Wildlife Disease News Digest

TOP STORIES

Tasmanians have bird germ
The Mercury - www.themercury.com.au
14 Sep 2009
A Mather
Photo credit: Reuters
Area: Tasmania, Australia - Map It

FOUR Tasmanians have been diagnosed with a type of salmonella which is killing Tasmania's sparrows.

But health authorities today said the disease did not cause typhoid in humans.

Acting director of Public Health Chrissie Pickin yesterday advised Tasmanians to avoid contact with sparrow droppings, dead birds and birdbaths as a precaution as more research into the salmonella strain was conducted.

>>>FULL ARTICLE

K-State bio lab could be the CDC for animal health
Drovers - www.drovers.com
11 Sep 2009
R DeHaven

. . . Today, there is an urgent need to take the highly successful CDC model for human disease diagnostics and research and apply it to animal disease diagnostics and research that will preserve a safe, healthy food supply and a sustainable, successful agriculture infrastructure.

It also will provide for critically important protection against animal diseases and zoonotic diseases, which are those traded between humans and animals.

. . . With the pressing animal disease threats we face today and the ability of some diseases to jump from animals to humans, the opening of the NBAF can't come a day too soon.

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Rate of fatal deer disease will increase in southern Wisconsin
Janesville Gazette - gazettextra.com
13 Sep 2009
T Sullivan
Photo credit: Wisconsin DNR

Deadly chronic wasting disease will continue to spread, threatening the state’s deer population and hunting culture for years to come, a national expert said.

“Just from a conservation standpoint, thinking about the deer herd out there, this is not a good thing,” said Bryan Richards, CWD project leader for the U.S Geological Survey’s National Wildlife Health Center in Madison.

“People may well choose to go hunting elsewhere.”

>>>FULL ARTICLE

Related News
>>>Hunt is on for chronic wasting disease in Wyoming
>>>Healthy deer can spread prion disease through faeces

Reported Wildlife Mortality Events to the USGS National Wildlife Health Center Updated
USGS National Wildlife Health Center
14 Sep 2009
Area: United States

USGS and a network of partners across the country work on documenting wildlife mortality events in order to provide timely and accurate information on locations, species and causes of death. This information was updated on Sep 09, 2009 on the USGS National Wildlife Health Center web page, New and Ongoing Wildlife Mortality Events Nationwide. Quarterly Mortality Reports are also available from this page. These reports go back to 1995.

>>>Updated Wildlife Mortality Event Table

Hawk recovers from West Nile
Lincoln Journal Star - journalstar.com
11 Sep 2009
H Kindschuh
Photo credit: Carri Honz
Area: Lincoln, Lancaster County, Nebraska, USA - Map It

A red-tailed hawk that spent the last several weeks recovering from West Nile Virus in captivity was returned to freedom on Patriot Day.

. . . After the bird tested positive for West Nile Virus, Raptor Recovery Nebraska spent the next several weeks nursing it back to health, Honz said.

It was the 255th bird in Nebraska to test positive for the virus this year.

>>>FULL ARTICLE