Category Archives: cats

River Otters Have Cat Disease

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euro_otter_by_Catherine_TriggYou may remember toxoplasmosis being the key factor in the deaths of sea otters a few years ago. (If not, find a refresher here.) But what about river otters?

A recent paper in the journal Parasites and Vectors found that 40 percent of the river otter carcases tested in England and Wales were positive for toxoplasmosis. None of the river otters in the study had died of the infection. (The concern, of course, is any sub-lethal effects.)

You can find the full text of the paper in Parasites and Vectors, here.
You can read the press release from the American Bird Conservancy, here.

A similar study on US river otters, specifically North Carolina river otters, was published in 1997. There, 46 percent of the tests were positive. Read the abstract, here.

Ten years later, another study, this one in the Journal of Wildlife Diseases, found that river otters who feed in the ocean are more likely to be infected with various human pathogens, including the one that causes toxoplasmosis, if they lived closer to urban areas. You can read the abstract, here.

Photo: Eurasian otter by Catherine Trigg, used courtesy of the American Bird Conservancy

Cat People vs. Bird People

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When it comes to feral cat colonies versus bird conservation, there is not a lot of middle ground, reports a new study in PLoS ONE by researchers from North Carolina State University.

The study surveyed 577 people who either manage a feral cat colony or are a bird conservation professional. The big finding was that fewer than 10 percent of the cat colony managers believe that feral cats harmed bird populations or carried diseases.

The cat people were the optimists, however, the study showed. 80 percent of the cat people believed a compromise between the needs of feral cats and bird conservation could be reached, while only half the bird conservationists thought so.

We found the article on NewsWise. You can read it here.
It’s from a NC State U. press release, which you can find here.
Go to the article itself, in PLoS ONE, here. (Open access, so it’s free.)

Photo: Cats in a feral colony sun themselves on a wall. Photo courtesy of Alisa Davis, University of Hawaii at Manoa, via the North Carolina State University.

Of Cats and Disease

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Researchers at the University of Illinois found the protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii even in the far reaches of a 1,500 acre park in central Illinois. Toxoplasma reproduces only in cats, but it can cause illness and death in other mammals, including humans.

The researchers found plenty of feral housecats on the site, but no bobcats. There were more cats near human structures in the park than elsewhere. About a third of the cats found in the park were infected with Toxoplasma. As for the infection rates of the other animals, animals with large home ranges, such as opossums, had a higher rate of infection than those with small home ranges, such as mice. The small-home range animals that lived at the edges of the park or near structures had a higher rate of infection than those in the remote areas of the park. But even animals with small home ranges living in those remote areas were sometimes infected.

Read the paper, or at least the abstract, in the Journal of Wildlife Diseases, here.

Find the press release from the University of Illinois on EurekAlert, here. And a slide show of the research, here.

Photo: White-footed mouse, a disease sentinel in the study. Credit: Illinois Natural History Survey