Category Archives: disease

Chytrid Fungus Found in Kansas

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Witchita chytrid frogA press release from Wichita State University says that students there have detected chytrid fungus in the frogs they tested. A previous test of five Kansas frogs did not detect chytrid fungus.

Read the Wichita State press release, here.

Pro-MED has lots of helpful technical details about chytrid fungus in its commentary about the press release, including its complex life cycle and its role in the worldwide decline of amphibians.

Read the Pro-MED comment, here.

In reading that chytrid fungus was newly found in Kansas, I found myself wishing for a map of its presence, as is available for white nose syndrome in bats and chronic wasting disease in deer. You can find that map right here.

Photo: One of the frogs tested. By: Lainie Rusco, used courtesy of Wichita State University

Avian Salmonella in Montana

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Red_CrossbillThe Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks has reported an avian salmonella outbreak in Billings, Montana, the Billings Gazette reports.

Wildlife managers were tipped off to a problem by a large number of dead birds in people’s backyards, the article says. One homeowner found 50 dead birds. Some of the dead birds were sent to the US Geological Survey’s National Wildlife Health Center in Wisconsin and were diagnosed with avian salmonella.

Both the article and information from the National Wildlife Health Center say that humans are susceptible to some strains of salmonella that infect birds, so people should use caution when cleaning bird-feeders in a 10 percent beach solution — preferable in a bucket outside.

“Most of the dead birds are red crossbills.” the Gazette article says, noting that this species is particularly susceptible to salmonella.

Read the Billings Gazette article here.
Read the National Wildlife Health Center fact sheet here. (PDF)

Photo: This red crossbill is in the Deschutes National Forest Located in Oregon and does not have salmonella. By Dave Menke, courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service

Bullfrogs Die From Fungus Too

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bullfrog OSUA recent study by researchers at Oregon State University and the University of Pittsburgh shows that bullfrogs are not just carriers of Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, also called Bd or a chytrid fungus, but can die from it as well. The paper was published in the journal EcoHealth.

These researchers found that bullfrogs are not even a particularly good host for the fungus — although they say that this may depend on site-specific conditions.

The take-away? Scientists should keep searching for chytrid carriers, and wildlife managers in places where bullfrogs are native, should keep an eye on their populations. It wouldn’t be the first time a species was in trouble at home while being an invasive species elsewhere.

Read the Oregon State University press release here. (All other media coverage was just a reprint of the release.)

Photo: by Megan Cook, courtesy of Oregon State University

More Rattlesnake Fungus

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vt rattlesnake studyNashville Public Radio reports that two timber rattlesnakes with heads deformed from a fungus have been found in Tennessee. It’s unclear who the wildlife biologists who are reporting the fungus are (state? university?), but the story quotes Ed Carter, head of the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency and TWRA biologist Brian Flock.

Read the Nashville Public Radio story here.
A condensed version of the story was distributed by the Associated Press. Read it on the WBIR website, here.

The rattlesnake fungus has devastated the rattlesnake population in neighboring New Hampshire, so the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife isn’t waiting around to find out what’s going on with its own rattlesnakes, which are only found in one area in the western part of the state.

Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department rattlesnake project leader Doug Blodgett says in a department press release that lesions have been found in rattlesnakes last year and in several other species of snakes in the state.

Read the Vermont Fish and Wildlife press release here.

Photo: Vermont Fish & Wildlife biologist Doug Blodgett carefully examines a timber rattlesnake icheck it for signs of snake fungal disease. Photo by Tom Rogers, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department.

Tracking a Bird Eye Disease

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House Finch with eye diseaseHouse finch eye disease, which was first struck in the 1990s, unexpectedly became more virulent over time, says a paper published this week by PLoS Biology. It was a less virulent strain, however, that spread west across the country. But once it became established in California, it became more virulent.

“For the disease to disperse westward, a sick bird has to fly a little farther, and survive for longer, to pass on the infection. That will select for strains that make the birds less sick,” said Dana Hawley of Virginia Tech, the lead author of the study in a Cornell Lab of Ornithology press release.

By 1998 the House Finch population in the eastern United States had dropped by half—a loss of an estimated 40 million birds, the release says. The disease does not kill birds directly, but it makes them easy targets for predators.

Read the Cornell press release here.
Read the PLoS biology paper here.

Photo: Male house finch with eye disease, by David Smith. Used courtesy Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Non-native Lice Impact Cal. Deer Population

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hair loss syndrome CDFWCalifornia Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) researchers have captured and collected hair and blood samples from more than 600 deer and elk in an effort to understand “deer hair-loss syndrome,” says a CDFW news release.

A non-native louse appears to be a key factor in the syndrome, which also sometimes includes internal parasites. Deer with the syndrome are skinny, and the fawns don’t survive. A report from Fox 40 in Sacramento notes that the syndrome has been known in Oregon for years.

“Some of us speculate that the louse-infested deer spend so much time grooming they become easy targets of predation by coyotes or mountain lions,” said CDFW senior wildlife biologist, Greg Gerstenberg in the release.

The researchers have counted and identified lice on the captured deer, are following them through radio collars, and have treated some for lice. They hope to have answers soon.

Read the brief CDFW news release, here.
The Fox 40 report is here.

Mule deer are in decline throughout the West, and California is no exception. This article from 2010 in the San Francisco Chronicle discusses the decline.

Photo: Deer with hair-loss syndrome, courtesy of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife

No Releases for Desert Tortoises

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Desert_tortoiseFor decades, captive tortoises have suffered from a mysterious ailment known as “upper respiratory tract disease.” The disease was known in captive tortoises in Europe and the United States, according to information from the California Turtle and Tortoise Club.

Then, in the 1980s wild desert tortoises in California suffered a major die-off from the disease.

The threat of spreading that disease to wild tortoise populations in Arizona is one of the many reasons why the Arizona Game and Fish Department does not allow the release into the wild of tortoises that have been handled for any length of time. The department cares for as many of the tortoises as it can, and also runs an adopt-a-tortoise program.

Last year the department cared for over 40 tortoises at one time.

“I can’t stress enough how detrimental it could be for both the captive and wild tortoises to release a captive tortoise in the wild,” Zen Mocarski, a department public information officer said in an AZGFD newsletter. “Along with potential disease issues and displacement, captive tortoises are not prepared to find food and water in an unfamiliar area and often die.”

Read the AZGFD newsletter item, here. (It is the third story from the bottom.)
Read the California Turtle and Tortoise Club’s upper respiratory tract disease fact sheet, here.

Photo: This desert tortoise is in Nevada. Courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Syndrome Kills Southern Eagles

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hydrillaClarks Hill Lake in Georgia was home to seven bald eagle nesting territories a few years ago. Today, only one nesting territory on Clarks Hill remains. The culprit is Avian Vacuolar Myelinopathy, or AVM, a mysterious syndrome that has killed thousands of coots and dozens of bald eagles in the southeastern United States, says a Georgia Department of Natural Resources newsletter.

While the exact cause of the syndrome is unknown, it is connected to the cyanobacteria Stigonematales. Stigonematales likes to grow on hydrilla, an invasive aquatic plant. It appears as though the coots eat the hydrilla, which has Stigonematales growing on it. And the bald eagles eat the coots.

Bald eagle and coot deaths tend to peak around November of each year.

Read more about this mysterious syndrome and more non-game news in Georgia Wild, the newsletter of Georgia DNR’s non-game and natural habitats program.

Photo: Hydrilla draped over a man’s hand. Courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

NY, Vt. WNS Bats Winter in Maine

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bat bunker wnsThirty bats from New York and Vermont, some of which were visibly infected with white nose syndrome (WNS), were moved to a specially-prepared military bunker in Maine to spend the winter. Nine bats survived, a higher percentage than would have been expected if they had been left in the wild. Those bats were returned to the locations where they were found.

“We learned a lot from this experiment,” said Vermont Fish & Wildlife bat project leader Scott Darling in a department press release. “These bats were visibly infected before being placed in the bunker, so we wouldn’t have expected many of them to survive in their natural cave environment.”

Read the Vermont Fish and Wildlife press release here.
Read the US Fish and Wildlife Service, Northeast’s blog here — with many wonderful photos. (Scroll down a bit to get to the main story about the bunker and WNS.)
Read a guest post on the USFWS white nose syndrome blog from the assistant manager at the National Wildlife Refuge where the bats wintered here. (With the same photos, and a link to a Flicker page.)Read an article from the Rutland (Vermont) Herald here. (But be warned that its articles go behind a paywall in a week, sometimes sooner.)

And in related news, here’s a report from the Barre/Montpelier Times-Argus and Rutland Herald, about further WNS research in Vermont this winter. (It may also disappear behind a paywall.)

Photo: The bunker door at the Aroostok National Wildlife Refuge in late March. by Steve Agius, courtesy USFWS

Penn State Develops CWD Model

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white_tailed_deer_buckEight years ago, research done by Penn State University, the Pennsylvania Wildlife Commission, and the US Geological Survey found in a study of white-tailed deer, that 70 percent of yearling males will disperse, and the average dispersal is six to seven miles. Depending on the amount of forest on the landscape, the researcher says, those yearling males may go just a mile or as far as 30 miles.

Now, another team of Penn State researchers are using that dispersal data to model the spread of chronic wasting disease (CWD) in Pennsylvania.

So far, the conclusions are that in parts of the state with less forest, the Game Commission may have to consider disease-management areas that are larger. It also has implications on sampling efforts to try to get a handle on the prevalence of the disease.

Read the Penn State University press release here.

Photo: Joe Kosack/Pennsylvania Game Commission