Category Archives: Michigan

March Wildlife Disease Roundup

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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

Mystery of the “Cactus Bucks”

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For ten years hunters and residents of western Colorado, near the north fork of the Gunnison River have been reporting mule deer with strange antlers to the Colorado Division of Wildlife. A Colorado Division of Wildlife press release says: “In these male animals the antlers grow in odd shapes, never develop fully and do not lose their velvet.”

These mule deer with the fuzzy, misshapen antlers have been called “cactus bucks.”

The cause of the deformity is a mystery, although division biologists believe that hemorrhagic disease is to blame.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife biologists recently collared eight infected animals and will follow them to see whether they shed their “cactus” antlers or grow new, normally developed ones in the future.

Read the Colorado Parks and Wildlife press release here. (So far news outlets have just reprinted the press release.)

In other cervid disease news: Three wild deer have tested positive for bovine tuberculosis in Michigan (at the top of the mitten’s index finger), according to an article in USA Today. Humans are not at risk, according to the State of Michigan’s emerging disease information. However, wild deer populations are at risk, as is the status of the region’s livestock, which may face greater regulations.

Read the story in USA Today, here.
The Michigan emerging disease info on bovine TB is here.

Photo: Kyle Banks, district wildlife manager for Colorado Parks and Wildlife in the Hotchkiss area, holds one of the “cactus bucks” collared in January 2012 as part of a five-year study. Courtesy of Colorado Parks and Wildlife.

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

Midwest Wolf Delisting Expected to Stick This Time

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The final rule to remove the western Great Lakes population of the gray wolf from protection under the Endangered Species Act is expected to be published in the Federal Register today (Dec. 28, 2011).
The rule will take effect 30 days after publication, so if all goes as planned, that will be Jan. 27, 2012.

The rule applies to gray wolves in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin and “portions of adjoining states,” according to the US Fish and Wildlife press release announcing the final rule.

A map from the US Fish and Wildlife Service of the “Western Great Lakes Distinct Population Segment” of gray wolves suggests that the adjoining states are North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Illinois, and the tiniest slivers of Indiana and Ohio.

More information about this population segment, including lots of links, is available from the Midwest region of the USFWS, here.

The USFWS species profile of the gray wolf is here.

Here’s a draft of the Federal Register rule.

Read the USFWS press release for details such as the total population in the area (4,000, with more than half in Minnesota).

This is the third time in the past five years that Minnesota’s wolf population has been delisted, notes the Saint Cloud Times. This time, the ruling is expected to stand, the article says. Read the rest here.

Read more in:
USA Today
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 

Map: courtesy of US Fish and Wildlife Service

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 Michigan

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Two white-tailed deer have been diagnosed with epizootic hemorrhagic disease (EHD) in a southwestern county of Michigan. Last year 250 deer in that Michigan county died of the disease.

A Michigan Department of Natural Resources press release has the details of the finding, plus a history of EHD in the state. The release states: “More frequent outbreaks of EHD in Michigan could be a consequence of climate changes that favor the northward spread of the biting flies that spread the disease, said Russ Mason, chief of the DNR Wildlife Division.”

EHD is endemic to North America. The disease is most common in white-tailed deer, but can infect all ruminants. Humans are not known to catch the disease. 

Few deer die from the disease in the southeastern U.S., which experiences a mild form of the disease. Outbreaks in the Midwest and Northeast can range from a small outbreak with few deaths to something more widespread. The severity of the outbreak depends on the weather (wet weather favors breeding midges), how many of the biting  midges are around, herd immunity, and other factors.


Read more about the Michigan outbreak from Michigan (Public) Radio, here. And from the South Bend Tribune, here.
 
Read the details on EHD in an Iowa State University fact sheet, here.
 
Photo: Healthy does in Michigan, courtesy of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

Wildlife Disease Roundup

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Dozens of white-tailed deer in Montana have died of a mysterious ailment which is suspected to be epizootic hemorrhagic disease. The Great Falls Tribune has a brief item. Check out this item on ProMed-mail for a helpful reference to the no-see-ums that transmit the disease.

[ADDITION: The day after this was posted, the state of New Jersey announced epizootic hemorrhagic disease in deer in that state. You can read the press release here.]

A feral hog in Midland County, Michigan has tested positive for pseudorabies. Read the article on Michigan Live, here. Sounds ridiculously scary until you find out that porcine pseudorabies has nothing to do with rabies. It’s a herpes virus, and it doesn’t effect humans, but it does kill dogs and other animals, wild and domestic. Once again, ProMed-mail has the needed explanation. Read it here.

Also in the catagory of “needed explanations” and “wildlife disease” is a recent report in the Los Angeles Times of the “first U.S. transmission” of rabies linked to a vampire bat. Uh, no. Even the article says the man was bitten by a vampire bat in Mexico, then traveled to the U.S. Unfortunately, the story was also picked up on the gossip site Gawker.com. Here’s the LA Times story. And here’s a debunking from a biology professor at Long Island University

Finally, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources recently launched a new Web site on chronic wasting disease, aimed at hunters. Find the Web site at http://www.knowcwd.com/ And find an article about the Web site and Wisconsin’s “Know CWD” campaign in the Houston Chronicle.

There were just no pretty pictures for this one. Not even a nice picture of a virus available.

Harnessing March Madness – Great Lakes SmackDown

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A great example of how to liven up important conservation information is the Great Lakes SmackDown!, created by two graduate students at Michigan State University. (In the spirit of academia, their work is done for the Great Lakes Echo, a news service that is a program of the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism at MSU. Got it?)

Graphic: John Kalmar. Great Lakes Echo

This March, an invasive species version of the NCAA basketball tournament has a Sweet Sixteen of invasive plants and animals facing off to determine which of the exotic losers is the most destructive to the Great Lakes region. This time the focus is on land-based invaders, and the competitors include the mute swan, the feral hog, and the gypsy moth.

After perusing fighter profiles, participants submit their brackets, then vote to influence the outcome of each bout.

Last October, a similar SmackDown pitted eight aquatic invaders against each other for the title of “most destructive.” The quagga mussel, aka “The Quagmeister” finished on top. Twenty-five people submitted brackets, and there were over 100 votes in the polls. Best of all, the SmackDown received local newspaper and radio coverage.

“The fact that we pulled it together and got very positive feedback from readers, scientists and our colleagues was a success in itself,” said Alice Rossignol, who coordinates the SmackDown with Rachael Gleason. She expects this March’s SmackDown to be even more successful, thanks to public relations assistance from Michigan State University.

While everything about the SmackDown is executed with Comedy Central-worthy humor, you don’t have to be funny to pull off a similar project, the coordinators said.

“If you have a new idea that discusses an issue in a new way, go for it,” said Rossignol. “The project’s character will be shaped for your own effort and how people interact and respond to it.”

“The SmackDown! was funny because it was fun — fun to read, fun to be a part of and especially fun to put together,” said Gleason, . “We wanted to relate to our readers and get them thinking about an important issue in a new way. And who doesn’t love filling out a March Madness bracket? After deciding on that theme, everything else, like the idea to characterize invasive species as cage fighters, fell into place”

Harnessing March Madness – Great Lakes SmackDown

Posted on by
Reply

A great example of how to liven up important conservation information is the Great Lakes SmackDown!, created by two graduate students at Michigan State University. (In the spirit of academia, their work is done for the Great Lakes Echo, a news service that is a program of the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism at MSU. Got it?)

Graphic: John Kalmar. Great Lakes Echo

This March, an invasive species version of the NCAA basketball tournament has a Sweet Sixteen of invasive plants and animals facing off to determine which of the exotic losers is the most destructive to the Great Lakes region. This time the focus is on land-based invaders, and the competitors include the mute swan, the feral hog, and the gypsy moth.

After perusing fighter profiles, participants submit their brackets, then vote to influence the outcome of each bout.

Last October, a similar SmackDown pitted eight aquatic invaders against each other for the title of “most destructive.” The quagga mussel, aka “The Quagmeister” finished on top. Twenty-five people submitted brackets, and there were over 100 votes in the polls. Best of all, the SmackDown received local newspaper and radio coverage.

“The fact that we pulled it together and got very positive feedback from readers, scientists and our colleagues was a success in itself,” said Alice Rossignol, who coordinates the SmackDown with Rachael Gleason. She expects this March’s SmackDown to be even more successful, thanks to public relations assistance from Michigan State University.

While everything about the SmackDown is executed with Comedy Central-worthy humor, you don’t have to be funny to pull off a similar project, the coordinators said.

“If you have a new idea that discusses an issue in a new way, go for it,” said Rossignol. “The project’s character will be shaped for your own effort and how people interact and respond to it.”

“The SmackDown! was funny because it was fun — fun to read, fun to be a part of and especially fun to put together,” said Gleason, . “We wanted to relate to our readers and get them thinking about an important issue in a new way. And who doesn’t love filling out a March Madness bracket? After deciding on that theme, everything else, like the idea to characterize invasive species as cage fighters, fell into place”