Sage Grouse on the Brink

Posted on April 27, 2012 by MadelineBodin

A recent study of sage grouse in northeastern Wyoming says that the population there is just one severe weather event or West Nile outbreak away from extirpation. The study was conducted by three University of Montana wildlife biologists on behalf of the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

Read the report, a 46-page PDF, here.
Here’s the BLM web page with links to other info about the report
And here’s the story in the Casper Star-Tribune.

Despite the dire forecast, the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission will not close the three-day hunting season in northeastern Wyoming. The reasoning, says a Field & Stream blog post, is that because it is primarily energy development and disease, not hunting, that is causing the birds’ decline, hunters should not be penalized.

The blog post leans heavily on another article from the Casper Star-Tribune. Read that one here. That article notes that state biologists proposed closing the hunting season, but were over-ruled when dozens of people attended the Game and Fish Commission meeting to protest the closing. The article does not note the irony of the citizens who disagreed with the over-ruled scientists saying that the scientists’ recommendation was based on politics.

More troubling than even the possible extirpation of this population, or the politics behind the species’ management, is the fact that the Wyoming sage grouse management plan is the model for the nation. We’ve written about Wyoming’s plan being the national model before:
When a newspaper editorial praised the Wyoming sage grouse management plan;
And when the BLM took the lead on coordinating sage grouse management efforts across its range.

Photo: Greater sage grouse by Stephen Ting. Courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Disease Round-up: Rare, Rabid Bear; Desert Fox Distemper Spreads & more

Posted on April 26, 2012 by MadelineBodin

Rabid bears are “almost unheard of” in the eastern half of the United States. After all, transmission is typically through the bite of infected animal, and what’s going to bite a bear?

Apparently something bit a black bear in Albermarle, Virginia, because after it attacked a man, it was tested and found to have rabies.

This is gotten more coverage since, but the first article I saw on this was on GoDanRiver.com

In the Mojave Desert, an outbreak of canine distemper in desert kit foxes near a solar power installation is spreading, with dead foxes found 11 miles from the original site. Read more in the Victorville Daily Press.

We’ve written about this distemper outbreak twice before. Read the first post here. The second post, with possible causes, is here.

And while we just posted news about bullfrogs spreading chytrid fungus between continents a few days ago, yet another study shows that geese — both escaped domestic and Canada geese — can spread chytrid fungus between water bodies, either as they migrate, or simply as they visit ponds and lakes in their own neighborhood.

Read the article in ScientificAmerican.com
Or read the scientific paper with the findings in PLoS ONE.

Photo: Canada goose in Alabama, by Gary M. Stolz, courtesy of US Fish and Wildlife Service

Bullfrog Imports Spread Fungus

Posted on April 12, 2012 by MadelineBodin

Factory-farmed bullfrogs carry the chytrid fungus, likely spreading the infection when they escape into the wild, says an article in the Bay Citizen. The frogs are shipped globally. Australia and the European Union mandate that the frogs must be killed and frozen before being imported. California laws say the bullfrogs must be killed when sold, but no law bans the import of the live frogs, which are also invasive in California.

And who knew that a one-pound bullfrog costs about $4 and serves two when cooked with rice and veggies?

Read the whole story, and see the slide show, in the Bay Citizen, here.

White Nose in Delaware

Posted on April 2, 2012 by MadelineBodin

Fort Delaware

The Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control announced on Friday that white nose syndrome has been detected in bats at Fort Delaware State Park.

White nose fungus had been detected at maternity colonies of bats in Delaware in 2010, but this is the first time bats showing symptoms of the disease have been found. Because the bats were discovered in a popular state park with a Civil War fort and prison, the emphasis will be on educating visitors and limiting the spread of the disease when the park opens on May 1.

Read the DNREC press release, here.
Read the article in DelawareOnline.com, here.

Fort Delaware photo courtesy of Delaware State Parks

March Wildlife Disease Roundup

Posted on March 20, 2012 by MadelineBodin

Things have actually been pretty quiet over the past month when it comes to wildlife diseases. The big news, of course, is white nose syndrome in Alabama, but there have been a few other stories worth noting.

Rabbits can get prion diseases. Once it looked like they were immune to diseases in the family of mad cow and chronic wasting disease, but the latest research shows they can get it. (See the original paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.)

At least one frog species, the Pacific chorus frog, is a carrier of chytrid fungus, a recent study found. Read the LiveScience story via MSNBC. The study was published recently in PLoS ONE, read it here. Or read the San Francisco State University press release, here.

A wolf suffering from parvovirus was discovered in Idaho. Parovirus effects all canids, including domestic dogs. There is a vaccine for the disease available for dogs. Read the Idaho Department of Fish and Game press release here.

Also, there has been an outbreak of canine distemper in gray foxes in Michigan.

For birds:
The red tides on the Gulf coast of Texas have caused the deaths of redhead ducks.
The death of eider ducks on Cape Cod (Massachusetts) has been pinned on a virus, named Wellfleet Bay virus.
Ten wild turkeys were found dead from avian pox, a virus, in southeast Montana.

Finally, back in late February, brucellosis, a cattle disease, was found in elk in Montana.

Photo: A Pacific chorus frog. Credit: Joyce Gross

White Nose Syndrome in Alabama

Posted on March 15, 2012 by MadelineBodin

Alabama white nose syndrome White nose syndrome was discovered in the Russell Cave complex in Jackson County, Alabama on March 1 by a team of surveyors from Alabama A&M University and the National Park Service and has just been confirmed by Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study unit at the University of Georgia, according to an Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources press release.

The finding was both disappointing and a bit of a surprise because scientists had thought that the South’s shorter winters would curtail the spread of the cold-loving fungus.

According to the Washington Post, no bats were found dead of white nose syndrome in the cave. This suggests a situation similar to the suspected case in Oklahoma (which was not confirmed), where white nose syndrome was found, but did not kill bats.

Alabama has many caves and is home to millions of bats, including the federally endangered gray bat.

The Washington Post article says: “[Alabama] State wildlife biologist Keith Hudson called Alabama the Grand Central Station for the endangered gray bat.”

Read the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources press release here.
Read the Washington Post article here.

Map: Showing the location of the white nose syndrome finding in Alabama. Map by Cal Butchkoski, PA Game Commission, courtesy of US Fish and Wildlife Service

Scale-destroying Fungus Found in Wild Snakes

Posted on February 23, 2012 by MadelineBodin

In 2008 three eastern massasauga rattlesnakes were discovered in an Illinois park with deformed heads. Another was found in the same park in 2010. Tests revealed that the snakes were suffering from a fungal infection — a fungus in the genus Chrysosporium to be exact.

The news is breaking now because the comments a veterinarian involved was covered in an Associated Press article. You can read the article in the Boston Globe, here. The article says that the fungus has been found in rattlesnakes in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, too.

The rattlesnake species is a candidate for federal Endangered Species listing, the article says.

As it turns out, the researchers involved published a letter in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases in December 2011. The researchers describe the fungus as being similar to another fungus found in bearded dragons, a non-native pet lizard. That fungus is in another genus, though. A very similar fungus was also been reported in a captive black rat snake.

The fungus is described as being able to break down keratin, which is what snake scales are made out of.

Read an html version of the Emerging Infectious Diseases article, here.
Find the PDF version here.

Photo: Pretty poison, a healthy eastern massasauga rattlesnake, courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service

WNS Surveillance Concept

Posted on February 20, 2012 by MadelineBodin

If your state has not yet been struck by white nose syndrome (WNS), or if you are in an area of your state not yet struck by WNS, you’ve probably needed to develop a system of surveillance that isn’t intrusive on hibernating bats and doesn’t take up a ton of staff time.

The favored method of WNS surveillance — sending staffers to known bat hibernation sites to observe and survey bats — is both intrusive and time consuming.

Scientists from the National Parks Service and the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study describe a new surveillance concept in a letter to the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.

To survey the region around Mammoth Cave National Park, the national park service used bats that had previously been collected for rabies testing and had been proven not to have rabies.They narrowed their search by testing only bat species known to be susceptible to WNS and only those collected from November to April, when WNS is more likely to be detectable.

In a pilot test, the technique did detect one WNS-positive bat.

Read the letter to Emerging Infectious Diseases, here.

It’s important to keep in mind that the external parts of the WNS fungus can be brushed off at any contact, so that the tell-tale fuzzy white fungus may not be visible on bats that have been previously handled.

This Journal of Veterinary Diagnostic Investigation paper tells you what the lab should be looking for under the microscope. There is also a PCR test for the fungus.

Photo: Bat with white nose syndrome in a mine in Vermont. Courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service

Ranavirus Hits Maryland

Posted on February 15, 2012 by MadelineBodin

An “alarming number” of tiny box turtles have been found dead in Maryland during a highway-construction relocation study, The Washington Post reports. The cause of death for 26 of the 31 turtles found dead is ranavirus, which shows measles- or herpes-like symptoms in reptiles and amphibians, the article reports.

The virus has also effected local frogs and salamanders, but turtles are the big concern because they breed much more slowly, the article says.

Scott Smith, a wildlife ecologist for Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources, is quoted in the article twice, including:

Smith of the Natural Resources Department said state wildlife officials are so concerned that they have applied for research funding from the Association of Reptile and Amphibian Veterinarians. State budgets are too strapped to fund the necessary research, he said.

Read the entire Washington Post article, here. It includes a link to a video of a gasping box turtle. Seriously.

This Extinction Countdown blog post from Scientific American from 2010, points to these journal articles on ranavirus:
2010 – Animal Conservation
Archives of Virology
Journal of Wildlife Diseases

Photo: Box turtle by Laura Perlick, courtesy of US Fish and Wildlife Service

Kit Fox Disease and Solar Power

Posted on February 13, 2012 by MadelineBodin

Collared desert kit fox, courtesy California Department of Fish and Game

When we covered the canine distemper outbreak in desert kit foxes in California a few weeks ago (read the story here), we didn’t mention the solar project that is being built nearby because it didn’t seem relevant.

But other people think that solar project is relevant. Chris Clarke, a Palm Springs-based environmental journalist got the ball rolling with a commentary on Southern California Community Television wondering if the distemper could have been spread by the coyote urine used to haze the kit foxes away from the construction zone.

Read his KCET commentary here.

Merritt Clifton, editor of Animal People, sent an email to ProMED saying that the coyote urine probably wouldn’t have worked anyway, since foxes and coyotes cross paths so often.

But if the solar project had any influence on the distemper outbreak, it was probably stress, said Deana Clifford, state wildlife veterinarian for the California Department of Fish and Game in an article on the solar project in the Los Angeles Times.

The LA Times article has five paragraphs on the desert kit fox situation at the solar site on the first on-line page of the article. Read it here.

State Wildlife Research News

Tools for wildlife management in the public interest

Category Archives: disease