Wildlife Disease News Digest

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Is the Frog-Killing Chytrid Fungus Fueled by Climate Fluctuations?
Scientific American - www.scientificamerican.com
11 Aug 2009
B Borrell
Photo credit: DPAPE/FLICKR

This much is clear: frogs are dying.

One third of the world's 6,260 amphibian species are globally threatened or extinct. The primary threat to their survival is still habitat destruction, which impacts 61 percent of known amphibian species.

But climate change and the deadly chytrid fungus could potentially take the lead over the next century—or at least make things much, much worse for frogs, salamanders and their legless, subterranean cousins known as caecilians.

How much worse? It depends, in part, on whether climate change has the potential to spur—or slow—the growth of the chytrid fungus, which probably originated in South Africa and spread in the 1930s as clawed frogs were exported for frog-based pregnancy tests.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Germ-killing chemical from soaps, toothpaste building up in dolphins
Environmental Health News - www.environmentalhealthnews.org
11 Aug 2009
B Israel

Triclosan is the germ-killing chemical of choice in hundreds of products, including liquid hand soaps, toothpaste and deodorants. Now some scientists are calling for its removal from consumer products because it is building up in the ocean's food web.

A new study found that one-third of the bottlenose dolphins tested off South Carolina and almost one-quarter of those tested off Florida carried traces of triclosan in their blood.

The concentrations found in the dolphins are known to disrupt the hormones and growth and development of other animals. Dolphins are swimming in waters tainted with germ-killing soaps, but they aren't winding up squeaky clean.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Cited Journal Article
>>>Occurrence of triclosan in plasma of wild Atlantic bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) and in their environment. Environmental Pollution. 2009 Aug-Sep; 157(8-9): 2248-2254.

Society, Wildlife Disease And Wildlife Conservation: Oxymoron Or Evolutionary Siblings?
ScienceDaily - www.sciencedaily.com (Source: USGS)
03 Aug 2009

Over the past 50 years, the field of wildlife disease as an issue for concern has exploded in significance, mostly because of the increased realization that most emerging human diseases are "zoonotic," that is, diseases that can spread from people to other animals or vice-versa.

USGS emeritus scientist Dr. Milt Friend, in an invited talk at the Wildlife Disease Association conference, will explore how and why the field of wildlife disease research has changed over the last 50 years.

One of the biggest differences, says Friend, is that until very recently, wildlife disease was not an important focus for the wildlife conservation community.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Whale Stranding: Sonar or Lunar?
ScienceNOW Daily News - sciencenow.sciencemag.org
07 Aug 2009
V Morell
Photo credit: Robin W. Baird/www.cascadiaresearch.org

On the morning of 3 July 2004, more than 150 melon-headed whales rushed into Hanalei Bay off the Hawaiian island of Kauai, apparently bent on beaching themselves. The whales milled about for most of the day and night in an agitated manner, tail-slapping and vocalizing.

A rescue team organized by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) herded the whales back to sea the next day, though a calf died. One study blamed the incident on U.S. Navy sonar; another blamed the moon.

Now, researchers believe they've finally gotten to the bottom of this attempted mass stranding.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Related News
>>>Failed rescue: 2 beached whales die off Fla. shore - Hollywood, Broward County, Florida, USA - Map It