Last Sunday the New York Times published an opinion piece on the unheralded impacts of wildlife disease on human health. It does not contain any information that will be news to the average state wildlife biologist, but it is rare that this sort of information is communicated to the general public in a calm, reasoned way.
The piece is by Simon Anthony, a molecular virologist at the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and is occasioned by a study by the International Livestock Research Institute.
The great quote: “Disease, it turns out, is largely an environmental issue.”
On an August day 17 years ago, eight Minnesota junior high school students on a field trip caught 22 frogs in a farm pond. At least half of the frogs had some abnormality, mostly in their hind legs. The conscientious teacher reported the group’s finding to the state. Dutiful state scientists surveyed wetlands across Minnesota and found at least one hotspot of frog abnormality in every county in the state.
Bats in the barn? A new rule in New Hampshire says that they can’t be removed between May 15 and August 15, when bats are typically raising their young. If a bat has tested positive for rabies, then special permission to exclude the bats will be given.
At first they were, like gray squirrels almost everywhere in the US, abundant to the point of being a nuisance, especially to people with bird feeders. Then they were gone, or almost so. When mange struck the gray squirrels of the San Bernardino Mountains in California, people noticed, particularly in the past year.
On Wednesday, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources announced that a low level of the fungus that causes white nose syndrome was found on one of the 15 bats swabbed this winter at a tourist cave run by the state. None of the bats seen in the cave appeared to have symptoms of white nose syndrome.
The fifth annual symposium on white nose syndrome in bats is taking place in Madison, Wisconsin this week. The sessions have been closed to the public, so this sneak peek comes to you through yesterday’s media conference call and some research on the internet.
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Where did the turtle cross the road? A citizen scientist has the answer, particularly in Massachusetts, where over the last few years citizen scientists have been tracking turtle crossings as part of the Turtle Roadway Mortality Monitoring Program. Volunteers are trained by Linking Landscapes for Massachusetts Wildlife, a partnership between Division of Fisheries and Wildlife (DFW), Department of Transportation (DOT) Highway Division and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.