Category Archives: disease

Calif. County to Ban Bullfrogs

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Bullfrogs are invasive outside of their native habitat in the northeastern U.S. They are also bred for food in China, and, according to an article in the Los Angeles Times, the conditions of commercial food production are ripe for the growth and spread of chytrid fungus, which has been plaguing amphibians worldwide.

What can a state do? California is being asked to ban the import of bullfrogs, which is a tough sell because of the state’s high percentage of Asian-Americans, for whom eating frogs (as well as turtles and shark fins) is as culturally significant as steak-and-kidney pie, kielbasa and manicotti are to other ethnic groups.

Nationally, Defenders of Wildlife has proposed that only frogs proven to be disease-free be allowed in the country. But more locally, one California county, Santa Cruz, plans to take the big leap and ban bullfrogs to protect its imperiled amphibians, which include the California tiger salamander and the California red-legged frog.

Read all the ins and outs of this complex topic in the Los Angeles Times.

Because of the Thanksgiving holiday, this will be the last State Wildlife Research News post this week. We’ll be back on Monday, Nov. 28th with more wildlife research news.

Virus Hurts NJ Deer Hunt

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In the North, the virulance of epizootic hemorrhagic disease in white-tailed deer varies greatly. The outbreak may be mild and kill only a few deer, or it may have population-level impact. This year in New Jersey, or at least parts of that state, EHD appeared to have an impact on the state’s exceptionally dense deer population levels.

(Read more from:
NJ.com, the on-line arm of the Newark Star-Ledger
NBC New York)

Now that it’s hunting season, the impact of the virus is being seen in a reduced harvest. During the muzzleloader season in the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, less than half of the typical number of deer were taken, which may be a harbinger of rifle season numbers.

Read the story in MyCentralJersey.com. (And yes, the story goes on to other game topics before the end of the first page.)

Photo: License check in 2008, Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, NJ. Credit: John and Karen Hollingsworth, courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service

Possible Adenovirus in Deer in California

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A homeowner in Colfax, Cal. has found five dead deer in her yard since September. A local veterinarian suspects that it might be adenovirus. However, the homeowner apparently called her local newspaper before reporting the deer to the California Department of Fish and Game, so while we know the deer are dead, no tests have been done.

Read the article in the Auburn (Cal.) Journal.

EHD in Maryland

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Epizootic hemorrhagic disease (EHD) was reported in white-tailed deer in Maryland last week, but it seems likely that the outbreak will be short-lived. Biting midges, or no-see-ums, transmit the disease-causing virus, and outbreaks generally end with a hard frost.

Western Maryland, where the two cases of EHD were reported, received about six inches of snow this weekend. That should end the biting midges’ party for the season.

Read the article on the outbreak in the Hagerstown Herald-Mail.

I couldn’t find a Maryland Department of Natural Resources press release on the outbreak, but the department does have an EHD fact sheet on-line.

As the Herald-Mail article mentions, Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) is a much bigger concern than EHD in this southern-ish state. Here’s our post on CWD in Maryland.

Also, read this previous post on EHD for links to more information on the disease.

Photo: A healthy white-tailed deer. Credit: Ryan Hagerty, courtesy of US Fish and Wildlife Service

Geomyces Locked In As White Nose Cause

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A paper published on-line in the journal Nature on Wednesday dotted the scientific i’s and crossed the t’s on Geomyces destructans being the cause of white nose syndrome. Other experiments, and early news on this one, had established that white nose syndrome is caused by the fungus, but this is the official word.

During the conference call announcing the paper, several of the scientists said that the study was designed to satisfy Koch’s postulates, a term more familiar to medical researchers than wildlife researchers. The postulates map out a series of experiments that prove (or disprove) that an organism causes a disease.

Most of the time, researchers being forced to dance to Nature’s tune (or the tune of any other major scientific journal) is just part of the game of research science. This case, though, points out the inherent flaws in the system. White nose researchers have been starved for funding. Wildlife managers have been desperate for information. And while we can only hope that no wildlife manager was waiting around for confirmation from a peer-reviewed paper before taking action on white nose syndrome, I wonder if an earlier publication of this paper might have shaken a few extra pennies out of Congress’s pocket.

Read the abstract in Nature, or the whole article with a subscription or fee.

The findings are summarized in a brief article from Science News.

Photo: US Fish and Wildlife Service

Geomyces Locked In As White Nose Cause

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A paper published on-line in the journal Nature on Wednesday dotted the scientific i’s and crossed the t’s on Geomyces destructans being the cause of white nose syndrome. Other experiments, and early news on this one, had established that white nose syndrome is caused by the fungus, but this is the official word.

During the conference call announcing the paper, several of the scientists said that the study was designed to satisfy Koch’s postulates, a term more familiar to medical researchers than wildlife researchers. The postulates map out a series of experiments that prove (or disprove) that an organism causes a disease.

Most of the time, researchers being forced to dance to Nature’s tune (or the tune of any other major scientific journal) is just part of the game of research science. This case, though, points out the inherent flaws in the system. White nose researchers have been starved for funding. Wildlife managers have been desperate for information. And while we can only hope that no wildlife manager was waiting around for confirmation from a peer-reviewed paper before taking action on white nose syndrome, I wonder if an earlier publication of this paper might have shaken a few extra pennies out of Congress’s pocket.

Read the abstract in Nature, or the whole article with a subscription or fee.

The findings are summarized in a brief article from Science News.

Photo: US Fish and Wildlife Service

CWD in Missouri, Again

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Chronic wasting disease (CWD) was found in captive white-tailed deer in Macon County, Missouri last week. In 2010, another captive deer operation in Linn County, Missouri, run by the same group, was found to have CWD. Those deer were all killed and no deer at the facility have tested positive for CWD since.

The state’s CWD contingency plan, announced in 2003, has been activated in response to the recent discovery.

I was surprised not to find a press release about this from the Missouri Department of Conservation on its site, but here’s the press release from the Missouri Department of Agriculture. Most of the coverage I’ve seen so far merely reprints that press release.

For sample response plans, see this list of CWD policy resources from the Chronic Wasting Disease Alliance.

Michigan, North Carolina and Virginia have response plans on the list, but not Missouri. The top of the page has national and federal resources, so scroll down for state policies.

Wondering where CWD is now? Here’s a map from the Chronic Wasting Disease Alliance.

Photo: This white-tailed deer in Wisconsin has CWD. Photo Credit: Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources

Diversity Reduces Disease Risk in Plants Too

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High species diversity is believed to reduce the spread of disease because some species are more susceptible to the disease than others. But what if it’s a disease that all the species get? And what if the species are plants?

A study published in the current issue of Ecology Letters found that the principle of disease dissolution still applied. The disease spread more slowly in more species-rich forests, perhaps because the different species, while all susceptible, had different levels of susceptibility and transmitted the disease at different rates.

Read the article here.

Read a little blurb about the research from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, here.