What's Killing The Animals? The Mysteries Of Mass Deaths

[TheQuixote]

Tanzania probes flamingo deaths

Tanzanian wildlife authorities are investigating the deaths of some 10,000 flamingos over the past month at the Lake Manyara National Park.

Preliminary test have shown the birds might have died from toxins in the algae, the park's chief warden Betty Loibooki told AFP news agency.

Samples have been sent to Germany for further analysis.

Lake Manyara in north-eastern Tanzania is home to over 300 bird species with more than three million flamingos.

Tourist attraction

"So far it has been yet been established what is exactly causing the deaths, scientists are on the ground to find out," Tanzania National Parks' James Lembeli told BBC News Online.

"The deaths started in mid-June until last week. There have been no more deaths since then," he said.

Two species of flamingos inhabit Lake Manyara - the lesser flamingo, which eats algae, and the greater flamingo, which mainly eats insects.

According to Mr Lembeli it is the lesser flamingos that have been dying over the last month.

Flamingos are an important tourist attraction in Tanzania, second only to lions in popularity.

BBCi News 15/07/04

 

[TheQuixote]

Experts solve swan death riddle

Experts believe they have solved the mystery of how seemingly healthy swans died at a tourist spot in West Lothian.
An inquiry was launched after the bodies of eight young, uninjured birds were discovered at Linlithgow Loch.

Baffled Scottish SPCA inspectors asked experts at Edinburgh University's Royal (Dick) Veterinary School to carry out post-mortem examinations on two swans.

The vets reported that those birds had suffered from septicaemia, a form of blood poisoning.

SSPCA officials are still waiting to discover how the birds might have contracted the condition, which may be caused by the same bugs that cause meningitis.

A ninth swan which was found alive but with similar symptoms has now died.

About 200 of the birds live on the loch, an area which is popular with local people and visitors.

BBCi News 15/07/04

 

[TheQuixote]

Rare birds killed by deadly bug

By Kim Griggs
in Wellington, New Zealand

Three of the world's most endangered birds have been killed by a severe bout of blood poisoning in New Zealand.

A deadly bug infected a group of kakapo parrots (Strigops habroptilus) on the offshore islands of Codfish and Chalky.

Before the infection, from a lethal strain of soil bacteria, there were only 86 kakapo left in the country.

The Department of Conservation (DoC) has responded swiftly to the outbreak, by giving the remaining birds emergency antibiotic treatment.

Young birds

"The birds have either ingested or have been infected in some way with the erysipelas bacterium. It goes straight into the blood stream and causes blood poisoning," says Paul Jansen, who leads the kakapo team at the DoC.

"The good news is that we know what it is and we have the right tools in place."

The three young female kakapo which died - Aroha, Aurora and Vollie - were hatched in the summer of 2002.

We are going to treat the hell out of them
Paul Jansen, DoC, New Zealand

They and 16 other young birds had just been transferred from the kakapo stronghold of Codfish Island (Whenua Hou), an island right at the bottom of New Zealand, to Chalky Island (Te Kakahu) in Fiordland.

Having found out what caused the birds' deaths, the DoC has swung into action to give all the 24 kakapo remaining on Chalky Island life-saving antibiotics, and to check on the well-being of those living on Codfish Island.

"We are building pens on Chalky Island and there is a team of people up the hill at the moment bringing down the first five females. They will be treated over the next five days and once they have done their course of antibiotics, they will go back out again," says Mr Jansen.

"We will take the first five in and regardless of whether they show any symptoms or not, we are going to treat the hell out of them."

The DoC had just finished juggling the kakapo - moving some juveniles to Chalky Island and transferring 12 older birds back to Codfish Island.

"We will still be running a process of screening on Codfish Island to make sure that that bug is not present in that population [but] we have had nobody exhibiting signs," Mr Jansen says.

Mystery infection

The DoC is unsure how the birds picked up the bacterium, but Mr Jansen says it could have happened during the transfer between the islands.

"There is a possibility that they picked up this bug on the path of the transfer, in the handling process, off somebody's clothes or even off their hands - because this is something that can actually inhabit humans as well," adds Mr Jansen.

Once kakapo roamed mainland New Zealand from sea level to the mountains; now they are confined to New Zealand's offshore islands.

The aim of the kakapo transfers was to ensure that all the birds on Codfish Island were the optimum age for mating in time for the next rimu mast, the prolific production of seed that is a known trigger for kakapo breeding.

The last time there was a rimu mast, back in 2002, 24 kakapo chicks were hatched, including the three which have just died.

The kakapo is a fat, green, musty-smelling nocturnal bird, which cannot fly but which can climb trees. The male's low mating boom - writer Douglas Adams called it the "heartbeat of the night" - can travel up to 5km.

The population dwindled to just 50 in the mid-1990s, but an intensive conservation effort has boosted kakapo numbers in the past few years.

The New Zealand conservationists are hoping their swift response will help contain this latest setback. "We don't want to go too far back," says Mr Jansen. "We don't want to go back down to 50, that's for sure."

BBCi News 13/07/04

 

[songhrati]

Devil Disease links sparks alarm

Check out the link for a particularly fearsome photo of a Tasmanian Devil

From

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=12667

Devil disease link sparks alarm
10:16 AEST Sat Jul 17 2004


A report linking the use of forestry chemicals with a deadly disease afflicting Tasmanian devils has set environmental alarm bells ringing.

Tasmanian Greens Leader Pegg Putt called on the state government to come clean on exactly what chemicals were being investigated for their effects on the devils, which are being killed by a mystery illness dubbed Devil Facial Tumour Disease (DFTD).

A link between disease and agricultural and forestry chemicals has been suggested in a report by Sydney-based marine ecologist Dr Marcus Scammell.

Dr Scammell was commissioned by east coast oyster farmers to examine a spate of shellfish deaths at Georges Bay, St Helens, after heavy rains.

"The aerial spraying (using helicopters) of plantation timbers appears to be responsible for large-scale losses of commercial oyster following heavy rainfall events," the report says.

"More disturbingly, the problems associated with oysters also correlate with tumours and mortality in Tasmanian Devils.

"At least three of the chemicals used to protect plantations have been associated with tumour development in lifetime exposure studies in rodents."

Ms Putt said she believed such links were also being explored by scientists at the state government's Mt Pleasant laboratory.

"It is our understanding that the impacts of agricultural and forestry chemicals on devils have been being studied and that preliminary results are available but have not been publicly released," she said in a statement.

"We are suspicious that these initial results are being kept under wraps because they do show effects from some chemicals, probably organophosphates, and this will have far reaching ramifications for current farming and forestry practices.'

"The government must come clean on exactly which chemicals they have been studying for their effects on devils, and the results so far must be released."

DFTD first appears as small lesions and lumps around a devil's mouth, progressing to grotesque cancerous tumours on the face that eventually spread throughout the body.

Death occurs within months, often from starvation.

It has wiped out up to 90 per cent of the Devil population in some areas of the state, with scientists working to identify the disease and develop a diagnostic test.

Comment on the report was sought from the government.

A government spokesman rejected the Greens' claim that the effects of specific chemicals had been investigated.

"Their claim that it's been done and the findings suppressed is wrong," he said.

DFTD project manager Alistair Scott said no causative factors for the disease had yet been identified.

"We will certainly investigate all avenues requiring exploration for causes, but will go through a scientific and clinical process to identify what are the most appropriate areas of investigation," he said in a statement.

"The first critical point is to identify the type of cancer it is we are dealing with, which will then able us to start looking at possible causes."

Forest Industries Association of Tasmania chief executive Terry Edwards said the report was full of conjecture.

"The words that appear most regularly are `it appears that'," he said.

"It's full of hypothesis and guesswork and a long way short of a definitive scientific study."


Zane

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Tanzania probes flamingo deaths

Tanzanian wildlife authorities are investigating the deaths of some 10,000 flamingos over the past month at the Lake Manyara National Park.

Preliminary tests have shown the birds might have died from toxins in algae, the park's chief warden Betty Loibooki told AFP news agency.

Samples have been sent to Germany for further analysis.

Lake Manyara in north-eastern Tanzania is home to over 300 bird species with more than three million flamingos.

Tourist attraction

"So far it has not yet been established what is exactly causing the deaths; scientists are on the ground to find out," Tanzania National Parks' James Lembeli told BBC News Online.

"The deaths started in mid-June until last week. There have been no more deaths since then," he said.

Two species of flamingos inhabit Lake Manyara - the lesser flamingo, which eats algae, and the greater flamingo, which mainly eats insects.

According to Mr Lembeli it is the lesser flamingos that have been dying over the last month.

Flamingos are an important tourist attraction in Tanzania, second only to lions in popularity.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/africa/3896907.stm

Published: 2004/07/15 13:09:32 GMT

© BBC MMIV

 

[TheQuixote]

Another report on the Californian pelican deaths.

Calif. Pelican Deaths Puzzle Wildlife Officials
Tue 20 July, 2004 00:51

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - California's endangered brown pelicans are mysteriously starving to death during a bumper year for anchovies, their preferred prey, wildlife officials said.

Hundreds of the ungainly sea birds appear to have flown off course in search of food during their annual migration from the Baja California peninsula to British Columbia, with young pelicans turning up in Arizona deserts, biologists said.

Wildlife sanctuaries in California and Arizona have taken in scores of young birds found emaciated and injured over the past month, but veterinarians have been unable to link their plight to disease or pollution.

"They are starving but we do think there are plenty of anchovies," said Judy St. Leger, a veterinarian at San Diego's SeaWorld aquatic animal park. "It is an unusual and very extraordinary event."

The large, grayish-brown sea bird with the pouched bill was threatened with extinction in the 1970s because of the introduction of the pesticide DDT. It is still listed as endangered, according to the California Department of Fish and Game.

Naturalist Sandy Cate of the Arizona Game and Fish Department said the phenomenon appears linked to an explosion in pelican numbers combined with changes in Pacific Ocean temperatures.

"Anchovy can be going down deeper or out farther away than they might be normally," Cate said. "By nature, animals do whatever it takes to find food, water and shelter. There is no food to sustain the numbers that were born this year."

Cate said the young birds may be mistaking interstate highways for waterways, which would explain why numbers of them have been found along roadways with broken wings or legs.

SeaWorld has released about 10 of the 60 young pelicans it took in earlier in the month, but the facility is still trying to pin down the source of their distress, SeaWorld's St. Leger said.

"Right now we are trying to help the birds that are coming to us... and trying to give them a second chance," she said.

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=scienceNews&storyID=5710549&section=news

 

[TheQuixote]

Anthrax Kills Wild Apes in Ivory Coast -Scientists
Wed 21 July, 2004 19:32

By Patricia Reaney

LONDON (Reuters) - Anthrax has killed apes in tropical rainforests in Ivory Coast where it has never been seen before and could pose a threat to humans, German researchers said on Wednesday.

Scientists had known from experiments that the acute infectious disease caused by spore-forming bacteria could kill monkeys but until now they had never come across evidence of it in wild populations.

"Anthrax has never been found killing chimpanzees in the wild before," Heinz Ellerbrok, a virologist at the Robert Koch-Institut in Berlin, said in an interview.

"It could pose a danger to humans because in this part of Africa it is quite common for bushmeat to be consumed and there is also illegal poaching going on," he added.

Conservationists have warned that Africa's lucrative bushmeat industry, which is a key source of food and income for poor people, is threatening species such as gorillas and chimpanzees with extinction.

Scientists are also concerned that people who hunt and eat the wild animals are being infected with animal illnesses that could pose a public health threat to humans.

Behavioral scientists who have been observing three communities of wild chimpanzees in the Tai National Park in Ivory Coast since 1984 were alarmed when they noticed a high number of deaths over nine months and alerted Ellerbrok and his colleagues.

The wild chimpanzees had been healthy shortly before they died, suggesting an acute infection had been the cause.

"We show that anthrax can be found in wild non-human primates living in a tropical rainforest," Ellerbrok and his colleagues said in the science journal Nature.

The researchers are not sure where the bacteria came from. They could have been there for a long time and had not been discovered. They suspect infections may be occurring in other parts of Africa.

"It is new to observe anthrax in this region, although we don't know where it comes from. Anthrax may be an indicator of other pathogens that are there," Ellerbrok said.

"There is also a risk of inter-species transmission from chimpanzees to humans. It is a realistic danger in this area due to bushmeat consumption," he added.

Anthrax can be transmitted by inhaling the spores, the deadliest form of the illness, through a cut in the skin, or by eating contaminated meat. Five people in the United States died and others were infected by anthrax-laced letters sent in the weeks following the Sept. 11 attacks.

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=scienceNews&storyID=5734509&section=news

 

[TheQuixote]

4 kangaroos at zoo die of parasitic infection

Deaths from organism often carried in cats' feces don't mean visitors to exhibit are at risk, experts say.

By Zachary A. Goldfarb
[email protected]
July 23, 2004

A parasite usually harmless to humans but deadly to marsupials killed four of the Indianapolis Zoo's nine red kangaroos this month.

Dashi, Lucy, Ballina and Yarra died after coming into contact with a single-celled parasite called Toxoplasma gondii, which most often is carried in the feces of cats. No cats are kept on zoo grounds, but strays find a way in.

Another infected kangaroo, Logan, is recovering at the zoo hospital. The remaining four are healthy and on display.

The deaths do not increase the risk that people who visit the zoo will get the parasite, doctors said. The zoo can't do much to protect the four healthy kangaroos -- Yampi, Sydney, Durango and Lursa -- if the parasite remains in their exhibit's soil. Doctors say millions of Americans have been exposed but that the vast majority do not get sick.

"It should not be a problem because it's not transmitted directly from a kangaroo to a person," said James Howell, veterinary epidemiologist with the Indiana State Department of Health. The dead kangaroos are cremated.

Red kangaroos are the largest living marsupials. Females average 60 pounds, while males run about 120, and the animals can reach 5 feet in length. They feed on grass, plants and, at this zoo, flavored bagels as treats.

Yarra, a 5-year-old, was the first to fall ill at the end of June. She was moved to a stall in the zoo hospital and given antibiotics but died a few days later. Zoo workers didn't know what the cause was until tissue samples were examined in a lab near Seattle.

Losing half of an animal collection is common in disease outbreaks, said Jeff Proudfoot, the zoo's senior veterinarian. Kangaroos and wallabies are especially susceptible to the parasite, though nobody knows why. About 10 years ago, wallabies were lost in a disease outbreak at the zoo, and the West Nile virus killed several lorikeets two years ago.

The zoo's most high-profile loss recently was the death of an elephant calf. Amali, the world's first African elephant conceived through artificial insemination, died in June 2003.

The zoo has had plans to add two kangaroos from Dickerson Park Zoo in Springfield, Mo., to the collection since before the outbreak.

For many zoo visitors, one kangaroo looks like another. Many passers-by Thursday stopped only briefly in the heat to look at the kangaroos and emus that shared an enclosure.

But some who cared for the kangaroos took the deaths hard.

"I had a special attachment to Dashi and Yarra," said keeper Holly Balok. "They basically look like stuffed animals that are alive. They feel as soft as they look."

Balok was cleaning the wild dog pool at the zoo when another keeper told her the news about Yarra.

"It was a shock because we weren't sure what was wrong with her and why she was sick," Balok said. But she knew something was wrong because Yarra wasn't eating at night.

"Usually they're ravenous when they come in and eat immediately," Balok said. "When they vary from that routine, a light bulb goes off.

"You just know."



About toxoplasmosis
The infection that is blamed for killing four kangaroos at the Indianapolis Zoo:
• Is a parasitic disease that can occur in most warm-blooded animals.
• Usually causes no symptoms in humans; but in rare cases, it can lead to swelling of the lymph nodes, flulike feelings, mononucleosis or a more severe disease.
• Can spread to humans who have eaten undercooked raw meat from infected animals or touched their mouths after changing the litter boxes of infected cats or after handling soil with infected cat feces.
• Can be prevented by fully cooking all meats, thoroughly washing hands after any potential contact, and using gloves or a plastic bag when handling litter boxes or other potentially infected materials.
• Should be of extra concern to pregnant women and people with weak immune systems.
The infection in kangaroos
• Kangaroos and similar animals are especially susceptible.
• In 2001, seven kangaroos and three wallabies died of toxoplasmosis at the Columbus Zoo in Ohio.

Other deaths at Indianapolis Zoo
• April 22, 2004: Eli, a giraffe, dies after surgery to correct digestive problems.
• June 3, 2003: Amali, the world's first African elephant conceived via artificial insemination, dies after emergency surgery for an intestinal blockage.
• April 2003: Sinker, a tiger that fathered two cubs, dies shortly after the two cubs are born. A necropsy shows he suffered an acute case of bloat, an intestinal ailment.
• August 2002: An Australian parrot called a lorikeet dies after becoming infected with the West Nile virus.
• April 2002: A wild California sea lion named Elvis dies of cancer.
• October 2001: Nishani, a giraffe, dies of what veterinarians say is a condition akin to sudden death syndrome.
Source: Star library

http://www.indystar.com/articles/9/164611-6849-009.html

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Published online: 21 July 2004; | doi:10.1038/news040719-9

Anthrax outbreak kills wild chimps

Helen Pilcher

Illegal trade could spread disease to humans.


Anthrax has killed at least six wild chimpanzees in the tropical rainforest of the Ivory Coast - the first time the disease has been seen in these animals and in this type of habitat. As well as threatening great ape populations, the discovery raises fears that the disease could spread to humans through the illegal trade in bushmeat.

Researchers studying chimps (Pan troglodytes verus) in the Taï National Park saw 8 animals disappear or die suddenly between October 2001 and June 2002. Healthy animals became weak, vomited and died within a few hours of symptoms appearing.

Post mortems revealed that the animals suffered massive internal bleeding, suggesting bacterial infection as a possible cause. Genetic analysis of 6 animals showed Bacillus anthracis, the bacterium that causes anthrax, to be the culprit. The results are reported in this week's Nature1.

"Finding anthrax was a big surprise," says Georg Pauli from the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin, Germany, who studied the primates. There have been no previous reports of anthrax in wild chimps, and the bacterium, which also infects humans and hooved animals, has not been found in Africa's tropical rainforests before.

Spread of infection

"It's a serious problem for chimps," says conservationist Peter Walsh from Princeton University, New Jersey. Africa's 100,000 to 200,000 remaining wild chimps are already under threat from commercial hunting, habitat destruction and the Ebola virus. It is not clear whether the anthrax outbreak is a one-off, or if there are likely to be further incidents.

The disease could also spread to humans. The bacterium forms hardy spores that can be breathed in, consumed in contaminated food and water, or can infect the skin through human-to-animal contact.

Although illegal, the bushmeat trade continues to thrive, so hunters could catch anthrax when handling infected corpses.

Passing livestock

It is unclear how the chimps became infected, making it hard for officials to instigate prevention and containment strategies.

One possibility is that the disease was imported from neighbouring countries, where anthrax is endemic. Deforestation means that cattle transport routes from Mali and Burkina Faso now pass close to the Taï National Park border, so the chimps may have caught the disease from passing livestock. "This is a reasonable suspicion," says Walsh.

Other suggestions are less likely, but still possible. The chimps may have ingested spores from contaminated water. But drinking sources are shared by many species, and no other animals have so far been diagnosed with the infection.

Or the chimps may have dined on contaminated antelope. But anthrax has never been confirmed in Ivory Coast antelope, and chimps have never been seen eating the animals.

Our lack of knowledge highlights the need for improved health surveillance of wild chimps, says Pauli. In response to the anthrax finding, he is helping to establish a survey to assess the disease status of the world's great apes.



----------------------
References
Leendertz F. H., et al. Nature, 430. 451 - 452 doi:10.1038/nature02722 (2004).

http://www.nature.com/news/2004/040719/full/040719-9.html

the article:

Nature 430, 451 - 452 (22 July 2004); doi:10.1038/nature02722



Anthrax kills wild chimpanzees in a tropical rainforest

FABIAN H. LEENDERTZ1,2,3, HEINZ ELLERBROK2, CHRISTOPHE BOESCH1, EMMANUEL COUACY-HYMANN4, KERSTIN MÄTZ-RENSING5, REGINE HAKENBECK6, CARINA BERGMANN6, POLA ABAZA1,2, SANDRA JUNGLEN1,2, YASMIN MOEBIUS1, LINDA VIGILANT1, PIERRE FORMENTY7 & GEORG PAULI2

Infectious disease has joined habitat loss and hunting as threats to the survival of the remaining wild populations of great apes. Nevertheless, relatively little is known about the causative agents. We investigated an unusually high number of sudden deaths observed over nine months in three communities of wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) in the Taï National Park, Ivory Coast. Here we report combined pathological, cytological and molecular investigations that identified Bacillus anthracis as the cause of death for at least six individuals. We show that anthrax can be found in wild non-human primates living in a tropical rainforest, a habitat not previously known to harbour B. anthracis. Anthrax is an acute disease that infects ruminants, but other mammals, including humans, can be infected through contacting or inhaling high doses of spores or by consuming meat from infected animals. Respiratory and gastrointestinal anthrax are characterized by rapid onset, fever, septicaemia and a high fatality rate without early antibiotic treatment. Our results suggest that epidemic diseases represent substantial threats to wild ape populations, and through bushmeat consumption also pose a hazard to human health.

and a more recent article:

Anthrax blamed for mystery chimp deaths

The cause of death of nine chimpanzees who died mysteriously at the Tai National Park in Ivory Coast between 2001 and 2002 has been found to be anthrax - a development that has put the bacteria on the list of extinction threats to Africa's great apes.

The findings were confirmed by Dr Heinz Ellerbrok of the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin and Dr Fabian Leendertz of the Max Planck Institute, and published in the journal Nature.

Dr Leendertz told BBC World Service's Science In Action programme that the chimps had often displayed no signs of being unwell until only very shortly before their deaths.

"One... suddenly had troubles getting up, vomited two times, and climbed up a little tree and fell down dead.

"That was it - no real symptoms."

Mystery pathogen

Anthrax now joins deforestation, the bushmeat trade and other diseases such as Ebola on the list of extinction threats to the apes.

Dr Leendertz said that Ebola was among the suspected causes of the ape deaths, as it is also very swift to kill - but that because the symptoms were so unclear it took a long time to identify the anthrax as the pathogen.

Meanwhile Dr Ellerbrok said that anthrax had never been before seen in wild primates or in the tropical rainforest environment.

"We knew that anthrax can affect great apes, but it has never been observed in wild primates and it has never been observed in this particular setting," he added.

"This bacteria has never been discovered before in tropical forests. It was a big surprise for us. It took us quite a while to think about anthrax."

They said that the key question remained of where the anthrax had come from.

"We know it's there, but we have no idea where it came from - whether it has been residing in this region for ages, or whether it was introduced recently from neighbouring countries."

The mystery is further deepened because anthrax cannot be passed on from chimp to chimp.

"You have to ingest the germs in one way or the other - either inhaling spores, or consuming infected meat or skin lesions," Dr Ellebrok explained.

One possibility is the meat the chimps gather from hunting, as they eat a number of different monkey species.

However, the chimps had been under constant observation and none had been seen hunting in the days preceding their deaths.

Human link

Dr Ellerbrok also suggested that it was possible an animal that had been killed by anthrax had lain dead in a water source, and the chimps had picked up the anthrax from there.

"There must be a common source," he stressed.

"In two of the three outbreaks we observed, several animals were affected at the same time."

Meanwhile, there are now concerns that, as there is an ongoing illegal trade in bushmeat throughout the region, the anthrax bacteria could be passed on to humans.

"This is one big concern," Dr Ellerbrok said.

"It is not only anthrax - we have found other pathogens and retroviruses in the forest.

"All these pathogens can be transmitted via bushmeat consumption and handling the meat."

He added that if anthrax did jump to humans, the Ivorian government would prepare a campaign to warn of the dangers of bushmeat consumption.

"We are working in close collaboration with Ivorian institutes," he said.

"We will be looking for pathogens... to see if this transmission has already taken place."

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/3929645.stm

Published: 2004/07/29 12:47:21 GMT

© BBC MMIV

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Scientist hip-hops into frog mystery




By Jennifer Bails
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, July 30, 2004


SOUTH SHENANGO -- For lack of a better name, they call it The Farm.

Drive about two hours north of Pittsburgh, cross over the carp-crammed spillway at Pymatuning Reservoir to an unmarked dirt road, and you will stumble upon this 130-acre tract of converted swampland.

There, under a wide open sky, thousands of tadpoles wiggle in murky, algae-encrusted tubs, unaware that their fate is in the hands of University of Pittsburgh biology professor Rick Relyea.

The Farm is an outpost of Pitt's Pymatuning Laboratory of Ecology, a field research station in Crawford County where Relyea and his baby frogs are upending widely held beliefs about pesticide safety. Relyea's early findings suggest that today's acceptable levels of pesticides might be far more deadly to amphibians -- and might pose a greater threat to human health -- than once thought.

His research also is helping to unravel a mystery that has baffled scientists for years: Why are frogs around the world disappearing in record numbers, and is this a harbinger of environmental doom?

Relyea, 38, of Zelienople, Butler County, grew up in Upstate New York and credits fishing trips with his dad and boyhood forays into muddy ponds for giving him an early course in biology. It's little wonder that he ended up with a doctorate in aquatic ecology and an insatiable curiosity about how nature works.

Five years ago, on a scientific whim, Relyea and a colleague decided to find out what would happen if they exposed tadpoles to low doses of a common pesticide called carbaryl (pronounced CARB-a-rill) in the presence of a predator.

You can buy carbaryl in your local hardware store as the brand-name product Sevin. And people do -- in droves. Ten to 15 million pounds of this nerve agent are used every year on farms and in homes across America to keep crops bug-free and fleas off the family dog. Carbaryl represents one of about 21,000 chemical pesticides in a multibillion-dollar industry.

Pesticide manufacturers are required to measure the toxicity of all bug and weed killers they make, and the results must be approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Most toxicology data, however, are collected under artificial conditions: Researchers slowly add a chemical to a tank of critters and find out how much is needed to kill half of them over a period of several days. This is the standard way to test the potency of a substance, but the procedure might grossly underestimate the dangers of pesticides by failing to account for the real-world effects of predators and other natural stressors, Relyea said.

Scent of a predator

At the time of Relyea's initial carbaryl experiment, ecologists knew that tadpoles use chemical cues to detect when predators are nearby and often reduce their activity or growth rate when they sense danger. But no one had ever studied what happens when tadpoles, already scared by the "scent" of a predator, are then treated with supposedly nonlethal amounts of pesticide.

The results were shocking. So shocking, in fact, that Relyea repeated the experiment before he believed what he saw: Lots and lots of dead tadpoles.

"I said to myself, 'Holy mackerel! These guys are all dead. That wasn't supposed to happen,'" said Relyea, who had expected his ill-fated tadpoles to stop growing and become sluggish, at worst.

With further experimentation, Relyea found that low, so-called safe concentrations of carbaryl are up to 46 times more deadly to tadpoles when combined with another stressor, the presence of a hungry predator.

The implications of these findings were at once clear, if not conclusive.

"What we thought were safe concentrations of pesticides under some conditions for some species might not be," Relyea said, choosing his words carefully for now because there is still a lot of work to be done.

Not glamourous work

Relyea's landmark discovery was published in 2001 in the prestigious and widely cited Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Since then, Relyea and his team of graduate students at Pymatuning have observed the same double-whammy effect of pesticides and predators in a number of frog species native to North America.

Scientists at the EPA and in the agrichemical industry are taking notice of these studies, which were the first to bring toxicology out of the lab and into the field, said Yale University biology professor David Skelly, who also studies amphibians.

"Dr. Relyea's work has received a lot of attention from people who are involved in the creation and regulation of pesticides," Skelly said. "They know that this is going on, and they recognize that it might be really important."

Important, maybe, but not glamorous.

Days at The Farm are spent hunting for frog eggs in soggy wetlands abuzz with mosquitoes, capturing larval dragonflies and scrubbing giant cattle troughs used as tadpole tanks. Ratty T-shirts and hip-waders are the outfits of choice. With Relyea standing ankle-deep in mud, encircled by tubs teeming with slimy creatures, it may be hard to believe the science being done here could trigger a paradigm shift.

"It's still pretty early, and there's going to need to be many more studies," Skelly said. "But this could represent a fundamental change in how our society thinks about pesticide safety."

For that to happen, more evidence must be collected pointing toward the joint effects of pesticides and natural stressors, Skelly said. Research that links these effects to human health could prompt the EPA and pesticide industry to re-evaluate how they test the chemicals released into the environment, he said.

Hopping away

Then there's the enigma of the vanishing frogs.

About a decade ago, scientists realized that amphibian populations around the world were in decline.

The most important reason for this trend is habitat loss resulting from draining wetlands and harvesting timber.

But frogs are disappearing in seemingly pristine areas, too, and no one is quite sure why.

Relyea's experiments suggest that low concentrations of pesticides at work in natural conditions could be a prime suspect, which in turn would be an indicator of more widespread water quality problems.

This hypothesis is supported by recent findings of declining amphibian populations upwind from agricultural lands in central California, Relyea said. Amphibians collected from this region have decreased amounts of an enzyme found in the nervous system, evidence that neurotoxins such as carbaryl are at work, he said.

Back on The Farm, every trough scoured and tadpole hatched in this remote corner of northwest Pennsylvania could bring Relyea one step closer to finding answers to these global questions. Along the way, the scientific pioneer is having the time of his life.

"It's hard to believe we get paid to do this every day," said Relyea, looking out across his soggy outdoor lab -- the "Ecology Factory" as Skelly calls it.

"It's just too fun," he said.

http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/regional/s_205757.html

 

[TheQuixote]

Sniffer dog 'dies from overdose'

A sniffer dog has died from a suspected overdose after a police drugs search.

Springer spaniel Todd became ill after searching a car and field in Preston, Lancashire, and was taken to the vet by his handler, Pc Roger Moore.

The seven-year-old was then transferred to the specialist animal unit at Liverpool University, where he died.

His symptoms were similar to amphetamine poisoning, Lancashire Police said. The results of a post-mortem examination will be known later.

Pc Moore noticed Todd was ill about an hour after they finished the search on 24 July.

A Lancashire Police spokeswoman said: "Todd was taken to the vet, who confirmed his symptoms were similar to those seen in previous cases where amphetamines have been ingested."

He was taken to Liverpool University when his condition worsened, but the veterinary experts were unable to save him, and he died the next morning.

He was a little bit daft, like all springers are, but they are good working dogs and they are very, very keen

Lancashire Police
Todd lived with Pc Moore, his wife and two children, and the family are said to be devastated by his death.

He was a former gun-dog that had been donated to the police, and had served with the force for five years.

"He was a good dog and a family pet," a spokesman for Preston's dog unit said.

"Pc Moore and his family are very upset.

"He lived with them and they would all go for walks with him - he was their dog. It was a shock for them.

"He was a little bit daft, like all springers are, but they are good working dogs and they are very, very keen."

There were no drugs seized during the search, Lancashire Police said.

BBCi News 02/07/04

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

This is an odd one - who/what would break all their legs (other than an East End gangster)?

Wednesday, September 8, 2004
MIDDLE ISLAND

38 ducks found dead

BY COLLIN NASH
STAFF WRITER

September 7, 2004


Scott Gordy couldn't believe his eyes.

As he turned off Jericho Turnpike in Middle Island onto Church Lane around 6:45 a.m. Monday, the Coram resident happened upon 38 dead ducks and ducklings strewn across the roadway near a pond. All of their legs were broken. Many, he said, had been run over.

He called 911, and, with the permission of authorities that arrived at the scene, shoveled the carcasses of the white, domestic ducks to one side of the roadway.

"I can't figure out how so many ducks could be killed like this," he said. "It didn't make sense to me. It was gruesome."

Indications are it was a case of aggravated animal abuse, said Roy Gross, department chief of the Suffolk County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which is doing a joint investigation with the Suffolk County Police Department. "The legs of every single one of the birds, even those that were not run over, were broken."

There are many possible causes for their death, including poison or an infection with a virus such as West Nile, Gross said.

"We will do everything in our power to bring those responsible to justice," he said, noting that animal abuse in the state is a felony.

A number of cases involving mass killings of birds have been reported on Long Island over recent years.

In June 1999, nearly two dozen Canada geese were found dead on a small grassy median in Plainview by the man who cared for them for more than a dozen years. The trays of food for the geese were filled with what officials called a "milky, white substance, appeared to have been intentionally poisoned with pesticide."

Less than a year later in January 2000, more than three dozen dead and dying Canada geese recovered at Crooked Pond in Southampton were found, through testing, to have lead poisoning from ingesting lead pellets fired by skeet shooters.

Just over three years later in February 2003, about 90 dead and dying geese were recovered at the same pond. Tests by the Wildlife Rescue Center of the Hamptons determined they, too, had suffered lead poisoning.

Gross said the first thing to cross his mind after arriving at the scene was the possibility of the pond being poisoned. That, however, didn't appear to be the case, he said, because other birds in the water appeared healthy.

Residents in the area said the birds appeared at the pond three days or longer before they were found dead.

Gross said ducks are commonly abandoned by people who get them as ducklings and for a variety of reasons end up dumping them. It's only speculation right now, he said, but it's a possibility they were dumped because they were sick.

While this doesn't rank as the worst case of animal abuse he has seen in his 20 years with the SPCA, Gross said, it still shook him up. "I was shocked," he said. "It's something you never get used to."

----------------------
Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc.

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/ny-liduck0907,0,207135.story?coll=ny-liminute-headlines

 

[TheQuixote]

Saskatoon on alert after 5 dogs killed
Last Updated Thu, 09 Sep 2004 13:54:06 EDT

CALGARY - Five dogs have died in Saskatoon during the past week after eating poisoned food left in city parks, the third such incident in the past four years.

Champ lies in the intensive care unit of Saskatoon's veterinary hospital with his owners at his side.

Each of the animals suffered strychnine poisoning after eating wieners or sausages filled with rat poison.

Seven poisoning cases have been confirmed since last Thursday, all in or near the city's Grosvenor Park. Along with the five animals that died, two others are still alive after eating the tainted food.

Kevin Sutton said his two dogs, Luca and Champ, were nosing around a bush in the park when a nearby child told him the dogs were eating a hot dog. Thinking nothing of it, Sutton left the park and ran a few errands before going home.

"I stopped at a grocery store for five to-10 minutes, and I came back and Luca was dead in the van," said Sutton.

Within hours, Champ was sick as well, and remains in the intensive care unit of Saskatoon's veterinary hospital.

Saskatoon veterinarian Stanley Rubin said it's a clear act of malice towards people and animals.

"People can only feel very lucky we haven't had any children poisoned, because it can be just as lethal in a person as in a dog," said Rubin. "Young children... will often scoop something up off the ground and put it in their mouth."

Early treatment is the only hope for an animal or person who ingests the poison, he said.

Strychnine is usually used to control rats. It attacks the blood system, causing convulsions and then death.

The city's Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which is investigating the incidents, is warning people to keep their dogs on a leash and under a close watch while walking them in public areas.

This is the not the first time dogs have died of strychnine poisoning in Saskatoon.

Two dogs died after eating strychnine-laced meat two months ago in Saskatoon's Eastview neighbourhood, while in September 2000, two dogs were fatally poisoned when they ate wieners tainted with strychnine.

Earlier this year, one dog died and 15 dogs became ill after visits to a Toronto park where their owners could let them off their leashes. Police believe a pesticide was deliberately inserted into hotdogs left on the grounds of Withrow Park.

Written by CBC News Online staff

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2004/09/09/dogs_calgary040909.html

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

September 09 2004 at 10:23AM

Killer mice threaten giant birds


By John Yeld



Gough Island in the South Atlantic Ocean, a World Heritage Site, is probably the world's most important seabird breeding area. But scientists have found that the common house mouse, introduced to the island by sealers during the 18th and 19th centuries, is eating alive defenceless albatross and petrel chicks while they sit on their nests.


Richard Cuthbert, the first professional ornithologist to spend a year on Gough Island, is still kicking himself.

He can't quite believe that his year on the British-owned island deep in the South Atlantic Ocean was almost over before he stumbled on the nightmare answer to a problem that had been puzzling him for months.

Initially, Cuthbert, who is on board the SA Agulhas on his way back to Gough Island, couldn't understand the extremely poor breeding success rate or distribution of several species on the island, which is probably the world's most important seabird breeding area.

Then, he made the horrifying discovery that the common house mice on Gough - dubbed "super mice" because of their size - are eating alive defenceless chicks sitting on their nests, including young Tristan Albatrosses, an endangered species.

Because all Gough's seabird species have evolved over thousands of years in the absence of natural predators at their breeding sites, these chicks have no defence mechanism against the mice, and are literally eaten as they sit on their nests waiting for their parents to return to feed them.

Two students working on the island to confirm Cuthbert's gruesome finding and gauge the scale of the problem have managed to get video footage of mice attacking the defenceless chicks.

"It sounds incredulous, implausible, that a mouse could attack a chick," says Cuthbert.

"But these (albatross) chicks are really big spherical balls of fat covered in down, and because they're so big and fat, they can't defend themselves."

Although there had been some earlier ornithological work on Gough Island, done on a voluntary basis by the meteorological team, Cuthbert and his field assistant, Eric Sommer, were the first people to spend a whole year there dedicated to doing bird research, during 2000/1.

Cuthbert explains that rats, brought by sailors, have had a major impact on seabird populations around the world - and particularly on islands. "At the same time, we've known that mice are on the island, introduced by the sealers.

"But mice aren't a problem - at least, that's what we've been led to believe. So this was something that we nearly missed, and I only twigged after about 10 months down there that, hell, something strange is happening here."

Summer-breeding birds, like the Atlantic Yellow-nosed Albatross, the Sooty Albatross and the Great Shearwaters, appeared to be doing okay, Cuthbert recalls.

"But the winter breeders - particularly Atlantic Petrels and the Tristan Albatross - were getting hammered."

Still, he didn't think of mice as the culprits.

"Mice normally eat insects and seeds. I think it's been recorded that Storm Petrel eggs have been taken by mice, and possibly their chicks as well."

But a Storm Petrel weighs only 25 or 30g, while a Tristan Albatross chick weighs as much as 10 or 12kg, Cuthbert points out.

"So a mouse weighing only 50 or 60g attacking something that is over 10kg is unprecedented really."

How did he stumble on this grizzly phenomenon?

He explains that Atlantic Petrels breed in burrows, and that he and Sommer had a number of "study burrows" that they checked every four or five days.

"And we certainly noticed that the healthy chicks that we found there were, five days later, just skin-and-bone, or dead.

"And then in one case I saw a live chick with wounds around its rump, and later that day it was dead with mice feeding on it.

"At that time I didn't really think more of it, because it was so 'out of left field' that mice could be doing this."

Then, later in the year, the two researchers made a total count of Tristan Albatross chicks. "And their breeding success was appalling."

Ross Wanless and Andrea Angel, the two students from the Percy FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology at the University of Cape Town, have confirmed that Atlantic Petrel and Tristan Albatross chicks are being killed by mice.

Given the current rates of mortalities, are any bird species actually at risk of extinction because of mice?

For example, the Tristan Albatross is of particular concern because it is now extinct at its original breeding ground on Tristan da Cunha, and Gough Island is home to some 99.8% of the remaining population.

"The Tristan Albatross is at risk anyway because of long-line fishing, and it's doubly at risk because of the mice," responds Cuthbert.

"And for the Atlantic Petrels, while we've never had any record of them getting caught by fishing boats or long-line boats, the level of breeding success they're having at the moment is not sustainable."

The one advantage that albatrosses and petrels have is that they are very long-lived, Cuthbert adds.

"It's a big, big conservation concern, but in the next five years or so - probably nothing will go extinct as a direct result of the mice, I would imagine."


----------------------
The facts

They may be ordinary house mice, but the creatures creating havoc with Gough Island's bird populations are known as "super mice" - and for good reason.

They're the largest of any house mouse population anywhere in the world, in terms of body size.

"They're about twice the size of a normal house mouse in Britain," confirms ornithologist Richard Cuthbert.

This is because of a scientific rule that mammals get progressively bigger as the latitude gets higher - that is, moving towards the poles and as the climate gets colder.

"Even taking that into account, they are super-sized, and obviously super-charged in terms of their effect for attacking albatrosses," says Cuthbert.

But he points out that the fact that the mice are so big is probably "a bit of a false premise, really".

"Because even if they were only half the size they are, they could probably still attack the albatross chicks."

-----------------------------------------
This article was originally published on page 17 of The Cape Argus on September 09, 2004

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?sf=2813&click_id=31&art_id=vn20040909102354376C134474&set_id=

 

[TheQuixote]

Mystery deaths of Ugandan hippos

Some 100 hippos have died from a mysterious disease in a national park in south-western Uganda in the past month, say wildlife experts.

The Ugandan Wildlife Authority (UWA) said they were carrying out tests to establish the cause of death in Queen Elizabeth National Park.

UWA head John Nagenda says he thinks it may be rinderpest brought into the park by cattle seeking pasture.

There are an estimated 4,000 hippos in the country.

Twenty-five hippo deaths were reported the previous month.

Mr Nagenda told AFP news agency said that an exercise to inoculate all cattle near the parks is going to be started immediately.


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/africa/3652372.stm

Published: 2004/09/13 13:35:46 GMT

© BBC MMIV

 

[ginoide]

what's killing the birds in greece?

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20040909/sc_afp/greece_environment_birds_040909165455

Thousands of migratory birds in the Greek nature reserve of Lake Koronia have died in recent months in what birds specialists are calling "an ecological catastrophe," several sources said.


Hundreds of dead gulls, tern and ducks -- at least 15 species in all -- were discovered just in the last few days, the sources said Thursday.


Autopsies and tests of water samples from the lake are underway, but experts do not yet know what is responsible for the sudden wave of avian fatalities, described by Xenofon Kappas, spokesman of the Greek ornithological society, as "a major ecological catastrophe."


"For the moment, we are in the process of counting the number of dead birds," Kappas told AFP.


The Greek news agency ANA put the Lake Korina avian death toll at 3,000, but experts said that more than 10,000 dead birds have been found on the lake in recent months.


The Mayor of Salonika, 520 kilometers (320 miles) north of Athens, adopted "emergency measures" to deal with the crisis, reported ANA, and water samples have been sent to Salonika University for testing. Fishing has also been banned, though no dead fish have been found.


Lake Korinia is one of 27 parks in Greece that are part of the Natura 2000, a European Union (news - web sites)-sponsored network of bird sanctuaries and threatened habitats.


The Lake is also one of 10 Greek ecological sites protected by the Ramsar treaty, and international convention on wetland ecosystems adopted in the mid-1970.

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

A mystery in the wild

Few answers as deer fall prey to a deadly disease

Jon Bonne / MSNBC.com
Wildlife managers in Colorado have attached tracking bracelets to elk like these grazing on the edge of Rocky Mountain National Park and to deer in hopes of learning more about chronic wasting disease, an illness related to mad cow.

By Jon Bonné
MSNBC
Updated: 11:59 a.m. ET Sept. 21, 2004

ESTES PARK, Colo. - There is an illness in the wild, leaving a trail of questions as it spreads from state to state.

Along the edge of Rocky Mountain National Park, brown-gray elk graze quietly, wearing the occasional tracking tag, as tourists snap photos nearby. Others walk within breathing distance of well-traveled roadsides. Are these animals healthy, or stricken with a deadly illness known as chronic wasting disease?

CWD, as it is known, is a cousin to bovine spongiform encephalopathy — mad cow disease — which has proven deadly not only for cows but some humans as well.

In northern Colorado, Gary Wolfe keeps a keen eye on the deer he hunts, closely watching for signs they are infected. Wolfe, who runs the Chronic Wasting Disease Alliance, a coalition of hunting and conservation groups, worries that CWD — as the disease is known — could destroy mule deer populations and wreak havoc among herds. "There's some real important reasons for stopping this," he says.

Wildlife officials as far east as Illinois and Wisconsin, where CWD was detected two years ago, are equally worried.

Wisconsin wildlife managers spend up to a third of their budget, as much as million a year, to fight it. "This remains a disease that the country needs to stand up and pay attention to," says Tom Hauge, the state's director of wildlife management.

Mad cow versus CWD

The world has taken note of the spread of mad cow disease. Detected worldwide, it has stricken more than 180,000 cattle in the United Kingdom and is linked to some 140 human deaths. The first U.S. case was found last December.

But unlike mad cow, chronic wasting disease infects species that remain a minor source of food for Americans, and there are notable scientific differences between the diseases.

"There's no such thing as mad deer disease," Wolfe insists.

Yet there are plenty of similarities between mad cow and CWD. And the United States has an estimated 10 million deer hunters and 900,000 elk hunters; in Michigan alone, more than 500,000 deer are killed during hunting season.

Many of these are trophy kills, and even commercial venison remains a specialty item, but hundreds of thousands of Americans eat deer and elk meat. In areas infected with CWD, up to 10 percent or more of deer are found to carry the disease.

Lessons learned from CWD may help scientists understand diseases like mad cow.

Both are transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, or TSEs. They can both be passed from animal to animal, though by different means, and are thought to be caused by misshapen forms of proteins known as prions. These deformed prions eat holes in a creature's brain, inevitably leading to death.

"These are especially scary diseases to us people, because they arise from something you can eat, and they affect the brain, and they are uniformly fatal," says Edward Hoover, director of Colorado State University's Retrovirus and Prion Research Laboratory.

'A huge mystery'

Unanswered questions linger about all prion diseases, including scrapie in sheep and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans. Even more than mad cow, chronic wasting disease remains what Jeffrey Ver Steeg, wildlife programs coordinator for the Colorado Division of Wildlife, calls "a huge mystery."

Can it infect people? Most researchers have yet to see evidence it can. No cases of a human prion disease like variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob have been tied to eating deer or elk. The federal Centers for Disease Control concluded in June that the lack of definitive cases suggests "the risk, if any, of transmission of CWD to humans is low."

At the same time, the CDC acknowledged several puzzling cases of patients who died of neurological diseases after eating wild game. In 2003, doctors at the VA Hospital in Seattle reported Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in three hunters; the CDC would not investigate, saying there was no evidence the men ate tainted meat. A 2002 study documented three Wisconsin men who regularly ate venison and took part in large "game feasts"; two were diagnosed with CJD and one was diagnosed with Pick's disease, a form of dementia.

The agency concluded "an adequate number of people may not have been exposed to the CWD agent to result in a clinically recognizable human disease."

Similarly, in 2000 a group of well-known scientists wrote in the EMBO Journal, a European biology publication, that while they believed humans had "very low" susceptibility to CWD, the disease could have as much infectivity as mad cow disease, and could potentially cross the species barrier. It was, they said, "premature to draw firm conclusions."

Reassurance and vigilance

With no clear evidence that the disease impacts humans, wildlife agencies have tried to reassure nervous game hunters, who provide crucial revenue, and enlist their help in tracking and eradicating the disease.

Advice to hunters: Try not to hunt in infected areas. If you do, don't hunt apparently ill animals. When handling a carcass, wear gloves.

And officials have sought to educate the public about the disease's telltale signs. As the prions wear holes in an infected animal's brain, the creature slowly loses control of motor functions, behaves ever more erratically and becomes emaciated as it slowly dies.

While wildlife agencies play down any danger, they also provide stark warnings not to eat animal parts considered to be at highest risk, such as the brain and nervous tissue. Many suggest that meat from an infected animal not be eaten at all.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5463499/

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Dead squirrels found in local waters a mystery

Wednesday, September 29, 2004
By Terry Judd, Chad D. Lerch and Cynthia Miller
CHRONICLE STAFF WRITERS

State biologists are mystified by a mass squirrel die-off that has left more than a hundred dead squirrels washed up on West Michigan beaches.

Among the questions: Why are the expired tree dwellers ending up in the water?

The first possibilities to be checked are disease or parasites. The odd circumstance will remain a mystery for several more weeks as the Michigan Department of Natural Resources conduct tests on tissue samples.

Nik Kalejs, a DNR biologist with the Muskegon Game Area, said samples from squirrel carcasses have been sent to laboratories at Michigan State University for analysis. Officials believe it is likely the squirrels are dying from natural causes. Lab technicians will be looking at a variety of causes, include squirrel pox or possibly West Nile disease.

"We cannot rule anything out," he said. "What we do know is the number of dead squirrels found seems to go beyond normal."

For the past three weeks, West Michigan residents have been noticing a large number of dead squirrels along Lake Michigan, fueling speculation that the animals are being ravaged by a disease or are being poisoned. DNR officials say deliberate poisoning is highly unlikely because of the number of squirrels being affected and the wide area where squirrel bodies are being found.

There is a possibility of food contamination. They said there have been reports of dead squirrels along much of the Lake Michigan shoreline in Michigan.

"All of these will be explored," Kalejs said.

Russ Bleich, who was a DNR conservation officer for Muskegon and Ottawa counties for 30 years, recalled a similar situation years ago where construction work along the U.S. 31 drawbridge in Grand Haven caused a number of squirrels to die and fall into the Grand River. The incident caused a large number of squirrel bodies to wash up on Lake Michigan beaches around Grand Haven, he said.

Just as Lake Michigan beaches are littered with garbage carried by the Grand River from communities upriver, Bleich suspects most of the dead squirrels are being carried to Lake Michigan beaches by area rivers. He said these beaches are likely the final resting spots for the squirrels and the animals are not dying in Lake Michigan or on its beaches.

"It's just like seeing a bunch of spend shotgun shell casings on the beach; they were carried to the lake by the rivers," he said. "The same goes for the squirrels. My gut feeling is this is a natural occurrence and that the squirrels are being carried downstream by the river.

"When all of this settles, I believe it is going to be some natural occurrence or some parasite."

Some of the tissue samples were collected by DNR officers at P.J. Hoffmaster State Park's Gillette Nature Center. Nature center workers said the squirrels first were noticed on the beach about three weeks ago, but have no reports of a large number of bodies found in the woods.

The number of bodies found on the beach has been steadily declining, they said. Most of those affected are fox squirrels.

The squirrel deaths have been a hot topic with area high school biology classes. Grand Haven High School Biology teacher Roger Glass said his students have been buzzing over a recent phenomenon of dead squirrels, in alarming numbers, along the lakeshore.

"I've never heard of anything like this before. There's something very strange going on," Glass said.

Glass said if it was just one species it might be a certain disease or disorder. Otherwise, there would be various species involved. Student reports indicate fox and red squirrels have been sited swimming or dead along the shoreline.

"I have no idea what's going on," Glass said. "The DNR was talking about somebody poisoning them and they go for water. But ... it can't be just somebody poisoning them because they're all up and down the lakeshore."

DNR investigators have collected squirrel carcasses as evidence to determine a cause for the problem. Samples have been sent to a lab to determine whether a disease may be to blame for outbreak of dead squirrels.

Grand Haven Senior Ashleigh Urbanik, 17, has noticed dead squirrels floating along the boardwalk and pier as well as others swimming.

"Someone built a stick bridge from a pile of branches to the shore so they could cross. We rescued three of them. They were fox squirrels," she said. "Once we got them out they just sat there because they were so tired. They looked normal except for they were sopping wet and really tired."

Grand Haven Township resident John Stuparits said he walked along the boardwalk recently and saw dozens of squirrels in the river. Some of the squirrels were still alive and fishermen scooped them up with nets to save them.

Stuparits, who is the manager of Grand Haven's wastewater plant, said at first glance he thought maybe high waters from rain around Labor Day might have caused the problem. But as Stuparits saw more floating carcasses, he realized it was a bigger problem than that.

"At first, you think maybe one or two of them fell in," he said. "But after several consecutive times going down there and seeing the same thing, you have to think there's more behind it."


-------------------
© 2004 Muskegon Chronicle.

http://www.mlive.com/news/muchronicle/index.ssf?/base/news-3/1096472877254800.xml

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Anthrax Kills 120 Hippos in Ugandan National Park

Tue Oct 5, 6:56 AM ET

Science - Reuters

By Daniel Wallis

KAMPALA, Uganda (Reuters) - An anthrax outbreak has killed 120 hippos in Uganda, raising the toll from a disease that has claimed hundreds of wild animals in Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia in recent weeks, a senior official said Tuesday.

The cause of the outbreaks is unclear, but Ugandan wildlife officials say there is a possibility that similar weather patterns in the afflicted areas may have contributed to the spread of the disease.

Anthrax occurs when animals ingest remnants of vegetation in the driest months of September and October, absorbing bacterial spores that can live for decades in dry soil.

The Ugandan outbreak, one its worst mass deaths of big game from disease in years, occurred in the Queen Elizabeth National Park, about 350 km (220 miles) southwest of the capital and home to about half the country's 10,000 hippos.

"We took samples, we analyzed them in our laboratory and we saw anthrax spores," Nicholas Kauta, Uganda's commissioner of livestock, told Reuters.

Kauta said officials would keep monitoring movements of the animals to detect any signs the disease would spread.

"As of now, the disease seems to be dying out, but we cannot say that for sure because we have not yet established its epidemiology," he said.

He said secondary tests carried out by the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin confirmed the Ugandan results.

Kauta said game wardens at the park, a popular tourist attraction, had recorded only one hippo death in the last week.

Anthrax can be transmitted to people who cut up, carry or eat the meat of dead animals.

Ugandan officials have warned residents in the area not to touch hippo carcasses after newspapers reported that two people had died after eating infected hippo flesh.

Zimbabwean officials say more than 2,000 animals, including 100 buffalo, died in the biggest outbreak of anthrax in its private nature sanctuaries, but say the disease is now under control.

Namibian officials said last month an anthrax outbreak in Botswana's Chobe National Park spread across the border and killed elephants and buffalo.

Source

 

[TheQuixote]

Swans die in city docks mystery

The RSPCA is investigating eight unexplained swan deaths in the harbourside of Bristol.

The fatalities occurred between 18 September and 1 October between Bristol Bridge and Redcliffe.

Of the eight, four were taken to the RSPCA in the city and another four taken to the swan sanctuary in Swindon. A ninth is recovering at West Hatch.

The charity said it did not know what caused the deaths, but it could be a contaminant in the water.

Damien Pacini, of the RSPCA, said: "This is a bit of a mystery. We've taken blood samples but the results are very non-specific.

"It could have happened for a number of reasons, including lead poisoning from fishing tackle. Other causes could include water contamination.

"We also checked for botulism, which you would normally associate with summer and low water levels when the birds dig deeper into the bottom of the docks."

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/england/bristol/3727204.stm

Published: 2004/10/08 13:44:51 GMT
© BBC MMIV

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Ornithologists in the dark about mysterious decline of British owls

By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor

20 October 2004

Mysterious, mournful, malevolent; but also wise, warm and wonderful. A raft of adjectives is needed to capture the complex emotions aroused in us by owls, perhaps the most enigmatic of all wild birds.

But another word is becoming appropriate: declining. For the country's five native owl species seem to be steadily falling in number, and their nocturnal habits make them difficult to observe.

A huge research effort to chronicle numbers and causes for their decline is being organised by the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), which launched an appeal yesterday.

The species under the spotlight will be the tawny owl (the most common), the barn owl (the most rapidly declining), the short-eared owl (the least numerous), the long-eared owl (the most elusive) and the little owl (the most recent arrival).

Recently, Britain has boasted a sixth nesting wild species, the spectacular snowy owl of the Arctic, several of which bred for a number of years in the 1960s and 1970s on Fetlar, an island in Shetland, only to disappear.

The BTO says the research is urgent to make sure other species don't go the same way. "It is really quite scandalous how little we know about our populations of tawny and other owl species," said Humphrey Crick, the BTO's senior ecologist. "If we're not careful, they could begin to disappear without anybody really noticing."

The research effort will focus initially on three species. Two, the barn owl and the short-eared owl, are already birds of conservation concern. The barn owl's decline has been the most notable, with a population estimated at 4,000 to 5,000 pairs, less than half the number of 50 years ago. The fall is largely due to intensive farming, in particular the disappearance of unimproved grassland harbouring its main prey, field voles.

Less is known about the short-eared owl - there are about 2,000 nesting pairs mainly in the north and west of Britain - but it has a contracting range as well as a falling population.

The third species is the tawny owl. It is our commonest but there is increasing evidence that its numbers have tumbled in the past decade, so the BTO is organising a survey. It is seeking to raise at least £85,000.

Owls are increasingly liked today, and not just because of Harry Potter, says Mark Cocker, an ornithologist and author who publishes Birds Britannica, a compendium of bird folklore, next year. He thinks people are fascinated by owls largely because they are birds of the night, but says we now also associate them with beauty and wisdom. "It is this irreducible mystery in owls, troubling and captivating, that compels our attention and has more recently awakened our affections."

* Cheques, made payable to BTO, should be sent to BTO Owl Appeal, The Nunnery, Thetford, Norfolk, IP24 2PU; telephone 01842 750050 to make a credit-card donation; or give online at http://www.bto.org. Birds Britannica will be published in 2005 by Chatto and Windus.

SPECIES UNDER THREAT

Barn owl (Tyto alba)

This owl, pictured, is white underneath and seen over grassland as it hunts. Rapidly declining as intensive farming kills off the voles on which it feeds.

Tawny owl (Strix aluco)

Our most familiar owl, not least from its two calls: the musical hoot of the male ("tu-whoo"), and screech of the female ("tu-whit"). Encountered in cities; a pair breeds in the Buckingham Palace gardens.

Short-eared owl (Asio flammeus)

In some ways the easiest of the native owls to observe closely because it often hunts by day on moorlands where it lives.

Long-eared (Asio otus)

The most elusive owl. Hard to spot even in the day, or when gathered in roosts. The "ears" after which it is named are not ears but tufts of feathers.

Little owl (Athene noctua)

Introduced to Britain in the 19th century. Celebrated in Greece, where it is the symbol of Pallas Athene, the goddess of wisdom (thus the wise old owl). Doing well but could suffer under changing farming practices.

Snowy owl (Nyctea scandiaca)

Bred in Britain from 1967 to 1975 on Fetlar island in the Shetlands. The male left in 1976 and two females followed in 1993.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=573921

 

[naitaka]

http://www.canada.com/hamilton/news/story.html?id=b6489746-9eca-4221-916c-3d992d9482ff

Ministry looking into mystery of dead birds
Hundreds washing up on shores of Lake Ontario in Hamilton

HAMILTON -- The Ministry of Natural Resources is looking into what may have killed hundreds of birds in Hamilton.

The birds have been washing up along the shores of Lake Ontario in the city.

A member of the Hamilton Conservation Authority says city staff has collected 350 dead birds.

The birds have been identified as long-tailed ducks.

A spokesman for the ministry says the birds will likely be tested at a lab at the University of Guelph in the next few days to determine what killed them.

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Weird - squirrels are washing up on the shores of Lake Michigan - reports of the little critters in arm bands is yet to be confirmed:

Web posted Sunday, October 24, 2004

Migration linked to squirrel deaths

Large-scale journeys not unprecedented, may explain drownings, DNR biologist says

By MARIE HAVENGA
The Grand Haven Tribune

History could hold the key to last month's mysterious drowning of numerous squirrels in the Grand River channel.

Biologists are looking at natural migration as a possible cause of the drownings, which led dead squirrels to wash up on Lake Michigan beaches near Grand Haven.

Laboratory tests on the squirrels were inconclusive, Department of Natural Resources wildlife biologist Nik Kalejs said.

"They examined the livers and brains," Kalejs said. "Various tests on those tissues all came back negative as far as any kind of toxicity."

Kalejs has been exploring textbooks, looking for answers. DNR law enforcement officer Ivan Perez located a study that documents similar migrations in the 1960s.

"Accounts go back to 1749 about these large-scale movements of squirrels, especially gray squirrels," Kalejs said. "They talk about vast numbers of squirrels moving over large areas."

Author Robert Kennicott documented an 1856 gray squirrel migration in Wisconsin and Michigan.

"Immense numbers congregate in autumn and move off together continuing their progress in the same general direction, whatever it may be, not even turning aside for large streams," he wrote.

The Internet has accounts of a September 1963 migration in North Carolina, where squirrels swam across a river, many of them drowning.

In 1842, more than half a billion gray squirrels migrated from Iowa to Wisconsin.

"The only thing I can say when I read through these old time accounts, they seem to talk about a situation where you're coming off a relatively high density squirrel population," Kalejs said. "We've had ideal habitat conditions, squirrels have thrived and the numbers have grown.

"The situation leads to potential food shortage with a reduced acorn crop. Something triggers these movements when food supply is not as abundant as it has been. They seek better habitat conditions and very little impedes their progress, including large river systems."

Kalejs noted it's difficult to say if the theory is conclusive, but it does make logical sense.

"Those movements are the same as we've seen here. Perhaps it's more of a localized situation where we have a reduced nut crop and the squirrels are reacting, which might explain how they end up in the rivers and end up on the lakeshore as the currents are going to deposit the ones who don't make it."

Kalejs said biologists will conduct further laboratory tests on the squirrels.

"Who knows, we may not find anything but the search continues," he said.

http://www.thehollandsentinel.net/stories/102404/loc_102404008.shtml

 

[TheQuixote]

Zoo cries foul after elephant deaths
By the BBC's Habib Beary


Komala was a darling of one of India's oldest zoos.
But the seven-year-old elephant calf died in agony after what officials at Msyore zoo in southern India are calling a conspiracy by insiders.

They suspect she could be the latest victim of poisoning by disgruntled employees, and, perhaps, a persistent campaign to discredit the zoo for reasons unknown.

Two elephants and an endangered lion-tailed macaque died in similar circumstances in August.

"This is shocking," the zoo's director, Manoj Kumar, told BBC News Online, as officials began an inquiry on Monday.

'Negligence'

Karnataka state's Chief Minister, Dharam Singh, said he wanted a detailed investigation.

We suspect foul play. All the deaths could be due to poisoning
Zoo director Manoj Kumar

"The truth should come out. Officials have to be alert. There seems to be negligence."

The 110-year-old zoo in Mysore is home to 1,100 animals.

Komala, described as attractive and playful, was due to have flown to Armenia as a gift from Indian President APJ Abdul Kalam - she had been handpicked for her pleasing features, officials say.

Doctors battled for hours to save her on Friday, but in vain.

"It is really unfortunate. The elephant was to fly out on 14 October but we could not get a confirmed cargo booking," said Mr Kumar.

"The next date fixed was 30 October but destiny had other plans.

"We suspect foul play. All the deaths could be due to poisoning. We have taken the help of the police to catch the guilty."

He said Komala had died despite tight security arrangements following the deaths of the two other elephants, Ganesha and Roopa, and the lion-tailed macaque in August.

The latter was a "breeder" on loan from a zoo in Madras as part of the lion-tail monkey conservation programme.

Zoo authorities called in the police after preliminary investigations revealed foul play.

Officials say Ganesha and Roopa had acute haemorrhagic enteritis and respiratory distress caused by zinc phosphide, normally used as poison for rodents.

Security revamp

This is not the first time animals have died mysteriously in captivity in Mysore, leading some to believe there is a plot to damage the state-run zoo's reputation - although it is not clear why anyone would want to do so.

An inquiry last year found foul play in injuries suffered by Meena, a popular chimpanzee.

She died after an unsuccessful operation on her arm, which had been crushed by a sliding door.

Two emus from Australia also died in suspicious circumstances.

Closed circuit television is among the measures planned by the zoo authorities to monitor the movement of its feeding staff.

"Security is being revamped but I will not reveal the details," said Mr Kumar.


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/south_asia/3952479.stm
Published: 2004/10/25 16:56:13 GMT

© BBC MMIV

 

[sunsplash1]

What's killen the krill?

Krill decline threatens Antarctic wildlife
Antarctic krill, eaten by whales, penguins, fish and other animals, have declined drastically since the 1970s and this could threaten the Antarctic wildlife, according to a study to be published today.

The densities of krill have dropped by about 80 per cent since 1976, and the most likely explanation for the fall is a dramatic decline in sea ice.

The ice provides krill with food and shelter from predators, an international group of researchers write in the British journal Nature.

The research group has developed a database by compiling data released by nine of the countries working in Antarctica spanning 40 Antarctic summers, over the 1926-2003 period.

The report says the Antarctic Peninsula, a key breeding ground for krill, has warmed by 2.5 degrees Celsius in the last 50 years, with a striking decrease in sea ice.

"We don't fully understand how the loss of sea ice here is connected to the warming, but we believe that it could be behind the decline in krill," the group said.

Krill are tiny shrimp-like creatures that grow up to a length of six centimetres and live for five to six years.

They play an important role for the Southern Ocean's food web as they are eaten by a wide range of animals including fish, penguins, seals and whales.

They are also a potentially valuable source of protein and are fished by the Japanese.

"If krill stocks fall too low there may be detrimental effects on species' populations that feed on krill, such as whales, seals, penguins and albatrosses," warned Angus Atkinson of the British Antarctic Survey.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200411/s1234442.htm
Last Update: Thursday, November 4, 2004. 10:29am (AEDT)

Bloody Hell!

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Have the missing Pelicans started showing up?

Are Chase Lake pelicans arriving in Florida?

By RICHARD HINTON, Bismarck Tribune

American white pelicans are settling into their winter hangouts on the Florida Gulf Coast, but what's unclear is how many are part of the huge pelican colony that vanished from North Dakota last spring.

Ann Paul, Tampa Bay regional coordinator for Audubon of Florida, had no estimate of how many white pelicans had arrived and didn't expect a number until after the Christmas Bird Count. Typically, 10,000 to 12,000 white pelicans winter in the area.

More than 27,000 white pelicans abruptly pulled out of their summer breeding grounds at Chase Lake National Wildlife Refuge last spring, abandoning eggs and some young and leaving biologists to wonder why.
Waterford on Century

"I wouldn't say they are those birds without seeing the bands," Paul said Monday, "and getting close is difficult."

Banding studies have shown that the Tampa area's pelican population comes from North Dakota and Minnesota, Paul said.

"It wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility," Mick Erickson, the Chase Lake refuge manager, said of Tampa's growing pelican population.

Even if the pelicans had summered as usual at Chase Lake NWR, they would have migrated anyway, Erickson added.

But the pelicans' return to the Tampa area was of keener interest than usual this fall because of the mysterious disappearance.

Paul estimated as many as 400 on one sandbar in late October, with more arrivals almost daily.

"I was glad to see them," she said.

With some white pelicans possibly back in their routines, next comes Erickson's turn to wait.

"We are anticipating them coming back, and we hope things return to normal," he said. "We're anxiously awaiting spring."

Source

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Cocker Spaniel Attacked By 20,000 Angry Bees

POSTED: 6:51 am EST November 30, 2004

LAKEWOOD, Calif. -- A 4-year-old cocker spaniel attacked by an estimated 20,000 angry bees will survive thanks to quick action by firefighters and a beekeeper.

Los Angeles County fire officials said the dog's owner triggered the attack when she disturbed a colony of bees while cutting brush in her back yard.

The owner was able to run inside, but the dog tried to hide under a woodpile and bags of recycled cans.

Fire officials said a beekeeper was able to distract the insects by spraying them with smoke. That enabled firefighters to use a long-handled noose to pull Pinto to safety.

Pinto had dozens of bees stuck in its fur and tail. It was shaking, but was alert. The dog spent the night in an animal hospital, but should be OK.

-------------------------
Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press.

Source

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Norwegian rats invade Sweden

Tue 30 November, 2004 15:47

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Kiruna, a mining town in north Sweden, has been invaded by thousands of rats thought to have crossed the border from Norway with garbage shipments for the local recycling centre, officials say.

"It is most likely that they have come from Norway. They have the brown rat there," said Kiruna environmental chief Mats Lahti on Tuesday.

Kiruna's harsh Arctic climate normally keeps rats away, but they apparently love the warm piles of garbage at its recycling plant, which handles 25,000 tonnes of Norwegian waste a year.

Local officials have called in exterminators to deal with the four-legged invaders. "We're not used to this kind of thing in Kiruna, and we don't want to get used to it," said Lahti.

Kiruna's misfortune may be a source of mirth in next-door Norway, where poking fun at their fellow Scandinavians is a national pastime.

Source

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Nasty:

Cannibalism may have spread anthrax in hippos


Large scale die-offs of hippopotamuses infected with anthrax in Uganda are causing a stir among zoologists - one suggestion is that cannibalism may have fuelled the outbreak.

The anthrax outbreak first hit Queen Elizabeth National Park in Uganda in late summer and has killed at least 220 hippos so far.

"The widespread mortality may be a result of the communal scavenging or 'cannibalism' of carcasses of anthrax-killed hippos by other hippos," suggests Joseph Dudley, a biosecurity and agriculture analyst, based in Washington DC, US. Writing to ProMed Mail - an infectious diseases mailing list - he says this theory may be supported by the absence of deaths among buffalo or other anthrax host species in the area until late in the outbreak.

Hippos are usually vegetarian, wading out of the rivers and ponds where they bathe for much of the day to eat grasses. But hippos are not the gentle giants their placid appearance might suggest, and they cause many human deaths in Africa every year.

"I knew hippos were nasty, but I didn't know they went around eating each other," says anthrax expert Martin Hugh-Jones at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, US.

Gaping wounds

Dudley published the first scientific report of hippos turning carnivorous to scavenge meat off dead impala carcasses in 1996. And since then, cases of hippo cannibalism have also been documented.

But the latest outbreak of anthrax in hippos is most likely to be related to overcrowding, with cannibalism playing just one role, says Roy Bengis, state veterinarian at Kruger National Park in South Africa.

Overpopulation can deplete resources, increase competition and conflict between the creatures. "Hippos can be extremely aggressive, and fights leave numerous lacerations, and may be fatal," Bengis writes to ProMed.

These gaping wounds can also increase the risk of anthrax by opening up a potential route of infection. Cannibalism by hippos is rare, and may itself be induced by the stress of overcrowding, or "possible nutritional deficiencies or needs", he says. But this could further spread anthrax if hippos are eating infected hippo meat.

Contaminated water

However, grazing on grasses contaminated with anthrax spores or ingesting contaminated water are also likely to have been important on the spread of the infection in overcrowded conditions, says Bengis.

"What he says makes sense," Hugh-Jones told New Scientist. "You always get an increase in infectious disease when you have an increased density - and there's a better chance of getting it if resistance is down because of stress." He adds that "no disease depends on just one route of spread".

He notes that where anthrax outbreaks in hippos were once "incidental events", over the last decade or so outbreaks have become "massive".

The first such large outbreak in eastern Zambia was put down to huge numbers of hippos. The overcrowding was so severe that the animals were forced to walk 30 kilometres just to feed.

Source

 

[rynner2]

Biologists are looking at natural migration as a possible cause of the drownings, which led dead squirrels to wash up on Lake Michigan beaches near Grand Haven.

I've seen a squirrel swimming across the River Fal. And not at a narrow part, but where the tidal river opens out into the Carrick Roads.


He seemed to be going pretty well, even without armbands.