Category Archives: fox

American Midland Naturalist

Posted on by
Reply

Here are some articles of interest in the current issue of American Midland Naturalist. (Fee or subscription required to read the full text.):

The Impact of Exotic Purple Loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria) on Wetland Bird Abundances. Some wetland bird species do well when loosestrife increases, this study found. It urges land managers to take care when removing loosestrife so as not to harm those species.

Use of Camera Traps to Examine the Mesopredator Release Hypothesis in a Fragmented Midwestern Landscape. Coyotes don’t like deep forests and red foxes don’t like urban landscapes, this study found. The presence of coyotes only scared off other mesopredators a little.

Lots more on invasive species. Including papers on garlic mustard and the types of plants that grow in contaminated roadside soil.

 

Red Foxes and Lyme Disease

Posted on by
Reply

When it comes to Lyme disease, we tend to blame the deer. The ticks that carry Lyme disease are called deer ticks, aren’t they? But a recent paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says that its more productive to look at red foxes — the lack of red foxes — when looking for causes for the increase in Lyme disease.

While white-tailed deer are host to the adult ticks, young ticks favor small mammals such as mice. When coyotes move in, red fox numbers are reduced. And the foxes are more effective at catching mice than coyotes are. With coyotes in the neighborhood there are more mice, more hosts for the young deer ticks, and more Lyme disease all around.

Read the paper in PNAS, here. (Subscription or fee required. The abstract is free.)
Or read the University of California at Santa Cruz press release, here.
Finally, there is a Science News report on the paper, here.

Photo: Jim Thiele, courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service

 

Red Fox: Wanderer or Introduced?

Posted on by
Reply

IUCN Species Survival Commission Invasive Species Specialist Group listed the red fox among its 100 worst invasive species.The question in North America has long been: Where has the red fox been introduced and where has it expanded its range naturally?

A recent paper in the Journal of Mammalogy attempts to winnow the wanderer from the introduced by comparing mitochondrial DNA. The study didn’t find any European haplotypes in wild red fox populations in North American.

(You’ll need to read the paper yourself to determine whether the methodology was sufficient to truly determine Eurasian lineage.)

In the southeastern US, the study found the foxes originated in eastern Canada and the northeastern US. Out West, the genetic picture was muddier, with evidence of translocations from across the continent as well as more local expansion of mountain populations.

Read the Journal of Mammalogy paper here. (Open access.)

Photo: Red fox by Jim Thiele, courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service

Red Fox: Wanderer or Introduced?

Posted on by
Reply

IUCN Species Survival Commission Invasive Species Specialist Group listed the red fox among its 100 worst invasive species.The question in North America has long been: Where has the red fox been introduced and where has it expanded its range naturally?

A recent paper in the Journal of Mammalogy attempts to winnow the wanderer from the introduced by comparing mitochondrial DNA. The study didn’t find any European haplotypes in wild red fox populations in North American.

(You’ll need to read the paper yourself to determine whether the methodology was sufficient to truly determine Eurasian lineage.)

In the southeastern US, the study found the foxes originated in eastern Canada and the northeastern US. Out West, the genetic picture was muddier, with evidence of translocations from across the continent as well as more local expansion of mountain populations.

Read the Journal of Mammalogy paper here. (Open access.)

Photo: Red fox by Jim Thiele, courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service

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

Posted on by
Reply

Canada goose in AlabamaRabid 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

March Wildlife Disease Roundup

Posted on by
Reply

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

Kit Fox Disease and Solar Power

Posted on by
1
Desert kit fox

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.

Are they eating people food?

Posted on by
Reply

Is a particular species eating human-provided food? A group of researchers studying the endangered San Joaquin kit fox found that analyzing the stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen in the foxes’ fur painted a more accurate picture of the foxes’ diet than scat analysis alone. The team’s analysis is based on the idea that corn, a C4 grass, is the basic building block of modern, industrial food. Therefore, in areas of the country where C3 grasses predominate, looking for that skewed C13/N15 stable isotope signature can point towards a diet of modern, industrial people food.


The researchers found that the kit foxes living in an urban area in California had a C13/N15 signature almost identical to the people living in the area. And while they found the occasional scrap of food wrapper, because there are no bones or hair, the foxes’ people-food meals (which might have been garbage, or dog food left on the back porch), otherwise left little evidence in scat.

The researchers note that this technique has widespread uses. They also note that C4 grasses are native to some areas of the country, particularly in the South and West, and and would influence results there.


The paper, in The Journal of Mammalogy is open access.


Photo: B. “Moose” Peterson. Courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service