Category Archives: disease

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

Do birds spread Lyme disease?

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Birds may help Lyme disease spread into new areas, says a paper in a recent issue of Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. The researchers, from the Yale School of Public Health, studied the literature and found that out of 71 bird species, 58.6 percent were capable of infecting a black-legged tick with the Lyme disease-causing bacterium.

That means that Lyme disease can move quickly, at the speed a bird can fly, throughout the region where black-legged ticks are found. For Lyme disease the focus is typically on the ticks’ small-rodent or white-tail deer hosts, and while those species get around, the idea of a bird host means Lyme disease has the potential to spread rapidly.

Read the Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment article here.

Similar research was being done on Cape Code (Massachusetts) a few years ago, with the focus on songbirds carrying black-legged ticks, particularly larval ticks. Read the Wicked Local story here.

Photo: Courtesy of the Centers for Disease Control.Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacteria that causes Lyme disease, because it’s not every day that I get to post a picture of a spirochete.

Artery worm prevalent in Wyoming moose

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Forty-two percent of the moose in Wyoming are infected with carotid artery worm, known as “sore head” in sheep, and as Elaeophora schneideri scientifically. When the worm, actually a nematode, was found in the Wyoming moose that also had the state’s first case of chronic wasting disease (CWD) in a moose, state biologists investigated further.

They tested 287 moose that were either killed by hunters or found dead, and found 42 percent of them were infected with carotid artery worm. In some parts of the state, the rate is as high as 50 percent.

Carotid artery worm was first found in mule deer and in domestic sheep in New Mexico. It does not seem to create any symptoms in the mule deer. The worm is transmitted from animal to animal by horseflies (tabanid flies). The symptoms in moose and elk include the animal’s nose and ears rotting away, and deformed antlers. The nematode can kill the moose before these symptoms occur. Carotid artery worm infections have been mistaken for CWD.

Carotid artery worm has been found in wild animals in 18 states in the South, Midwest, and West. A similar nematodes infect animals in Europe, Asia, and Africa.

Wyoming has been experiencing a decline in moose numbers, but it’s not known what role the carotid artery worm infection rate is playing.

Piece together the story through this news article in the Jackson Hole News & Guide,  this species account for moose from the Wyoming Game & Fish Department (PDF), and this sample abstract from an upcoming moose conference in Wyoming.

For background on the nematode, focusing on the infection of mule deer in Nebraska, try this open access article from The Journal of Wildlife Diseases.

White nose syndrome in Ohio, New Brunswick

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The Ohio Department of Natural Resources has confirmed the presence of white nose syndrome in bats hibernating in an abandoned mine in the Wayne National Forest in Lawrence County, Ohio. The infected bats were found during surveys in February and March. The Southeastern Wildlife Disease Study in Athens, Georgia evaluated samples taken at the mine and confirmed the presence of the syndrome.

The press release was issued by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, and can be found here. So far the local news reports are just reprinting the press release.

In other white nose syndrome news, the syndrome has struck a third Canadian province, New Brunswick. The infected bats were found hibernating in a cave in Albert County, New Brunswick about two weeks ago. The syndrome seems to be hitting the New Brunswick bats harder than it did bats in Quebec or Ontario.

There are stories on the discovery in the Bangor Daily News (Maine), and on CBC News (Canada).

Photo credit: Wayne National Forest and US Fish and Wildlife Service
Photo: A bat during the survey that discovered WNS in Ohio.

CWD in Maryland

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Chronic wasting disease (CWD) has been reported in Maryland. The Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) reported last week that a white-tailed deer killed by a hunter last November in Green Ridge State Forest has tested positive for CWD. (Google Maps reveals that this state forest is in the Maryland panhandle, that little strip of Maryland between West Virginia and Pennsylvania.)

The Maryland DNR press release includes a link to the state’s 10-page long CWD response plan. (Actually, it’s two clicks away.)

The Baltimore Sun covered the story. Since the news broke, it also reported stories that the state’s deer harvest dropped below 100,000 for the first time in three years. And that a privately-funded research project is exploring the surgical sterilization of suburban deer.

Lack of photo: Sorry, but there are only so many pictures of CWD-stricken deer I can post in a week. This is Maryland’s state flag.

WNS in North Carolina

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US Fish and Wildlife Service map

Six bats have tested positive for white nose syndrome in North Carolina, according to that state’s Wildlife Resources Commission. Many bats appeared to have the syndrome when researchers surveyed the closed Avery County mine on Feb. 1. Five bats there were collected for testing. One dead bat was found in a cave at Grandfather Mountain State Park, also during a bat inventory, this one in late January.

Read the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission press release here.

Go here for a link to the US Fish and Wildlife Service map of White Nose Syndrome occurrences. (Map is on the bottom of page, right-hand side.)

More raccoons survive rabies with shots

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Raccoon: US Fish & Wildlife

Just four of the 26 wild-caught, captive raccoons that were fed an oral rabies vaccine on bait developed an immune response to the disease, a Canadian study has found. The raccoons that that received the vaccine by intramuscular injection were more likely to develop an immunity response (18 out of 27). When infected with rabies over a year after vaccination all the raccoons that developed an immune response after the vaccine survived, whether the vaccine was delivered orally or by injection.

The paper appeared in the Journal of Wildlife Disease.

More raccoons survive rabies with shots

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Raccoon: US Fish & Wildlife

Just four of the 26 wild-caught, captive raccoons that were fed an oral rabies vaccine on bait developed an immune response to the disease, a Canadian study has found. The raccoons that that received the vaccine by intramuscular injection were more likely to develop an immunity response (18 out of 27). When infected with rabies over a year after vaccination all the raccoons that developed an immune response after the vaccine survived, whether the vaccine was delivered orally or by injection.

The paper appeared in the Journal of Wildlife Disease.