 50 diseases and other health conditions, such as pesticide and lead poisoning, by geographic location. Filters make it easy to focus on different disease types, affected species, countries, and dates.

The map is a product of the Wildlife Disease Information Node (WDIN), a five-year-old collaboration between UW-Madison and two federal agencies, the National Wildlife Health Center and the National Biological Information Infrastructure, that are part of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). WDIN is housed within the university's Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and the USGS. A powerful feature of the wildlife disease map is its ability to tap into the WDIN's large and growing electronic library of information from around the globe. "If you click on the name of a particular disease, it takes you to our main Web site and does a quick search of everything that we have on that topic," says Cris Marsh, a librarian who oversees the wildlife disease news services for the WDIN. State and federal wildlife managers, animal disease specialists, veterinarians, medical professionals, educators, and private citizens will all find the new map useful for monitoring wildlife disease, adds Marsh.

>>>FULL PRESS RELEASE

Bees Disease: One Step Closer To A Cure
ScienceDaily - www.sciencedaily.com (Source:
04 May 2008

Scientists in Germany have discovered a new mechanism of infection for the most fatal bee disease. American Foulbrood (AFB) is the only infectious disease which can kill entire colonies of bees. Every year, this notifiable disease is causing considerable economic loss to beekeepers all over the world. The only control measure is to destroy the infected hive. The mechanism of infection (pathogenic mechanism) was originally thought to be through the growth of a bacterium called Paenibacillus larvae in the organ cavity of honey bee larvae.

The accepted view was that the bacteria germinate preferentially at either end of the gut of honey bee larvae then make holes in the gut wall and enter the larval organ cavity, the presumed primary place of bacterial proliferation. In a paper published in Environmental Microbiology, Professor Elke Genersch and colleagues in Berlin explain that they have discovered that these bacteria cause infection in a completely different way. They colonize the larval midgut, do most of their multiplying in the mid-gut - living from the food ingested by the larvae - until eventually the honey bee larvae gut contains nothing but these disease-causing (pathogenic) bacteria.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Cited Journal Article
>>>Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) analysis of the interactions between honeybee larvae and Paenibacillus larvae, the causative agent of American foulbrood of honeybees (Apis mellifera) - Environmental Microbiology. 2008 Mar 06 [Epub ahead of print]

Devils to be listed as endangered species
ABC News - www.abc.net.au
02 May 2008
Photo courtesy of Tasmanian Department of Primary Industries and Water
Area: Tazmania Australia

A deadly facial tumour disease has so depleted the wild population of tasmanian devils that the species is now about to be declared endangered. More than half of the wild devil population has been wiped out by the disease, with researchers scrambling to isolate disease-free populations on offshore islands as an insurance policy. Save the Tasmanian Devil Program manager Dr Steven Smith says there is now enough scientific evidence to upgrade the status of the species from vulnerable to endangered. "The upgrading to endangered is concerning our fears that this threat to the species is real and that what we're doing to save the species is critical," he said.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Is It Contagious?
Conservation Magazine - www.conbio.org
Apr-Jun (Vol. 9, No. 2)

Lethal diseases that make the jump from wildlife to humans are on the rise

HIV, Ebola, and the West Nile virus are all zoonoses—diseases that made the jump from animals to humans. Emerging zoonoses have tripled since 1940, in large part because human populations have expanded and come into closer contact with wildlife. Seventy percent of zoonoses originate in wildlife. The next pandemic could start with one unlucky encounter between a handler and an exotic pet, a shopper and live poultry, or an ecotourist and a wild monkey.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Cited Journal Article
>>>Global trends in emerging infectious diseases - Nature. 2008 Feb 21; 451: 990-993.

Additional Article of Interest

>>>Seabird Junk Food: Malnourished seabirds dying from bycatch junkfood

Cited Journal Article
>>>A junk-food hypothesis for gannets feeding on fishery waste - Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 2008 May 22; 275(1639): 1149-1156.

OTHER WILDLIFE HEALTH RELATED NEWS
Photo courtesy of BBC News