Wildlife Disease News Digest

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Gulls' death attributed to bacterial infection

Gulls have a few places between which to move in the area and depend on food thrown away or dead plants and animals, which can cause botulism, a bacterial disease associated with birds.

Residents' fears from seeing dead gulls near the Lake at International City can cease, according to a Dubai-based zoologist and bird expert, as this is due to some bacterial disease that affects gulls and other birds.

According to Dr Reza Khan, a wildlife specialist at Dubai Zoo, there are between 5,000 and 10,000 gulls flying from the Dubai Sewage Treatment Plant and the Lake at International City.

Gulf News - golfnews.com
31 Jan 2010
E Landais
Dubai, United Arab Emirates - Map It

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More Seagull News

>>> Seagulls feeding in landfill may be harmful

Disappearing Ducks? North America’s Prairie Potholes Vulnerable to Warming Climates

The loss of wetlands in the prairie pothole region of central North America due to a warmer and drier climate will negatively affect millions of waterfowl that depend on the region for food, shelter and raising young, according to research published today in the journal BioScience.

The new research shows that the region appears to be much more sensitive to climate warming and drying than previously thought.

“The impact to the millions of wetlands that attract countless ducks to these breeding grounds in spring makes it difficult to imagine how to maintain today’s level of waterfowl populations in altered climate conditions,” said Dr. Glenn Guntenspergen, a U.S. Geological Survey researcher and one of the report authors. “Parents may not have time to raise their young to where they can fly because of wetlands drying up too quickly in the warming climate of the future,” he added.

USGS Newsroom - www.usgs.gov
01 Feb 2010

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Interview with Dr Rohan Clarke – birds, avian malaria and remote islands

...Avian pathogens and bird migration in Torres Strait

This research focusses on community level patterns of transmission, prevalence and virulence of avian parasites, in particular avian malaria. Recent sampling has focussed on an important migratory pathway in northern Australia; the islands of the Torres Strait, with additional work in New Zealand systems.

The Northern Myth: What are you doing here at Saibai Island in the Torres Strait?

Rohan Clarke: We are up here sampling birds for Avian malaria screening. So we have been catching birds on Boigui Island, and now we have shifted over to Saibai and this is our fourth trip up here to sample [birds]. And we’ve been sampling in different seasons.

The Northern Myth - blogs.crikey.com.au
01 Feb 2010
B Gosford

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Parasite inquiries prompt fact sheet

Public inquiries about a wolf-borne tapeworm have prompted the state to publish a fact sheet on the parasite.

The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks included the three-page document with its weekly wolf report on Tuesday. The echinococcus granulosus fact sheet discusses the tapeworm’s life cycle, how people and their pets can become infected as well as ways to avoid infection.

“Since there were questions coming in from different areas, we decided to put together the fact sheet,” said Carolyn Sime, wolf project manager for FWP.

The presence of the tapeworm in wolves living in Montana and Idaho was first documented in a study by Montana and Idaho veterinarians and a Washington parasitologist. They published their findings last year in an article in the Journal of Wildlife Diseases, the conclusions of which were widely disseminated by e-mail and the Internet.

“The Internet makes information move a lot faster, and misinformation moves a lot faster, too,” Sime said.

Billings Gazette - billingsgazette.com
31 Jan 2010
B French

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Cited Article
Endoparasites of the Coyote (Canis latrans), a Recent Migrant to Insular Newfoundland
J Wildl Dis. 2009 45: 1221-1226

Pigs can spreadly [sic] deadly virus

PIGS have the potential to spread the deadly Hendra virus to humans in the same way horses do, researchers say.

New research by scientists in Canada has shown pigs can contract the bat-borne virus.

The finding raises the prospect that pigs could act as intermediate hosts, contracting Hendra from bats and passing it to humans in the same way horses have done.

To date, only seven human cases of Hendra have been recorded - all in Queensland and all traced to horses infected by bats. Four of those cases have been fatal.

While it's known that cats, guinea pigs and ferrets can also contract the virus, they have not been linked to human infections.

Herald Sun - www.heraldsun.com.au (source: Associated Press)

01 Feb 2010

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