Category Archives: disease

Oh, Deer. Disease

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chronic wasting disease, epizootic hemorrhagic diseaseThere’s been no shortage of deer disease news recently.

In Kansas, three white-tailed bucks taken during the hunting season have tested positive for chronic wasting disease (CWD), the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism announced in a press release yesterday. Kansas has had 43 confirmed cases of CWD since 2005.

Read the Kansas Dept. of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism press release, here.
Read the Wichita Eagle outdoor writer’s blog, here.

In Missouri, the CWD news came at the end of January.  Two adult bucks shot in Macon County were found to have CWD. They first free ranging deer in the state to be found with the disease, according to the Missouri Department of Conservation. Missouri saw its first CWD case, in captive deer, in 2010, according to the Chronic Wasting Disease Alliance website.

Read the Missouri Department of Conservation press release, here.

In Michigan, the problem is epizootic hemorrhagic disease. Michigan Department of Natural Resources officials say it may take five years for the deer herd to recover from this summer’s bout of the disease, according to an article in the Lenawee Daily Telegram. If the disease strikes again this summer, they hope to hear about it sooner.

Read the article in the Daily Telegram, here.

In Pennsylvania, a game farm elk that wandered into neighboring West Virginia won’t be allowed back in the state in an effort to protect Pennsylvania wildlife from CWD. (CWD has been found in West Virginia, but not Pennsylvania.) Read the story in the magazine OutdoorLife, here.

Photo of white-tailed buck by John Stehn, courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service

WNS Found in Another KY County

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Green = 2011 WNS finding; Red = 2012

The Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife has announced that it has confirmed white nose syndrome in three caves in the state. Three common bat species in those caves were found to have the syndrome.

Read the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife press release, here.

The caves are in a different county than the one where bats with WNS were found last year. (On our map, last year’s outbreak is in green; this year’s in red.)

The US Fish and Wildlife Service map had not yet been updated at the time we published this, so the map here is our own. Check the official WNS map, here.

Fox Distemper Study Details

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Desert kit fox

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

The California Department of Fish and Game (DFG) is investigating the death of seven desert kit foxes from canine distemper in eastern Riverside County (which is in the southeastern part of the state, inland of Los Angeles, abutting Arizona) according to its own press release. (Read it here.)

Sometimes canine distemper cycles through wild canine populations, and sometimes dogs pass the infection along, the press release reminds us.

Generally, the death of such a small number of animals is not notable, but what I really like about the press release is the detail given about the methodology of the follow-up study — in which researchers tagged 39 foxes and collared 12.

A few more details, about the susceptibility of various canine species to distemper is found in a ProMED announcement.

White Nose Syndrome Toll at Least 5.7 Million

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White nose syndrome has killed somewhere between 5.7 million to 6.7 million bats, biologists at the Northeast Bat Working Group’s annual meeting in Pennsylvania, which was held last week, estimated. The figures were released Tuesday afternoon.

Read the press release from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department, here.

Not much out there about where these new estimates come from. A Washington Post article says, “The estimate was derived from winter trips to mines and caves through December 2011.” The innovation was counting the bats using digital imagery, rather than “counting noses,” as was done in the past, USFWS WNS coordinator Jeremy Coleman is quoted as saying.

Read the Washington Post article here.

In a Los Angeles Times article, coordination of survey strategies across the United States and Canada is credited for the new estimate.

Read the LA Times article here.

Photo credit: Jonathan Mays, Wildlife Biologist, Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife

Getting the Lead Out of Eagles

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Every year wildlife rehabilitors work with bald eagles suffering from lead poisoning, says an article in the Chronicle Herald of Canada. The article profiles one bald eagle rehabilitator in Nova Scotia who gives a vivid description of an eagle suffering from lead poisoning and pleads for the ban of lead ammunition.

Read the whole article here.

An interesting addition is a comment on the ProMed listserv yesterday, that says that in northern climes, there is a distict season for lead poisoning in bald eagles, from mid-November to March. It’s not the lead shot from waterfowl hunting that does these eagles in, the commenter says. The waterfowl have already migrated south. It’s the lead fragments found in gut piles and abandoned carcasses from deer hunting season.

Read the entire comment here.

These two eagle rehabilitators are hopeful, but the uphill battle on lead shot is illustrated by Iowa’s back-and-forth over the issue. Here’s a recent article from the DesMoines Register.

Photo: Karen Laubenstein, courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service

Disease May Be Behind Low Virginia Hunt Numbers

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Virginia is reporting a 10 percent to 15 percent decrease in harvests statewide this year, reports the Tidewater News. In addition to warmer weather and full moons, the article quotes a district wildlife biologist as saying that disease may have also played a role. About three percent of the deer in the Tidewater, Va. have been afflicted with disease, the article quotes the biologist as saying.
However, the biologist says the disease is bluetongue. That’s common in cattle, but fairly rare in cervids such as deer, notes a ProMed commentator. Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease (EHD) displays similar symptoms and is common in deer. A laboratory test can tell the two viruses apart, the comment says.

“A ray of hope” on WNS in bats

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Scott Darling

In Vermont, residents have reported seeing colonies of little brown bats. Over the last five years most of the state’s little brown bats had been wiped out by white nose syndrome (WNS). In Pennsylvania, an abandoned mine appears to have 2,000 healthy bats.

Read the Associated Press article here. (It’s the better story.)
Read the Washington Post article here.

More good news: The Center for Biodiversity reports that Congress has directed that $4 million from the endangered species recovery fund go towards white nose syndrome research. But Congress has allocated for WNS before, and then reneged. It will be truly good news when research actually gets funded.
The Center for Biodiversity press release.

Photo: Scott Darling, Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife, in the early days of the WNS crisis. Photo property of State Wildlife Research News. (Permission required for reuse.)

Big Nosed Deer Deer in Mich. Is One of Several

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A deer with a weirdly swollen nose was found in Michigan this season. It was the fourth deer ever found in Michigan with a similar swelling, according to a wildlife biologist and pathologist with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Disease Lab quoted in an article in the Kalamazoo Gazette. The pathologist also says in the article that the only thing the deer have in common is an infection with the mites that cause mange.

State wildlife officials originally had no interest in this particular deer, according to an Associated Press report, but Kevin Keel, a wildlife pathologist at the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study in Athens, Georgia saw the odd deer’s photo on a deer hunting blog, and got involved.

Keel said in his blog post that in the last seven years he’s seen about 10 of these deer from states ranging from Georgia to Idaho. What causes the nasal swelling is still a mystery. The Kalamazoo Gazette article says that a bacterial infection seems likely, but the Athens lab hasn’t been able to isolate it yet.

It may turn out that there may be more of these deer out there than anyone thought. Just a week after the first posting, someone else sent a photo of a swollen-nosed deer to the same hunting blog.

Here’s the Kalamazoo Gazette article that first discussed the deer.

EHD in NC

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Epizootic hemorrhagic disease popped up late in North Carolina this year, says an article in the Wilmington Star-News. So far the outbreak has been mild. (And considering how late in the season it is, the chances seem good for it to remain mild.)

The article says a dry summer probably contributed to the lateness and mildness of the disease this year. Drought plagued the region for most of the summer. Hurricane Irene brought the rain that allowed the midges to thrive. Officials from the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission say there have been about 30 cases of EHD confirmed in the eastern part of the state.

Read the whole article in the Wilmington Star-News.

EHD in NC

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Epizootic hemorrhagic disease popped up late in North Carolina this year, says an article in the Wilmington Star-News. So far the outbreak has been mild. (And considering how late in the season it is, the chances seem good for it to remain mild.)

The article says a dry summer probably contributed to the lateness and mildness of the disease this year. Drought plagued the region for most of the summer. Hurricane Irene brought the rain that allowed the midges to thrive. Officials from the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission say there have been about 30 cases of EHD confirmed in the eastern part of the state.

Read the whole article in the Wilmington Star-News.