Wildlife Disease News Digest

TOP STORIES

31 elephants in parks have TB: Report
Republica - www.myrepublica.com
14 May 2009
C Hamal
Chitwan National Park, Chitwan District, Nepal - Map It

While 31 elephants in Nepal are infected with TB, only 19 are receiving treatment. According to the Chitwan National Park, there is a possibility that more elephants could contract the disease as many infected elephants have not received any treatment.

Information released by the Department of Wildlife states that there are more than 200 elephants in Nepal. These elephants are either conserved by the state or are privately-owned. The TB-infected elephants owned privately by hotels in Sauraha are not receiving treatment in the lack of appropriate funds on the part of the hotels.

Dr Jeevan Thapa, a veterinarian treating the elephants says that it is impossible to control the spread of the disease unless all elephants are treated. Hoteliers in Sauraha say they are willing to treat the elephants only if they receive aid.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Calif. condor deaths shows lead still a problem
San Jose Mercury News - www.mercurynews.com
16 May 2009
T Cone
Area: Pinnacles National Monument, San Benito County, California, USA - Map It

No. 286 was the old man of this park's California condor restoration program. Hatched in a zoo seven years ago, he learned to live in the wild, a hopeful sign the majestic birds' population could rise again.

But recently somewhere on his journey above Pinnacles' rocky spires to neighboring cattle ranches and beyond, the endangered vulture got lead poisoning. Then on May 11, condor No. 286 died at the Los Angeles Zoo.

"It's sad, and it indicates the uphill battle we have," said Jim Petterson, a wildlife biologist at Pinnacles.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Shore birds in decline
Monterey Herald - www.montereyherald.com
16 May 2009
K Howe
Photo credit: J Poklen
Area: Santa Cruz County, California, USA - Map It

A shortage of anchovies and juvenile sardines in Monterey Bay has led to a massive die-off of shorebirds, according to the state Department of Fish and Game.

Since April 10, upward of 300 dead birds — cormorants, grebes, brants and a few loons — have been found on the shoreline between New Brighton State Beach in Santa Cruz County and Del Monte Beach, said Hanna Nevins, sea bird biologist with the Department of Fish and Game's Marine Wildlife Veterinary Care and Research Center in Santa Cruz.

All are near-shore birds that forage close to shore, she said.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Other Bird News
>>>More Critically Endangered Birds On IUCN Red List Than Ever
>>>Oil-covered birds found on Mobile island - Mobile River, Mobile County, Alabama, USA - Map It

Acid ocean may not harm reefs
Science Alert - www.sciencealert.com.au
19 May 2009
Photo credit: iStockphoto

Groundbreaking Victoria University research shows that ocean acidification may have no negative effect on tropical corals and local sea anemones - in fact it may improve photosynthesis.

Ocean acidification is when carbon dioxide from the atmosphere dissolves into our oceans and makes them more acidic. Research to date has shown that if carbon dioxide emissions are not reduced, ocean acidification could have severe—and irreversible—consequences for marine life.

But Victoria Master’s student Michael Doherty says his research shows that ocean acidification has no negative effect on photosynthesis in the coral and sea anemone he studied, and that it might actually improve the process.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Elizabeth Kolbert, A Reporter at Large, “The Sixth Extinction?
New Yorker - www.newyorker.com
25 May 2009
E Kolbert

A REPORTER AT LARGE about the sixth mass extinction. Describes how graduate student Karen Lips observed the mysterious disappearance of large numbers of local golden frogs, in the nineteen-nineties, at several locations in Panama and Costa Rica. Whatever was killing Lips’s frogs moved east, like a wave, across Panama.

Of the many species that have existed on earth, more than ninety-nine per cent have disappeared. Yet extinction has been a much contested concept. Throughout the eighteenth century, the prevailing view was that species were fixed.

Charles Darwin believed extinction happened only slowly, but he was wrong. Over the past half billion years, there have been at least twenty mass extinctions.

>>>ABSTRACT
>>>The Human Factor [podcast of the history of mass extinctions]