NWHC In The News

This page lists news stories that mention the National Wildlife Health Center.
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• 09/12/2008:  Bird disease prompts closure of Agassiz National Wildlife Refuge, Grand Forks Herald
  
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  Bird disease prompts closure of Agassiz National Wildlife Refuge
  
  Brad Dokken Grand Forks Herald
  
  Published Friday, September 12, 2008
  
  
  
  Agassiz National Wildlife Refuge in northwestern Minnesota has closed temporarily to the public after a virulent strain of Newcastles disease was confirmed in a sick American white pelican that refuge staff found in July.
  
  The disease can be especially contagious to cormorants and pelicans, and the virulent strain found at Agassiz also can cause high death rates to domestic poultry that arent vaccinated.
  
  The disease poses minimal risk to humans.
  
  Brad Dokken Archive
  
  According to John Braastad, assistant manager at Agassiz, refuge staff sent the sick pelican to a lab in Madison, Wis., for testing and received word late Wednesday that the bird had the virulent strain of Newcastles disease.
  
  Refuge personnel also have found other dead or sick pelicans on the refuge. As a result, Braastad said, Agassiz staff decided to close the refuge to the public for the time being.
  
  He said hes also contacted a couple of nearby poultry operations about the positive finding.
  
  What were doing is erring on the side of precaution, Braastad said Thursday. For right now, we wanted to just close the refuge to the public to help contain the disease so nobody gets in contact with it and spreads it to domestic waterfowl or domestic birds.
  
  Transmission of the disease generally is limited to direct contact with bodily secretions, the Fish and Wildlife Service said in a news release. It also can be transmitted by contaminated boots, clothing or equipment.
  
  Newcastles disease has been making the news in Minnesota in recent weeks after the Department of Natural Resources reported more than 900 double-crested cormorants and smaller numbers of American white pelicans and other water birds were found dead or dying at Minnesota Lake and Pigeon Lake.
  
  Since then, DNR staff has found dead or sick birds on a handful of other lakes, including Lake of the Woods.
  
  Braastad says the disease doesnt pose a risk to healthy people, but the elderly or immune deficient could develop flulike symptoms.
  
  We just feel that by closing down the refuge to the public, we will minimize any adverse impacts outside the refuge, Braastad said. We just wanted to make the public aware of that.
  
  Canceled events
  
  Because of the closure, Braastad said the refuge has canceled its annual public duck-banding event set for Sept. 20, and several school groups scheduled to visit the refuge now wont be coming.
  
  The refuge also has closed its Lost Bay Habitat Drive.
  
  Braastad said its too early to say whether the refuge will be closed during the firearms deer season that begins Nov. 8. The refuge for the first time this fall also is scheduled to be open to small game and muzzle-loader deer hunting after the firearms deer opener.
  
  Once deer season comes and we have a good freeze-up, we wont be too concerned, he said. But if we start seeing more sick birds, and it stays fairly warm into deer season, then we will see what kind of actions we want to take.
  
  Agassiz isnt open to waterfowl hunting, but the refuge does border several popular state-administered lands, including Thief Lake Wildlife Management Area. Braastad said hes been in contact with area DNR officials, and the refuge plans to step up its efforts to look for sick or dead birds.
  
  If we start seeing larger collections, we probably have to take a few more steps to isolate the area, he said.
  
  Taking precautions
  
  Once hunting season begins, Braastad said waterfowl hunters, especially those on the nearby state lands, should take precautions and clean up thoroughly after handling birds.
  
  Randy Prachar, manager of Thief Lake WMA, said there havent been any suspect birds at Thief Lake. DNR staff are in monitoring mode, he said, but the case at neighboring Agassiz at this point, at least wont have any impact on the upcoming waterfowl season.
  
  Some of these things are very weather dependent, Prachar said. Once it gets cold, they sort of go away. Im hoping for the sake of those places where it has been discovered and those who dont want it that we get those conditions very soon.
  
  According to the DNR, outbreaks of Newcastles disease are rare in the U.S. in wild birds, with the exception of outbreaks in double-crested cormorants, American white pelicans and gulls in several Midwestern states and Canadian provinces.
  
  The last Minnesota outbreak occurred in 1992, when more than 20,000 cormorants died in Minnesota and the Dakotas, the DNR said.
  
  Dokken reports on outdoors. Reach him at (701) 780-1148; (800) 477-6572, ext. 148; or send e-mail to bdokken@gfherald.com.

• 09/11/2008:  Watch for Pigeon Lake island closing caused by Newcastle disease, Litchfield Independent Review
  
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  Watch for Pigeon Lake island closing caused by Newcastle disease
  
  September 11, 2008 - 11:07am Matt McMillan
  
  Filed under: Top Stories
  
  Dont be too surprised if you see closed signs on certain islands and lake access points within five Minnesota lakes. Birds from these lakes were confirmed to have virulent Newcastle disease, according to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.
  
  The virus, which already has killed more than 1,200 double-crested cormorants this summer in Minnesota, has been confirmed at Minnesota Lake, Pigeon Lake, Lake of the Woods, Marsh Lake and Lake Kabetogama. DNR officials still are waiting for results from Mille Lacs Lake.
  
  Counties affected or potentially affected by the closed areas include Meeker, Faribault, Mille Lacs, Cass, St. Louis (in the Voyageurs National Park area), Lake of the Woods and Lac Qui Parle. Closed areas should be signed by the end of the week.
  
  The disease can be transmitted via contaminated clothing and equipment, and infected birds can spread the virus through direct contact as well as through their ****** and excretions. Newcastle disease is not a major concern for humans, although it may cause a mild
  
  conjunctivitis and influenza-like symptoms.
  
  Clinical signs of Newcastle disease in avian species are frequently neurological, such as droopy heads and paralyzed wings and legs. Nestlings and juveniles birds are most commonly affected. Mortality rates in wild species can vary greatly, with double-crested cormorants most commonly affected.
  
  No cases of Newcastle disease outbreaks in wild species were reported until 1990 in the United States or Canada. In 1992, more than 35,000 double-crested cormorants died from the virus across the Great Lakes, Upper Midwest and Canada. Sporadic outbreaks in cormorants have been reported since 1990 in California, Utah, Nevada and Oregon.
  
  DNR wildlife staff is working with the National Wildlife Health Center, the National Park Service, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Minnesota Board of Animal Health, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, and the Canadian Cooperative Wildlife Health Centre to manage the outbreak by reducing possible impacts to other wild birds and prevent spillover of the disease into domestic poultry.

• 08/24/2008:  Laysan duck deaths on Midway at 136, Honolulu Advertiser
  
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  Laysan duck deaths on Midway at 136
  
  Wildlife refuge officials freshen wetland water to try to stem botulism
  
  By Suzanne Roig
  
  Advertiser Staff Writer
  
  Avian botulism has killed at least 136 Laysan ducks, found dead over the past two weeks in the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, according to the National Wildlife Health Center.
  
  "It's not uncommon to have birds affected by avian botulism," said Barbara Maxfield, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokeswoman. "It's the first time on Midway Atoll. Wildlife has been affected here in Hawai'i by the avian botulism, but not with the Laysan ducks."
  
  The first dead duck was found Aug. 10, and the death toll of adult and adolescent birds is up to 136.
  
  Several carcasses were shipped to the National Wildlife Health Center's Honolulu field station, and from there, samples were sent to the NWHC in Madison, Wis.
  
  Avian botulism toxin was found in all eight samples from the refuge, which is in the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument.
  
  The highest concentration was from a catchment basin near where the Laysan ducks nest. The catchment has now been drained and freshwater has been introduced to the wetlands in other nesting areas to dilute the botulism, Maxfield said.
  
  The Laysan duck is on the endangered species list and the entire world's population is fewer than 1,000, all in the Hawaiian Islands, mostly on Laysan Island, Maxfield said.
  
  Avian botulism, which is found in soil throughout the world, does not affect humans, she said. The outbreak affected a new duck population started in 2004 on Midway Atoll as a way to expand the Laysan population.
  
  The Midway population was about 400 birds, and Laysan Island, which is more than 100 nautical miles away, has about 600 ducks. There is no risk of Midway's bout of avian botulism affecting the Laysan population, experts say.
  
  The Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument is administered jointly by the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. Department of the Interior and the state of Hawai'i.
  
  Reach Suzanne Roig at sroig@honoluluadvertiser.com.

• 08/20/2008:  Shipwreck fuels invasion of unwanted species, New Scientist Environment
  
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  Aggressive invaders are spreading through a coral reef in Hawaii thanks to a shipwreck that ran aground in the remote Palmyra Atoll in 1991.
  
  Researchers believe that iron leaching from the ship is fuelling the invasion. And now they are calling for shipwrecks to be removed from sensitive ecosystems elsewhere.
  
  The invader, Rhodactis howesii, is a corallimorph, a yellow-brownish animal related to corals and anenomes. With its tentacles full of stinging cells, the corallimorph wipes out any organisms that get in its way.
  
  "Think of it like using a flame thrower to get real estate," says Thierry Work at the US Geological Survey National Wildlife Health Center's Honolulu Field Station and lead author of the study.
  
  Running amok
  
  Work and his colleagues measured the spread of R. howesii through Palmyra Atoll and found that their coverage doubled between 2006 and 2007. This means the invaders have claimed several hundred metres of reef in all directions. Where diverse corals were thriving until recently, there are now two square kilometres of corallimorph monoculture.
  
  Work believes the organism may be native to the area but is now running amok thanks to iron leaching from the wreck.
  
  He thinks that R. howesii may be best equipped to take advantage of the possible sudden iron bounty, not only because of their powerful tentacles but also because of their impressive reproductive capabilities.
  
  Chemical sterilisation
  
  As a result, the researchers worry that even if the US Fish and Wildlife Service successfully manages to get the ship out of the water, the corallimorph crusade may continue owing to sheer power of numbers. If this happens, chemical sterilisation of the area may be the only option to rescue the reef, says Work.
  
  Jason Hall-Spencer at the University of Plymouth, UK, says that while the correlation between the shipwreck and the spread of the corallimorphs is convincing, this may have nothing to do with iron leaching from the ship. The wreck might have killed off competitors of this species when it hit the reef, and allowing the corallimorphs to spread, he says.
  
  But Hall-Spencer agrees that conservationists should look out for the effects of shipwrecks elsewhere: "If something like this wrecks the balance of an ecosystem once, it's likely to happen again."
  
  Journal reference: PLoS ONE (DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0002989)

• 08/20/2008:  Shipwrecks on coral reefs harbor unwanted species, Eureka Alert
  
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  Shipwrecks on coral reefs may increase invasion of unwanted species, according to a recent U.S. Geological Survey study. These unwanted species can completely overtake the reef and eliminate all the native coral, dramatically decreasing the diversity of marine organisms on the reef. This study documents for the first time that a rapid change in the dominant biota on a coral reef is unambiguously associated with man-made structures.
  
  The findings of the study, published in the open-access journal PLoS ONE, suggest that removal of these structures sooner rather than later is key to keeping reefs healthy.
  
  In many areas of the world, coral reef health is declining, but identifying the exact cause of the problem is difficult. Overgrowth of coral reefs by other species, such as algae, are usually attributed to environmental degradation, but bleaching, disease, damage by typhoons, overfishing, coastal development, pollution, and tourism can cause problems as well.
  
  The study was conducted at Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge in the central Pacific, a relatively remote, comparatively pristine area where little human activity has occurred since WWII. In 1991, a 100-foot vessel shipwrecked on the atoll. Scientists first surveyed the area in 2004 and found a species called Rhodactis howesii an organism related to sea anemones and coralsin low abundance around the wreck. In subsequent years, however, populations of this organism increased exponentially. Scientists documented extremely high densities of R. howesii that progressively decreased with distance from the ship, whereas R. howesii were rare to absent in other parts of the atoll. They also confirmed high densities of R. howesii around several buoys.
  
  Whether this phenomenon occurs on other coral atolls is unknown; however, in the case of Palmyra, the R. howesii infestation is beginning to reach catastrophic proportions, according to Dr. Thierry Work, the lead author of the study and a scientist at the USGS National Wildlife Health Center, Honolulu Field Station. Within a few years, R. howesii spread to where it now occupies nearly 1 square mile.
  
  "Why this phenomenon is occurring remains a mystery," said Work. One possibility, he said, is that iron leaching from the ship and mooring buoy chains, accompanied with other environmental factors particular to Palmyra atoll, are somehow promoting the growth of Rhodactis.
  
  "Given the ability of Rhodactis sp. to rapidly reproduce and completely smother reefs, managers are now facing the possibility that even with removal of the ship, sheer reproductive capacity of R. howesii may continue to fuel its spread along the western reef shelf of Palmyra," Work said.
  
  Understanding what constitutes a healthy underwater ecosystem, as well as what does not, is crucial to preventing further losses in species and habitat. This research illustrates a little-known problem that, unlike global warming and pollution, could be prevented by removing man-made debris such as shipwrecks from coral reefs before organisms like Rhodactis howesii can overtake healthy coral reefs.

• 08/20/2008:  Shipwrecks Wreak Havoc on Coral Reefs, Science
  
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  Shipwrecks Wreak Havoc on Coral Reefs
  
  By Phil Berardelli
  
  ScienceNOW Daily News
  
  20 August 2008
  
  Warming seas and ocean acidification aren't the only hazards facing the world's coral reefs. A new study suggests that the communities can be thrown quickly and seriously out of balance by the iron from sunken ships. Scientists hope the findings will encourage the prompt removal of derelicts before they can damage the fragile ecosystems.
  
  The problem with shipwrecks appears to be a particularly aggressive reef-dwelling creature called Rhodactis howesii, a type of sea anemone. When nutrients are abundant and there are no predators, R. howesii thrives. Unfortunately, it also eats coral, threatening the foundation of the ecosystem.
  
  Several previous studies have linked shipwrecks and reef degradation, but researchers in Hawaii decided to measure the effect in detail. They surveyed a coral reef off Palmyra, an isolated atoll in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. There they found high densities of R. howesii near a longline fishing boat that sank in 1991. Those densities steadily declined with distance from the wreck; and within about 100 meters, they dropped to zero--with a few exceptions. The exceptions, the team reports today in PLoS ONE, involve navigation buoys installed on the atoll in 2001.
  
  Because Palmyra is so isolated, the team concludes, there's no chance the R. howesii population could be spurred by runoff from agricultural or industrial activities that provide its usual sources of nutrients. Instead, the data show, the R. howesii colonies seem to have radiated out from the hull; the iron dissolved in seawater appears to be their source of nourishment. So the longer the source of iron persists, the farther the anemones can spread, until they completely consume the coral and effectively kill the reef, the team concludes.
  
  The research "is an excellent account of the long-term ecological harm resulting from vessel groundings on coral reef ecosystems," says marine biologist William Precht of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary in Key Largo. It underscores the need to remove wrecks from coral reefs quickly, he says.

• 08/17/2008:  Rare ducks found dead on Midway Atoll, Honolulu Star-Bulletin
  
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  Wildlife officials are investigating the deaths of more than 100 endangered Laysan ducks at Midway Atoll in the Papahanaumokuakea National Wildlife Monument.
  
  The first dead duck was discovered on Aug. 10 and as of yesterday 106 adult and adolescent bird carcasses were found, according to a news release from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
  
  No definitive cause has been identified, but officials suspect avian botulism.
  
  "Although we suspect avian botulism, we will not have a confirmed diagnosis" until this week, Matt Brown, acting refuge manager at Midway, said in a news release.
  
  A number of duck carcasses were shipped to the National Wildlife Health Center Honolulu Field Station for further analysis yesterday. Samples will also be sent to the National Wildlife Health Center in Wisconsin to confirm whether avian botulism is a cause of the die-off.
  
  Wildlife officials have added large amounts of fresh water to the areas where the dead birds were found to reduce water stagnation. The carcasses are also being collected and burned to reduce further spread of potential disease.
  
  Avian botulism is caused by a bacteria that produces a toxin when certain conditions, such as stagnant water, warm temperatures and decaying vegetation, are present.
  
  Birds are infected with the disease when they eat toxin-laden invertebrates. While the invertebrates are immune to the toxin, botulism affects the birds, paralyzing their voluntary muscles and leading to drowning or asphyxiation.
  
  The disease is not a threat to humans.
  
  The Laysan duck population at Midway was estimated at 200 birds in December, but has since nearly doubled after a successful fledging.
  
  The remaining population on Laysan Island is about 600 ducks.
  
  "We are naturally upset by this loss which further underscores the need to have Laysan ducks at more than one location in the Hawaiian Islands," Brown said. "We sincerely hope we have seen the worst of this outbreak, and that our Midway population of Laysan ducks will rebound quickly."
  
  The endangered Laysan duck is considered the rarest native waterfowl in the United States and lives only within the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands' Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument.

• 08/15/2008:  Presentation planned on parasites and duck loss, The Daily Journal - Int'l Falls, MN
  
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  August 15, 2008 - 11:10am Journal Staff
  
  The Bemidji Area Natural Resources Continuing Education Consortium is presenting Scaup, Coots and Parasites on Winnie, a natural resources presentation scheduled for 3-4 p.m. Aug. 18 at the Bemidji State University Center for Research and Innovation, 3801 Bemidji Ave. N.
  
  The presentation by Jeff Lawrence, of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, is free and open to the public.
  
  Last fall, there was a loss of about 7,000 diving ducks, Lesser scaup and a few hundred coots on Lake Winnibigoshish in north central Minnesota. Dead ducks were sent to the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis., and they indicated that the losses were caused by trematodes, a small parasite the ducks picked up while feeding on snails. The DNR monitored the losses.
  
  Lawrence will discuss the life cycle of this parasite, implications and outlook for host snails and parasites in north central Minnesota and elsewhere, and further investigations this summer on distribution and abundance of the snails. The DNR is looking for help from hunters, fishermen, and others outdoors to monitor potential losses this fall.
  
  The presentation is part of an on-going series of CRI presentations, offered on the third Monday of each month. Agencies helping organize the natural resources consortium include the DNR, the Chippewa National Forest, the Leech Lake Division of Resource Management, Ainsworth and the Red Lake Reservation.

• 08/15/2008:  Birds that died on Minn. lakes test positive for Newcastle disease, KAAL TV.com
  
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  Over 700 birds found dead on 2 Minn. lakes 7.22
  
  The National Veterinary Services Laboratory has found that several wild water birds from two Minnesota lakes have tested positive for the virulent form of Newcastle disease.
  
  This strain of virus can be highly contagious among double-crested cormorants, according to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. There is little threat to humans from the disease.
  
  The birds that tested positive were from Minnesota Lake in Faribault County, Pigeon Lake in Meeker County, and Lake Kabetogama in Voyageurs National Park, according to the DNR.
  
  The agency is working closely on this issue with the Minnesota Board of Animal Health, the Minnesota Department of Agriculture and the Minnesota Department of Health. The agency is also collaborating with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Wildlife Health Center, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Service and the National Park Service, and alerting surrounding states and provinces to the lab results.
  
  "Newcastle rarely affects humans, generally causing conjunctivitis, a relatively mild inflammation of the inner eyelids. It is spread to humans by close contact with sick birds," explained state health veterinarian Joni Scheftel.
  
  Since first discovered in July, the DNR reported that more than 900 double-crested cormorants, with smaller numbers of American white pelicans and other water birds were discovered dead or dying at Minnesota Lake and Pigeon Lake. Since then, DNR staff has found dead or dying birds on the other lakes including Angle Island on Lake of the Woods, Marsh Lake, and Lake Mille Lacs. Lab tests on these birds are pending and could take weeks.
  
  Although poultry can catch the disease from wild birds, BAH reports that farm biosecurity measures help ensure that such a possibility is highly unlikely.
  
  If birds show signs of illness, producers should contact their own veterinarians or the Board of Animal Health at (320) 231-5170.

• 08/10/2008:  Outbreak of avian botulism? Dead fish, birds point to presence of disease; zebra mussels blamed, GoErie.com
  
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  Outbreak of avian botulism?
  
  Dead fish, birds point to presence of disease; zebra mussels blamed
  
  BY ROBB FREDERICK
  
  robb.frederick@timesnews.com more details
  
  
  
  Local biologists are bracing for an outbreak of avian botulism, a paralytic disease that kills about 10,000 Great Lakes shorebirds every summer.
  
  The conditions are right. Warm temperatures, changing lake levels and decaying vegetation stir up common bacterial spores. Toxins form, and dead fish wash up on the shore.
  
  "It hits pretty hard," said Nathan Ramsay, a wildlife disease technician at the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis. "And it's starting again."
  
  Dead fish indicate the first wave of an outbreak. Recent sweeps of local beaches -- including Shades Beach in Harborcreek and parts of Presque Isle State Park -- have turned up infected sheepshead and catfish.
  
  Bird deaths represent the second wave. There is evidence of that at Sleeping Bear Dunes, a national park on Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
  
  Two strains of botulism are common in the Great Lakes. Both appeared first in Lake Michigan.
  
  Type C botulism was identified in 1936. Type E appeared in 1963. That strain has killed more than 75,000 birds since a spike in the 1990s.
  
  Scientists blame the zebra mussel. Mussels have helped clear the Great Lakes, making the water warmer and allowing more cladophora algae to form. When the algae dies, it releases the botulism toxin.
  
  Zebra and quagga mussels filter the toxin. They are eaten by sheepshead and round gobies, which die.
  
  The fish, in turn, are eaten by gulls, loons, geese and grebes, which also die. Their carcasses produce even more of the toxin.
  
  "It's a vicious cycle," said Eric Obert, the extension director for Pennsylvania Sea Grant, a partnership of the commonwealth, Penn State University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "And we're seeing the start of it, with fish washing up."
  
  The next step is especially unpleasant. Shorebirds pick at the dead fish. The ingested toxin attacks the birds' voluntary muscle systems. After that, the birds can't fly.
  
  The paralysis spreads to the eye and neck. That explains an early name for the disease: Limberneck.
  
  The birds no longer can hold their heads up as they float. They drown.
  
  No smoking gun
  
  Infected animals usually die quickly. That limits the risk to humans, who are more likely to get botulism from food that was not canned properly.
  
  "If you catch a fish and it fights on the way in, there's a 99.9 percent chance it's a good fish," Obert said.
  
  Birds die within hours. But there's no smoking gun: Once an animal is dead, the botulism toxin is always in it.
  
  "It's a fast-acting toxin," said David Blehert, the principle microbiologist at the National Wildlife Health Center. "But it's a bit of a mystery, exactly where the birds pick it up. It could be miles from where we find the carcasses."
  
  His answer for that is to plant decoy carcasses, and to track what happens to them over 24 or 48 hours. That could explain how the disease spreads to other bird species.
  
  The project has not yet started. Blehert doesn't have the funding for it.
  
  Local biologists have their own plan. They're watching for lake sturgeon, the largest of Lake Erie's 120 native species. The fish -- bony-plated, olive-gray bottom-feeders -- grow to 7 feet. They eat, among other things, mussels and algae.
  
  The sturgeon is something of a mystery: a once-common fish that is now listed as an endangered species. Some live 100 years.
  
  "They're out there somewhere," said Jeanette Schnars, the director of the Regional Science Consortium. "We just don't see them come up in the nets."
  
  Sturgeon are more likely to wash up on the beach. Field researchers found dead fish in North East in 2000, 2001 and 2007. The first weighed 80 pounds.
  
  A dead sturgeon is worth something. Genetic testing could help determine where the fish live: One strain spawns near the St. Lawrence River, which forms part of New York's northern border. Another spawns in the Maumee River in northern Ohio.
  
  That data could help biologists draw up a species management plan for sturgeon. And that would be a rare benefit of a botulism outbreak.
  
  "Stranger things have happened," said Bob Wellington, a biologist who retired from the Erie County Department of Health. "And we'd be doing the right thing. We'd be putting back something that has been here for thousands of years. And that's a lot better than throwing up our hands and saying, 'What can we do?'"
  
  ROBB FREDERICK can be reached at 870-1733 or by e-mail.
  
  Found A Sturgeon?
  
  If you think you've found a lake sturgeon -- a long, bony-plated fish with chin barbells and a sucker-like mouth -- do not attempt to move it. Call Pennsylvania Sea Grant at 217-9015. The program is one of several now watching for sturgeon that wash up because of avian botulism.

• 07/28/2008:  The mysterious death of bats has continued this summer, but researchers are closing in on a cause, Boston Globe
  
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  The mysterious death of bats has continued this summer, but researchers are closing in on a cause
  
  Email|Print|Single Page| Text size + By Beth Daley
  
  Globe Staff / July 28, 2008
  
  After a series of provocative discoveries in recent months, scientists believe bats in the Northeast might be in greater peril from a mysterious sickness than originally thought.
  
  Researchers now think that a fuzzy white fungus found on thousands of dead and dying bats in New England and New York last winter might be the primary cause of the illness. Scientists have learned that the unidentified fungus seems to thrive in the cold temperatures found in caves and mines in winter - when bats are hibernating and most vulnerable.
  
  As worrisome is that many bats continued to die this spring, dashing hopes that they would recuperate when they emerged from hibernation and resumed feeding. Hundreds of animals with scarred wings, both dead and alive, were discovered in Vermont, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire through June. The wing damage can kill bats and likely was caused by the fungus, researchers say.
  
  Biologists are also growing increasingly concerned that the fungus may be spreading to tens of thousands of healthy bats as the animals huddle together while sleeping in their summer roosts.
  
  Humans are not believed to be at risk from the illness, but a large die-off would likely affect people indirectly. The nocturnal mammals eat enormous amounts of crop-infesting and human-biting insects, and scientists say they know so little about bats that their ecological importance may become apparent only once they disappear.
  
  "We could be at the beginning of something much uglier," said Paul Cryan, a bat specialist with the United States Geological Survey in Colorado. He said researchers are beginning to realize that even if they identify a definite cause, it may be too late for thousands of bats. "What do we do then? We are thinking ahead to the spread of it."
  
  The disease was first seen two winters ago, when thousands of bats died in four New York caves within seven miles of each other. Many of the bats had an unusual white fungus on their bodies. By last winter, 25 caves and mines spread across 135 miles were found to have sick or dying bats in Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, and New York. Pennsylvania bats may also be affected.
  
  Scientists originally dubbed the sickness "white nose syndrome" because of the fungus but believed it to be a secondary problem, one that grew on the bats when they were weakened by something else. That's because fungi are rarely fatal by themselves.
  
  But a meticulous search for another pathogen using cutting edge technology has come up short. While researchers say they are not ruling out other causes, such as something in the environment, a recent discovery that the fungus grows best in cold temperatures is training their attention back to it.
  
  Bats' immune systems appear to shut down when they are in deep hibernation, likely to conserve energy and because the parasites, bacteria, and viruses that would attack them are not normally active in the cold either. If a fungus exists in the caves that thrives in cold conditions, it could overtake the bats before their immune system has a chance to respond.
  
  Scientists' hypothesize that the bats could be waking up in the winter from the fungus - either to jumpstart their immune systems or simply to groom themselves. Under either scenario, the bats would burn up enormous amounts of fat reserves they need to survive the winter. That may be why so many skinny bats were seen dying on cave floors this past winter or flying into and out of mines in a futile search for food.
  
  "The attention has narrowed and focused on the fungus," said Vishnu Chaturvedi, director of the Mycology Laboratory at the New York State Department of Health and part of a team that discovered the cold-loving fungus. He said it will take time before scientists know for sure what is going on - and longer to find a solution - but "we're getting a number of clues."
  
  Some scientists are growing discouraged that they will find the answers in time. Some caves struck hard by the illness have lost 97 percent of their bat populations. A bat researcher monitoring a summer roost in New Hampshire estimates that about 25 percent of his colony is gone, likely from the bat sickness.
  
  Worries intensified this spring when researchers discovered bats with inflexible, scarred wings, likely from the fungus. Wings make up more than 75 percent of a bat's surface area and are critical for flying as well as for blood flow and to enable the animals to exchange heat, gas, and water with the air. If the wings are too damaged, the animal can die.
  
  "We thought if they made it through the winter they would be good to go, but that does not appear to be the case," said Jon Reichard, a Boston University graduate student who is monitoring two summer bat roosts in Massachusetts and New Hampshire where he has found hundreds of bats with damaged wings.
  
  Scientists are beginning to study whether bats might be harboring dormant fungal spores in summer roosts, increasing the risk of transmission.
  
  This is a frightening scenario: Bats migrate as far as 250 miles from their winter hibernating sites to their summer roosts, where they mix with bats from other far-off caves and mines. In the fall, they will travel back to their hibernation sites to mingle and mate with still other bats. If new bats are infected, the fungus could begin to grow on them as soon as temperatures dip low enough.
  
  "This condition represents a grave threat to (bats in) the northeastern US," said David Blehert, director of diagnostic microbiology at the US Geological Survey National Wildlife Health Center in Wisconsin.

• 07/20/2008:  White-nose syndrome plagues bat population in Northeast, The News Times
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  White-nose syndrome plagues bat population in Northeast
  
  By Robert Miller
  
  Staff Writer
  
  Article Last Updated: 07/20/2008 07:10:36 AM EDT
  
  RIDGEFIELD -- Small, sharp-toothed and fiercely unhappy about his situation, the big brown bat did not rest easily in Geoff Krukar's hands Wednesday.
  
  "I always wear gloves," Krukar said, watching the bat try to nip his fingers.
  
  Unlike the bat, Krukar was in good spirits as the night settled into the woods. It was breezeless and clear -- good conditions for bats to be on the move.
  
  "There are fireflies out," he said. "I don't know why, but it seems like the nights when there are fireflies out there are bats."
  
  For the past 10 years, Krukar, a wildlife technician for the state Department of Environmental Protection, has spent summer nights studying the state's bat population, catching them in mist nets, checking their numbers and health, banding them and releasing them back into the wild.
  
  He's on a special mission this year, looking for a rare species, the Indiana bat, at Bennett's Pond State Park in Ridgefield and Collis P. Huntington State Park in Redding.
  
  But his efforts have been altered by the onset of a confounding disease, white-nose syndrome, which has killed hundreds of thousands of bats in the caves where they hibernate in winter. The first ominous signs of the disease turned up in Connecticut bats this winter.
  
  "What was found was what was in New York a few years ago," said Jennie Dickson, a DEP wildlife biologist. "We're probably in the early stages."
  
  Indiana bats -- already on the federal and state endangered species list -- are one of the species the syndrome is killing.
  
  So along with looking for the Indiana bat in particular and recording bat numbers in general, Krukar is also on the lookout for any signs of white-nose syndrome.
  
  "We wanted some specific information on the Indiana bat with this research," Dickson said. "But absolutely, the syndrome has complicated it. We're looking at the weight of the bats, their health, their reproductive status."
  
  It's hard to get a handle on bat numbers in the state this year. Dickson said factors like the weather can alter the number of bats out on a particular night. So can owls, whose hooting may cue bats to scatter rather than be prey.
  
  But Dickson said the bats Krukar is catching this year are healthy -- with good weight, healthy wings and pregnant females.
  
  "If there's a bright spot, it's that," Dickson said.
  
  White-nose syndrome is a new disease and 90 percent fatal. Wildlife biologists have found it in four states -- Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York and Vermont-- with bats in New York hit hardest.
  
  There have been unconfirmed reports of the disease in West Virginia and Pennsylvania.
  
  Right now biologists don't know what's causing bats to die in such alarming numbers.
  
  What they have found is bats that are severely underweight and dehydrated in their hibernaculums -- the caves and mine shafts where they spend their winters. Some have left their winter quarters looking for food too early, when there are no flying insects out, using up their body's scant reserves of energy to search for food that doesn't exist.
  
  "There was one report of a bat found trying to eat snow to get some water because it was so deyhydrated," Dickson said. "When we heard that, we were amazed. It's so atypical of bats."
  
  The "white-nose" part of the syndrome comes from a white fungus growing on the bats' nose. Fungal infections have also damaged bats' wings, scarring the tissue.
  
  But David Blehert, a microbiologist with the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis. -- part of the United States Geological Survey -- said that generally, fungal disease are opportunistic infections that crop up when an organism is too weak to fight them off.
  
  "They're usually not fatal," he said. "Athlete's foot is a fungal disease."
  
  So Blehert said researchers believe something else is sickening the bats. In their weakened state, the white fungus sets in.
  
  Along with not knowing what's causing the disease, biologists also don't know whether bat colonies will rebound.
  
  "We've seen it in the winter of 2006-07 and the winter of 2007-08," Blehert said. "We don't know what will happen in the winter of 2008-09."
  
  The outbreak of the syndrome has crossed path with Krukar's study of Indiana bats.
  
  The DEP wants to learn whether these rare bats -- which closely resemble the little brown bat, one of the most common species in Connecticut -- are flying east from their winter quarters in New York to spend their summers in Connecticut.
  
  Records indicate Indiana bats were found in the state in the 1990s. Field biologists found one hibernating with other bats.
  
  Krukar said New York researchers track Indiana bats flying to the Connecticut border.
  
  "If you drew a straight line from their hibernaculum to where they've been seen in the summer in New York, and then extended it across the state line, the line heads straight to Danbury," he said.
  
  Krukar chose his mist netting sites in Ridgefield and Redding because the woods there best resemble the spots where wildlife biologists find Indiana bats in New York.
  
  At Bennett's Pond State Park, he used an old road leading to a pond as a sort of natural bat corridor. With help from DEP wildlife technician Laura Saucier, he spaced out his mist nets strategically at points where bats might fly.
  
  "They'll come out of the trees where they roost and fly down to the pond at night for a drink," he said.
  
  Bats have good vision, contrary to popular belief, but they also navigate by echolocation, a sort of built-in sonar system.
  
  They call out in a series of high-pitched chirps -- too high for people to hear -- bouncing the sound off objects and using their acute sense of hearing to pick up the echoes. They use that system to hunt insects on the fly and to avoid flying into things.
  
  By setting his mist nets just below the tree canopy, Krukar uses the bats' ability to fly under the leaves of trees to his advantage. Swerving and dipping to avoid the foliage, they fly into his nets.
  
  "If one gets caught, it'll make a distress call," Krukar said. "Then others fly in out of curiosity."
  
  There are eight bats species in the state, but only two that are really common -- little brown bats and big brown bats. Krukar netted both early in the evening. True to their name, big brown bats are much bigger than their little counterparts.
  
  All bat species come equipped with sharp teeth, the better to crush insects. That also allows them to quickly chew through Krukar's nets. It's also why he wears leather gloves when handling them. He checked every 10 minutes from about 9 p.m. to midnight to see if any bats were entangled in the mesh.
  
  He weighed each catch, checked it size, sex, and age -- bats can live to be 30 years old -- then banded them and let them fly off, so they could once more be the creatures of the night, out of the glare of bright lights.
  
  By the end of the evening he'd netted five bats, including a long-eared bat.
  
  The next night, at Huntington State Park, the count went up to 10 -- nine big brown bats and one silver-haired bat. But his great prize, an Indiana bat, remained at large and unnetted.
  
  The bats he did catch all struggled against his gloved hands fiercely and flew away quickly into the night. That was good to see.
  
  "All the bats we've caught are healthy," he said.
  
  Contact Robert Miller at bmiller@newstimes.com or at (203) 731-3345.
  
  Battered Eight species of bats can be found in Connecticut Little Brown Bat (Myotis lucifugus) Big Brown Bat (Eptesicus fuscus) Eastern Long-eared Bat (Myotis septentrionalis) Eastern Pipistrelle (Pipistrellus subflavus) Silver-haired Bat (Lasionycteris noctivagans) Hoary Bat (Lasiurus cinereus) Red Bat (Lasiurus borealis) Indiana Bat (Myotis sodalis), an endangered species Bats Are the only mammals capable of actual flight. Have good eyesight and rely on vision for long-distance orientation. Are mostly nocturnal. Use echolocation -- their own sonar -- for short-distance navigation and catching food at night. Can detect, pursue and catch an insect in about 1 second using echolocation. Are the only major predators of night-flying insects, and are more efficient at killing mosquitoes than "bug-zappers." A single little brown bat can eat 1,200 mosquitoes in an hour. All the state's bat species are insect eaters. Hoary bats also eats other bats, namely the eastern pipistrelle. Source: The state Department of Environmental Protection

• 07/19/2008:  Researchers urgently probe mystery of dying bats, News Day
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Researchers urgently probe mystery of dying bats
  
  By MICHAEL HILL | Associated Press Writer
  
  July 19, 2008
  
  WEST SAND LAKE, N.Y. - As the sun drops, bats that survived a catastrophic winter begin to flutter by the treetops to feed. Al Hicks gets into a car to count them.
  
  He drives a jury-rigged batmobile, a state-issue SUV with a high-frequency microphone stuck on top. Hicks, a state wildlife biologist, uses it to tally a species in danger of decimation from a mysterious affliction called white-nose syndrome. The setup detects and records bats' sonar signals as they swoop over rural roads near Albany in search of insects. Hicks interprets the sounds from his laptop's speaker as he navigates the darkened curves.
  
  "Did you hear that? 'Zzzzzzzzzzzzz!' That's the feeding buzz. He's closing in on prey," Hicks says. Then the mike picks up another bat. "That's a searching phase, 'Dit, it, dit dit.' He's looking for dinner."
  
  Northeast bat populations were ravaged this year as they hibernated, and Hicks is part of an alliance of scientists urgently trying to get a grip on the disaster before next winter. Researchers are watching the skies, counting bat breaths and cultivating fungus as they try to understand why so many seem to starve as they sleep for the winter.
  
  "We need to figure out what it is. Then we can figure out what to do," said Cal Butchkoski, a wildlife biologist with the Pennsylvania Game Commission.
  
  White nose is named for the sugary smudge of fungus around the nose of some of the emaciated bats. It was noticed two winters ago in a cluster of caves west of Albany. By last year, it spread to dozens of caves within a roughly 150-mile radius that stretched into Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut. Mortality rates differ among the half-dozen affected species, though some caves were all but wiped out. Death tolls cannot be pinpointed, but Bat Conservation International said it could run in the hundreds of thousands.
  
  Some residents around the cluster of caves west of Albany where white nose was first noticed say the summer skies there seem practically bat-free.
  
  White nose seemed to spread out in a circle from cave to carcass-littered cave like a pathogen. The fungus could be the cause, but it also might be an "opportunistic" fungus that shows up when bats are already weakened. Bats might be heading into hibernation with not enough fat, which could be related to fewer moths and other insects around for bats to gorge on in the fall. That means insecticides or climate change could be playing an indirect role.
  
  "There's a cascade effect that might be operating here, though we don't really have a good handle on it," said Thomas Kunz, director of the Center for Ecology and Conservation at Boston University. "This caught us all by surprise."
  
  Bat researchers met for a white-nose summit in Albany this summer to come up with unified plans. One thing they want to know is if the dead bats were underweight when they started to hibernate. So bats will be caught this fall and their fat stores will be analyzed. Researchers have already caught bats in New York this summer and placed them in airtight chambers as a way of testing their metabolism. Microbiologist David Blehert of the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis., said progress is being made on identifying the fungus, a crucial step to fighting white nose.
  
  In upstate New York, Hicks and two other New York Department of Environmental Conservation researchers spend some nights driving loops around rural roads. It's a clever way to count an airborne species that comes out in the dark.
  
  A rough-carpentered wood box holds the mike upright as Hicks drives at 17 to 20 miles per hour _ or just slightly faster than a bat can fly. As cars constantly pass him by, Hicks picks up the sonic signatures of dozens of bats over several hours. Bat screeches are represented on the laptop screen as little blue streaks on a graph. Hicks can tell which species is overhead by looking at the graph. Quiet stretches are punctuated by quite a few big brown bats and an occasional surprise.
  
  "Holy cow!" Hicks says, glancing at the screen. "We might have had a silver-haired bat!"
  
  By driving predetermined routes at the same time of night, Hicks and his colleagues are building baseline population estimates. Find an average of six big brown bats over a particular stretch of road this year and two the next year, it could indicate a population drop.
  
  As they collect data, Hicks and the other researchers around the country are constantly in touch. In Wisconsin, Blehert said white-nose researchers have been making "good progress." But even if researchers key in on a culprit this summer, signs point to another rough winter. Identifying the cause of the problem does not mean they can stop it.
  
  Butchkoski in Pennsylvania said he expects white nose to spread to his state this winter. Hicks does too. On a recent night patrol, Hicks waves off a suggestion that the worst is over for bats. He begins listing other dead and devastated species _ the passenger pigeon, the American chestnut _ as he drives down a dark road, listening for signs of life.
  
  On the Net:
  
  http://www.fws.gov/northeast/white_nose.html
  
  http://www.batcon.org

• 07/07/2008:  Northeast bat population is in its own hell, USA Today
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Northeast bat population is in its own hell
  
  By Dan Vergano, USA TODAY
  
  The deaths started in a few caves, with hibernating bats dying in place and falling in charnel heaps to the floor. Others, emaciated and starving, fled their roosts to freeze in the chill of winter.
  
  Deepening the mystery: The dead and dying bats had a white fungus on their faces, giving the name "white-nose syndrome" to a plague killing thousands of bats in five Northeastern states.
  
  "Our guys went in and reported thousands of dead bats," says Alan Hicks of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. "Immediately it was clear this was very bad."
  
  Perhaps 11,000 bats eventually died in four nearby caves in 2007; tens of thousands died this past winter in five states, and the deaths continue.
  
  The true death toll could be even higher, says biologist Susi von Oettingen of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service office in Concord N.H., because more bats may have died in uncharted cave roosts.
  
  The die-off triggered a nationwide call last year to find an answer to what was killing the bats. But so far the syndrome remains a riddle. The only clue to its origin Hicks and his colleagues possess is a photo taken by a curious cave explorer of a single afflicted bat inside a cave west of Albany in 2006.
  
  Conservation officials have asked cave explorers to report signs of afflicted bats, but have also asked them not to travel from affected caves to cleared ones, to prevent the transmission of disease.
  
  Not species-specific
  
  All six species of cave-hibernating bats in the Northeast Eastern pipistrelle, little brown, northern long-eared, small-footed, Indiana and big brown bats have been killed by the syndrome. All are nocturnal insect-eating mammals that hibernate during winter months in caves and mines, burning body fat slowly to stay just barely warmer than cave temperatures and waking only occasionally.
  
  Yet, says Scott Darling of the Vermont Department of Fish & Wildlife, "during the daytime in March and April, residents would see them flopping around on the ground."
  
  During hibernation, the bats have a lowered immune response, perhaps making them more vulnerable to some new, cold-tolerant germs, says biologist Jacques Veilleux of Franklin Pierce University in Rindge, N.H. The species that cluster most tightly together, little brown bats and endangered Indiana bats, are the ones most heavily affected, with 90% dying in some caves.
  
  But necropsies of dead bats have not narrowed the fungus down to any one species, or signs of any particular disease common to them all, Veilleux says.
  
  At a white-nose syndrome meeting in Albany last month, government, academic and non-profit researchers discussed potential causes, including a fungus-related disease, a new parasite or environmental disturbances from farming or development.
  
  Fungal growth is usually retarded at the temperature inside winter caves, about 40 degrees, says biologist David Blehert of the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis., but the white fungus afflicting the bats may be able to thrive at the low temperature and prey on the hibernating bats when they are vulnerable.
  
  On the other hand, the fungus simply may be an opportunistic infection that strikes bats weakened by some other cause. Parasites fleas, mites and lice have been found on affected bats, but not any more than usual.
  
  "The questions we are trying to answer are the same ones we'd face in a human epidemic," Veilleux says. "We are right smack in the beginning of the investigation."
  
  One question is whether migrating tree bats, which come north during the summer, are affected. Researchers are collecting bats killed by wind turbines to look for white fungus, Hicks says.
  
  The public feel sympathy
  
  For creatures with as bad an image as bats, the public response to their disappearance has been heartening, Darling says. "I've gotten a lot of calls from residents worried about their bats."
  
  Girl Scout groups have even sewn up collecting bags for some bat researchers, Veilleux says.
  
  Some surveys of summer bat colonies are underway, but the big effort will come this fall, Hicks says, when researchers will try to determine whether bats are arriving in caves already emaciated, or if something is rousting them during the time they should be hibernating, causing the burn-off of fat stores.
  
  "The trend is just really bad," he says. "You go to a cave where you saw thousands of bats, now you see hundreds. If you see only a handful next year, then you are looking at their disappearance."

• 07/06/2008:  ,
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  A Race To Solve White-Nose Syndrome Fatal To Bats
  
  By RINKER BUCK | Courant Staff Writer
  
  BURLINGTON - The remote hardwood forests of the 450-acre Sessions Woods Wildlife Management Area are surprisingly busy on summer nights, with caravans of mountain bikers and joggers gliding past the beaver ponds until dusk.
  
  But one recent weekday night, the group setting up their nets and high-frequency acoustical receivers near a large swamp in Sessions Woods didn't have recreation in mind. Jenny Dickson, Geoff Krukar and Christina Kocer are wildlife biologists with the state Department of Environmental Protection, the front line of the Connecticut team involved in a massive national effort to solve one of today's most urgent natural mysteries: What's killing our bats?
  
  In early spring of 2007, wildlife biologists in the Northeast began observing alarming behavior in bats, the only flying mammal and one vital to ecology because adult bats can consume more than 4,000 mosquitoes a night. Emaciated and confused bats were prematurely leaving their winter caves in New York state and Vermont and falling into snowy backyards or desperately clinging to storm windows.
  
  The condition was dubbed "white-nose syndrome" for the telltale white fungus coating the bats' noses, legs and wings. Massive numbers of bats with white-nose syndrome have died over the past two winters.
  
  The clearly starved animals, their fat reserves depleted, woke and flew out of their hibernation caves in search of food months before the annual spring hatches had produced insects for them to eat. The bat plague reached the Berkshires last winter, and Dickson and her team confirmed the presence of the syndrome in a Litchfield County hibernaculum, or bat cave, in March.
  
  Now, as biologists and pathologists from Massachusetts to Wisconsin scramble to identify the causes of white-nose, and prevent it from spreading to other states, Dickson and her colleagues are one of several biological SWAT teams fanning out across the Northeast and Midwest.
  
  Venturing into the woods to catch bats several nights a week the team is also sampling bats in Huntington State Park in Redding and Bennett's Pond Park in Ridgefield the Connecticut team isn't looking only for the presence of white-nose syndrome. Before the outbreak, bats had not been studied in depth, and the Sessions Woods biologists are generating baseline data that will help scientists determine just what is, and is not, a healthy bat.
  
  'It's In The Net!'
  
  The DEP crew began an hour before dusk, driving deep into the prime bat country of Sessions Woods in four-wheel-drive trucks. They stretched large, black, thin-mesh "mist nets" between two metal poles, gently snaring the bats out of the sky without injuring them.
  
  While he waited on a portable chair for the sun to set, Krukar tested and tuned his "Anabat" detector, a sensitive audio receiver that picks up the high-frequency calls bats emit as part of their echo-location guidance system.
  
  "We try to set up along clear corridors in the woods where the bats fly from their daytime maternal roosting sites, where dozens of female bats are raising their young, and the moist or watery feeding areas that produce a lot of insects, where the bats forage at night," Krukar said.
  
  Just after dark, as a chorus of tree frogs and toads croaked from the swamp, and barred owls hooted in the distance, Krukar's bat detector sounded with a steady clicking. He aimed the instrument overhead to follow the invisible flight path of a bat.
  
  "Oh, there goes one right now," Krukar said. "And ... it's in the net!"
  
  The three biologists ran south on the cleared trail to their net, donning helmets with headlamps and pulling on one glove. The gloved hand holds the bat steady while the other is free to untangle the net from the bat's wings.
  
  The night's first catch a big brown bat screeched and snapped its teeth as Dickson and Krukar gently freed it from the net. Krukar cradled it in his gloved hand as he walked back to the tailgate of his pickup, where a portable field station had been set up.
  
  With a metal slide-caliper, Krukar measured the forearm of the bat to determine its maturity and weighed it on a tiny digital scale by cupping the bat inside a toilet paper tube taped on one end. The bats are then carefully examined for their overall health and signs of disease. Nursing females are identified by their enlarged breast nipples. All of these data are recorded on field sheets, which will be transferred to computer databases.
  
  Before they are released, the bats are also marked with a tiny, lightweight wing band that will allow biologists to track their movements in the same way bird species are followed by banding.
  
  "All of the bats we have caught so far this year are healthy, with no signs of white-nose syndrome," Dickson said. "But we are actually learning quite a lot out here that will pay off over time. For example, one characteristic of white-nose is that these bats coming out of hibernation have extremely low weights, which would probably prevent a female from sustaining a pregnancy. But the weights of our lactating females are quite good so far. That might be showing us that, after they survive the near-starvation phase in their winter caves, many of these bats quickly recover by finding enough insects to eat and can bear young."
  
  The picture is not as favorable in bat-rich southwestern Vermont an estimated 23,000 bats winter in just one cave near Dorset which experienced high mortality rates from white-nose last winter.
  
  "This spring, we were under the assumption that as soon as bats left their caves and found enough insects to eat, they would return to good health," said Scott Darling, the wildlife biologist heading up the white-nose efforts for the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department. "That assumption was wrong. Even now that it's summer, we are still getting reports of bats dying on front lawns and hanging to window screens.
  
  "And the wings of the bats we are examining show significant scarring, tears, holes in the wings and crinkling from dehydration. The assumption is that this is dead tissue that couldn't heal after being coated with the white fungus."
  
  Theories
  
  Dehydration or consumption of pesticides may be causes of the syndrome. And Darling points out that white-nose was detected in New York state and Vermont bats a whole winter before the condition was confirmed in Connecticut. This leads to one theory with ominous overtones for Connecticut's bats.
  
  "I am speculating here, but it's possible that our bats are in the second year of this condition while Connecticut is just a first-year place for white-nose," Darling said. "So you're not seeing any wing scarring there yet, while Vermont seems to have been hit very hard."
  
  Dickson believes that Darling's hypothesis is reasonable. The advantage of regular conference calls and a lot of information-sharing between states, she said, is that theories like Darling's can be shared and tested by others, allowing one state to prepare for what a neighboring state has already experienced.
  
  "There are probably some very sound scientific explanations behind the different results we are finding in Connecticut and Vermont," Dickson said. "Vermont may very well be one year ahead of us with this condition. Our data right now, for example, is consistent with what New York state found after only one year. So we may very well be experiencing the milder one-year impacts, while New York and Vermont are in year two."
  
  A Race
  
  In early June, scientists and biologists from 14 states, eight universities, federal agencies and Canadian wildlife officials met in Albany, N.Y., for a three-day conference on white-nose. The meeting produced several agreements to share databases on bats and to form smaller working groups. These will be devoted to such vital study areas as summer feeding and health, possible surveys of the massive "fall swarm" gatherings of bats before they hibernate, identifying likely pathogens affecting bats and factors that could be affecting winter hibernation.
  
  The conference also established procedures for scientists from different states and universities to conduct regular calls to share information. Wildlife officials from Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Wisconsin, where white-nose has not appeared yet, agreed to conduct summer studies of bats that would establish control information about what a healthy population should look like.
  
  Joint studies like these are considered vital because bats can travel 150 miles or more across state borders each year, wintering in the huge bat caves of the Hudson River Valley and then summering in Connecticut or Massachusetts. The mingling of summer and winter communities probably enhances the spread of white-nose.
  
  The bat scientists consider themselves in a race to discover the causes of white-nose before it reaches Canada, the Midwest and the South. Bat die-offs are considered particularly serious because the species reproduces slowly, and a lowering of bat populations could have significant impacts on insect control and agriculture.
  
  A Breakthrough?
  
  While Dickson and her counterparts ply the field, scientists at the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis., are conducting the laboratory detective work required to understand what's happening to the Northeast's bats. And, because of a classic laboratory happenstance, they may already have made a breakthrough.
  
  Among the 30 different fungi found on white-nose bat carcasses, said Dr. Anne E. Ballmann of the center, one cold-loving fungus called geomyces has been identified as a "fungi of interest." The scientists became interested in geomyces after a culture of the fungus, left in a refrigerator to be examined later, quickly grew at low temperatures.
  
  This was considered significant because hibernating bats fall into a torpor-like slumber that plunges their body temperatures to 35 degrees.
  
  "This could prove highly useful because a lot of the white-nose bats we examined were found near the entrance to caves, where it's a lot colder than deeper in the cave," Ballmann said. "The bats were burning up more calories being there near the entrance. So, we know that this cold-loving fungus is associated with lesions on bat wings, but we don't really know what the whole relationship is."
  
  Ballmann said that the fungus might be causing enough wing damage to prevent the bats from feeding well in the warmer months. But no "causality" between geomyces and bat health has been established, she said, and there is not yet a "smoking gun" clearly leading to explaining white-nose.
  
  Meanwhile, back at Sessions Woods, the bat-catching continues. Dickson and her team trap and release from 12 to 20 bats on each nocturnal safari, and are looking forward to sharing their data with other states before the fall swarm commences in western New England and eastern New York.
  
  And there's one moment, late at night in the dark woods, that always gives them hope.
  
  "It's very exciting every time we catch a pregnant or lactating bat," Dickson said. "Then we say to ourselves, 'Yeah! White-nose isn't killing all of them. We're getting reproduction this year.' We're in a race to solve this while the bats are still breeding."
  
  Material from the Associated Press was used in this article. Senior Information Specialist Cristina Bachetti contributed research.
  
  Contact Rinker Buck at rbuck@courant.com.
  
  For a video of the biologists tracking bats, visit www.courant. com/bats.

• 06/25/2008:  A user's guide to the NBII Wildlife Disease Information Node, The Wildlife Society
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  The Wildlife Professional
  
  Article: pp. 4143 | PDF (273K)
  
  Desktop Diagnosis
  
  A user's guide to the Nbii Wildlife Disease Information Node
  
  Cris Marsh, MLSa, Erica Schmitzb, and Laura Wynholdsb
  
  a Cris Marsh is the, Content Manager for the Wildlife Disease, Information Node
  
  b NBII Wildlife Disease Information Node
  
  DOI: 10.2193/1933-2866(2008)241:DD2.0.CO;2
  
  Cris Marsh
  
  Erica Schmitz
  
  Laura Wynholds
  
  When elk mysteriously weaken and die or waterfowl disappear en masse, wildlife professionals need to act quickly to learn what's happening and why.
  
  Wildlife biologists are increasingly being thrust onto the frontlines of wildlife disease management and surveillance in the United States, write Scott Henke, Alan Fedynich, and Tyler Campbell in Frontiers in Wildlife Science 2007. For example, biologists now routinely engage in oral vaccination of wildlife and collect specimens for both diagnostic purposes and disease surveillance or monitoring.
  
  Given the rising demands for hands-on involvement with disease management, wildlife biologists increasingly need to access and, more important, collaborate on information about disease outbreaks, diagnoses, causes, distribution, treatments, and monitoring. Collaboration across agencies and disciplines is essential to better understand the drivers of disease events. That's especially true today, when incidents of emerging and re-emerging disease around the globe are on the rise, and public agencies are asking professionals to do more with less. Governments will increasingly realize the need to form cooperative linkages to provide better disease surveillance, sharing of information, and database management, write Henke, Fedynich, and Campbell. Benefits of such cooperation will include advance disease detection, which should aid in control and prevention before agents reach epizootic or panzootic proportions.
  
  Now there's an online resourcethe Wildlife Disease Information Node (WDIN)designed to address these issues and meet the needs of wildlife disease professionals. Based at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Wildlife Health Center and supported in part by the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin (both in Madison), WDIN is part of the USGS National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII), an electronic network that provides access to data and information on biological resources in the United States and abroad. NBII uses a node- based structure that is being developed to ensure broad partnerships and information-sharing from all sectors of society. Some nodes are regional while others are thematic, focused on a particular biological issue. Launched in 2004, WDIN is one of several thematic nodes and serves as a centralized gateway providing timely, free, comprehensive, and easily searchable information about wildlife diseases worldwide.
  
  The Winter 2007 issue of The Wildlife Professional reported on how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provides electronic databases that can help wildlife professionals learn about and protect themselves against zoonoses and other infectious diseases encountered in the field or lab. Expanding on this principle, WDIN, through collaboration with several public and private partners, serves as a gateway for information specifically about wildlife diseases as well as their implications for domestic animals and human populations. It also provides extensive tools and linksto web resources, scientific articles, fact sheets, breaking news, images, maps, datasets, and discussion forumsthat aid in data collection and sharing among wildlife professionals.
  
  Although the need for such tools has never been more acute, concern about disease has a long history. As Aldo Leopold wrote in his pioneering text, Game Management 1933, The role of disease in wildlife conservation has probably been radically underestimated. Today, the importance of this role is apparent. As wildlife habitat has decreased, animal densities and human-wildlife interactions have risen, making disease a potentially greater threat to both animals and people. Diseases are also spreading rapidly, and crossing substantial international and natural boundaries. And the sources of disease informationin print and online have proliferated, making the task of monitoring new developments much more difficult.
  
  Launched in late 2007, WDIN's Global Wildlife Disease News Map links news about wildlife disease detection and spread to specific spots on the map, where colors indicate distinct geographic units such as countries (yellow) or counties (green). WDIN staff updates news items frequently, enabling wildlife professionals to track disease trends.
  
  
  
  WDIN makes that task manageableand wildlife biologist Bryan Richards, for one, appreciates the help. As the USGS Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) project leader, Richards needs to stay abreast of CWD and myriad other wildlife health issues. To do so, he subscribes to WDIN's online Wildlife Disease News Digest, a service launched in 2007. WDIN staffers collect and post global wildlife disease news to the site, and subscribers can request daily e-mail alerts or once-a-week summaries. It's very valuable to me, says Richards, who receives the daily news briefs. Otherwise I could never be able to keep track of the multitude of things going on with wildlife health issues, both nationwide and worldwide.
  
  Wildlife professionals who want to quickly learn about disease outbreaks in a specific geographic area can also access WDIN's Global Wildlife Disease News Map, which links news articles to points on the globe. The map allows users to focus on areas of interest, display specific diseases, and retrieve more information about those diseases from other parts of the WDIN website. Earlier this year, for example, a cursor click on Florida described a rabies alert in Broward County, while a click in Canada described the disappearance of ivory gulls on Baffin Island. This virtual world tour of wildlife disease events can help professionals spot trends in the incidence or spread of disease.
  
  As part of its mission to build collaborative dialogue among wildlife professionals, WDIN hosts topical electronic discussion lists. Through the Wildlife Health Informatics Working Group, for example, professionals create systems to collect and monitor wildlife disease data worldwide, collaborating to set standards that will foster current and future data sharing and ensure minimal duplication of effort. The Implanters List serves as a forum about the surgical implantation of radio-transmitters used for tracking wildlife, and the Wildlife Health List describes upcoming events, lists job openings, and provides a place where members can ask questions or solicit advice from colleagues. For those who prefer face-to-face discussion, an Event Calendar displays disease-related meetings and conferences.
  
  WDIN has also partnered with several organizations to create systems that allow for the collection, management, and sharing of crucial wildlife monitoring data. Among them:
  
  The Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Early Detection Data System (HEDDS) provides avian influenza surveillance data on wild birds. This large-scale project offers a secure platform for reports, tables, and maps, and can be used for spatial modeling. Public and private agencies including state fish and game departments, universities, tribal groups, nonprofits, parks, and reservessubmit the data as part of a nationwide effort addressing a mandate of the U.S. Interagency Strategic Plan. It has all the data stored in one location so anyone who's working with the disease knows where to look, says Leslie Dierauf, director of the National Wildlife Health Center. More important, it provides a portal into which the public can look to learn about the disease. This is critical.
  
  In cooperation with the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts, WDIN helped develop the Seabird Ecological Assessment Network (SEANET), a repository for seabird mortality data collected by volunteer citizen scientists. They walk beaches in several East Coast states, including Maine and Florida, recording observations about beached bird species, weather conditions, and unusual events like oil spills. Such data provide a baseline for seabird mortality, helping professionals identify irregularities and build an understanding of long-term patterns. It's enabling us to detect die-off events, like an early warning system, says ecologist Julie Ellis, SEANET program director.
  
  With assistance from WDIN, the Yale University Occupational and Environmental Medicine Program has successfully created what it calls the Canary Database. Wildlife, like canaries in a coal mine, can serve as indicators of environmental hazards to the health of humans and other species. This database of biomedical literature enables wildlife professionals to review animal evidence that may provide early signs of human health hazards.
  
  Expanding its efforts internationally, WDIN is collaborating with the Wildlife Information Network based at the Royal Veterinary College in London, England, to create modules for Wildpro, a multimedia electronic encyclopedia devoted to issues of wildlife, wildlife habitats, and emerging infectious diseases worldwide. To date, WDIN has helped generate Wildpro modules on Waterfowl: Health and Management, West Nile Virus, and Chronic Wasting Disease in Deer and Elk. Wildpro has additional modules on many specific species and diseases as well as general wildlife articles.
  
  Looking to the future, WDIN is currently building the Wildlife Information System for Disease Observation and Monitoring (WISDOM), a suite of databases and applications that is being created in cooperation with the Wildlife Conservation Society and other partners. It's intended to function much like HEDDS, but will be capable of managing data sets from wildlife disease spheres worldwide. The goal is to supply a means for collecting, storing, reporting, mapping, exchanging, and viewing surveillance data at no cost. For organizations that have already created their own such data systems, WISDOM will provide standards and mechanisms for seamless data exchange. If I step back and look at how WDIN data will slide into the WISDOM system, what we'll have is a dream, an ability to look at wildlife health and track its movement across the world, all in one location, says Dierauf. Wildlife disease is the link that people who are working in public health and domestic animal health often forget. This will bring wildlife disease into the system and provide the missing link.
  
  Bryan Richards of the USGS's CWD project agrees. Professionals in agricultural health, human health, and wildlife health need to be more acutely aware of what's going on and of the relationships between these fields, he says, adding that tools that link disparate agencies will provide nearly real-time, spatially accurate information on diseases and allow collaboration on a global scale. As humans and wildlife are pushed together in the same space and time, says Richards, staying up to date will be even more critical. This is the way we need to do things in the future.
  
  The future is here.

• 06/25/2008:  Mysterious killer hits bats, Poststar.com
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Mysterious killer hits bats
  
  By Erin DeMuth Judd
  
  ejudd@poststar.com
  
  Published: Wednesday, June 25, 2008
  
  COURTESY PHOTO
  
  Little brown bats, shown here, exhibit the primary symptom of 'white-nose syndrome.' The mysterious malady, which is killing bats by the thousands, was named for the white fungus that grows on the bodies of some of the affected animals. Scientists are unsure what role the fungus is playing in the bats' deaths, but research into the situation is ongoing.
  
  To order copies of staff-produced photos from The Post-Star, please visit http://reprints.poststar.com/. New York is known for many things: The Yankees, the Statue of Liberty, the Erie Canal, tons of apples, dead bats.
  
  New York is the place where the bats have started dying - dying by the thousands at the hands of an unknown killer.
  
  "We call it 'white-nose syndrome' because we don't have a better name for it," said Alan Hicks, a mammal specialist with the state Department of Environmental Conversation's Endangered Species program. "It's, as yet, an unidentified something that's causing bats to die in very large numbers across the Northeast."
  
  The most obvious symptom of this bat plague is a white fungus that appears on the nose of some, but not all, affected bats. Scientists don't know, however, if the fungus itself is killing the bats. One of the only things they are sure of at this point is that the first sick bats were spotted near Albany.
  
  The start
  
  "It first became evident to us in the winter of 2007, when we got the very first report from a caver who noticed bats all piled up near the entrance of a cave," Hicks said. "Within a few weeks of that call, we started getting reports of bats being out in winter - crashing into snowbanks and dying."
  
  By mid-March, he said, "We started seeing bats dead in large numbers in caves."
  
  Since then, scientists have found out that the dead bats were first noticed a year earlier.
  
  "We've discovered that this was probably first seen the winter before by a caver," Hicks said. "He photographed it, but we didn't hear about it until recently."
  
  "It probably started in 2006," he added.
  
  The first case was confirmed in a cave in Schoharie County and, by the end of 2007, the mysterious malady had been confirmed in five spots within a 9-mile radius of the cave.
  
  By the end of this winter, sick bats had been found in dozens of spots in a rapidly growing area.
  
  "I don't know how many locations it's been confirmed in, but essentially every place everyone has looked within 80 miles of the original site was affected," Hicks said. "It's rapidly spreading in all directions."
  
  "Every cave and mine that we've been to from Albany all the way up to Port Henry and over to southern portions of Vermont and western Massachusetts has been impacted," he added. "It goes almost down to New York City."
  
  Symptoms
  
  The condition of the bats found inside these caves and mines has been strikingly abnormal. Many of them, found in the winter, were acting out of character for hibernating bats.
  
  "Some were what's called bats-on-the-landscape," said Melissa Behr, a veterinary pathologist with the state Department of Health.
  
  These bats had left their caves or mines in the depths of winter and had ended up frozen to homes or snowbanks or had dropped dead outside the mouths of the caves or mines.
  
  They probably left their winter dens, Behr said, because they were starving. Almost all the affected bats have borne the marks of hunger.
  
  "These bats that have come in to us have been in poor body condition, they've used up their fat stores," said Kimberli Miller, a wildlife disease specialist with the USGS National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis. "Normally, they should have fat reserves to take them through the winter into spring."
  
  "But they're coming in, in general, very thin and emaciated," she added. "That's been the one consistent finding across the affected areas."
  
  Finding a cause
  
  Other aspects of the dead bats' conditions have been inconsistent, making it hard to pinpoint what is killing them.
  
  The effects of "white-nose syndrome" can differ from one cave to another.
  
  "At some sites, animals are dying in greater numbers and more quickly," Hicks said. "And some species appear to be more susceptible than others."
  
  But the scientists have been unable to find a known bacteria, virus or other pathogen to blame for the die-offs.
  
  "We're doing necropsies, like human autopsies. We're examining these bats inside and out," Miller said. "We're collecting samples to go to the laboratory for culture-testing with bacteria, parasites, fungus.
  
  "And culture-wise, we're not really finding anything significant or something we've been able to pinpoint as a cause," she said.
  
  To determine if a parasite is to blame, Behr, with the state Department of Health, studied bats from Kentucky that are also found in New York.
  
  "They had the same parasites as New York bats - fleas, and worms in their intestines," she said. "So that was no different."
  
  But health and appearance of the Kentucky animals were different. They didn't have any fungus and they had good fat stores.
  
  The fungus
  
  Scientists in labs across the country are taking note of New York's mysterious fungus.
  
  "It's never been described before," Behr said. "It is a new fungus, but we don't know if it's the primary cause of this illness.
  
  "It could just be that the bats are already sick and the fungus is just being allowed to take over," she continued. "Like, if I had HIV, I couldn't fight off other things as well."
  
  And some affected animals appear not to have the fungus.
  
  "There are nine species of bats in New York, six of which hibernate in caves and mines," Hicks said. "Of those six, we most often seen the fungus on the little brown bats.
  
  "But not all bats have it," he added. "It could be anywhere from a fraction of a percent of the animals to half of them having white noses."
  
  With all the variables, unmasking the fungus and its role is likely to be a lengthy process.
  
  "It is going to take some time to work through this and figure out what's going on here," Miller said. "With some die-offs, like avian botulism that kills large numbers of birds, it's an easy thing to test for.
  
  "But we don't know what to test for in bats and we're trying to figure that out," she said. "There will be folks monitoring bats spring, fall and winter."
  
  Important bats
  
  Vigilance about the health of bats is justified by their importance as a predator and their unique behaviors.
  
  Bats eat millions of bugs, helping to control the legions of biting insects people are always slapping at during the summer months.
  
  "They consume somewhere between one-third and one-half of their weight in insects every night," Hicks said.
  
  Bats are also an untapped fountain of potential medical knowledge.
  
  "They have a remarkable range of physical skills," Hicks said. "How can they spend an entire winter not moving and still come out not debilitated?
  
  "There's a whole range of medical questions related to human health where bats are a good place to answer some of those questions."
  
  For Hicks, bats are a part of the living world, just as important as any other. When one part of that world starts dying at shocking rates, he said, an alarm should sound in human brains everywhere.
  
  "This could be a general symptom of a world getting closer and closer to very hard times," Hicks said. "And we need to pay attention when things in the natural world start to go wrong in a big way.
  
  "We have an obligation to make sure this planet is a good place for our children and grandchildren to grow up in," he added. "We can't keep popping rivets on our airplane and expect it to keep flying."

• 06/05/2008:  Bird flu search finds none yet coming to N.America, Reuters
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Bird flu search finds none yet coming to N.America
  
  Thu Jun 5, 2008 5:54pm EDT
  
  By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor
  
  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The feared H5N1 avian influenza has yet to make it to North America in the bodies of migrating birds, researchers said on Thursday.
  
  Testing of more than 16,000 migratory birds between May 2006 and March 2007 showed no evidence of the H5N1 bird flu virus, which has become entrenched in many parts of Asia and which regularly pops up in flocks in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
  
  The birds are infected with virtually every other known strain of influenza, said Hon Ip of the U.S. Geological Survey, National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wisconsin. But not the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus.
  
  "Maybe the Pacific Ocean is a nice, big biological barrier, for which I am forever grateful," Ip said.
  
  "The general avian influenza infection rate is not really different in Alaska or North America than pretty much anywhere else. In spite of H5N1's spread through most of Asia and into Africa and Europe, that spread has not come into North America," Ip added in a telephone interview
  
  About 1.7 percent of the birds were infected, but all with low-pathogenic strains of influenza viruses, which typically do not cause disease, Ip's team reported in the Virology Journal.
  
  Highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza has forced the death or destruction of an estimated 300 million birds, according to the world animal health organization OIE.
  
  SOURCE OF VIRUS
  
  Birds are considered the original source of all influenza viruses. While H5N1 rarely infects people, it has killed 241 out of 383 infected in 15 countries.
  
  Experts say the danger is that the virus will evolve just slightly into a form that people can easily catch and pass to one another, in which case the transmission rate could soar, causing a pandemic in which millions of people could die.
  
  U.S. government officials have said it is inevitable that migratory birds will carry H5N1 to the Americas at some time.
  
  An estimated that 1.5 million to 2.3 million birds migrate from Asia to Alaska each year.
  
  But Ip, who worked with teams at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, says it has not happened yet.
  
  The researchers are sampling birds that ornithologists say are the most likely to have migrated recently from Asia.
  
  "Some of these viruses contain a mix of genes from both North American and Asian viruses," Ip said.
  
  "We have direct evidence that the birds are carrying back at least a relative or descendant of viruses from Asia," he added. "This confirms we are sampling from those birds that are most likely to bring H5N1 back if H5N1 was to be brought back from Asia."
  
  It also confirms that the viruses swap genes inside the birds -- a process that scientists believe gives rise to new and sometimes more dangerous strains.
  
  The researchers have been testing birds since 2005 for H5N1, concentrating on Alaska but looking in all regions.
  
  The birds most likely to be infected with any kind of flu virus are the dabbling ducks -- species such as mallards, Ip said. This reinforces the theory that the virus spreads as birds feed in the same water in which they are defecating.
  
  Just this week U.S. chicken producer Tyson Foods Inc said it would eradicate about 15,000 chickens in Arkansas that carried antibodies to a mild H7N3 strain of bird flu, even though the birds were never sick and there was no risk to human health.
  
  An outbreak this week of H7N7 flu forced the slaughter of all the chickens at a farm in Oxfordshire in Britain.
  
  (Editing by Will Dunham and Cynthia Osterman)

• 05/13/2008:  Dead bats tested here for mysterious syndrome, The Capital Times
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Anita Weier
  
  May 13, 2008
  
  About 100 bats that died of a mysterious syndrome in the northeastern United States are being analyzed at the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center in Madison.
  
  The illness, which has resulted in the deaths of thousands of bats found since March at more than 25 caves and mines, is referred to as "white-nose syndrome" because of a white substance on the muzzles and wings of dead and hibernating bats.
  
  The condition was first observed in February 2007 in caves near Albany, N.Y., by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. In early 2008, it was found in hibernation sites in New York, Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut.
  
  The syndrome affects species including the little brown, northern long-eared and eastern pipistrelle bats.
  
  "When we receive the carcasses, we examine them for signs of trauma before we look inside, to see whether a predator attacked or they might have been electrocuted. In the case of these bats, there was none of that," said Anne Ballmann, a wildlife disease specialist with the National Wildlife Health Center.
  
  "They do seem a little thin, and some have white powdery substances on their muzzles. Some have reported it on limbs or tail flaps."
  
  After that analysis, the bats are opened up and tissue samples obtained for virus and bacteria screening, and any fungus on the surface of the bats is analyzed.
  
  "There is also some hypothesis that this may be toxic-related, so we are checking for pesticide residues," she said.
  
  Some of the bats exhibited changes in the lung that have been difficult to characterize, and most had microscopic fungi on their bodies. The white substance may represent an overgrowth of normal fungal colonizers of bat skin during hibernation, and could be an indicator of overall poor health, rather than a primary pathogen, according to the National Wildlife Health Center.
  
  The center has received bats throughout the winter season, since they have finished the hibernation season so are no longer found in caves.
  
  People found very weak bats on the ground outside caves and then went inside to discover more of them dead, Ballmann said.
  
  Some were also found roosting on the eaves of houses, which is unusual.
  
  "No single cause has been determined, no causative agent," she said. "We are not the only institution looking, and we are getting ready to have a meeting to discuss this with other research institutions."
  
  The use of pesticides, the impact of climate change and unknown pathogens are all possibilities, said David Blehert, head of diagnostic microbiology at the National Wildlife Health Center.
  
  Some researchers have contacted scientists who are studying colony collapse in bees, to try to find out if the bat syndrome is somehow connected to the syndrome in which bees disappear and do not return to their hives.
  
  "Bats eat a lot of insects, but they also tend to be pollinators because they land on plants," she said. "They do not feed on nectar in the United States, but in tropical areas, they tend to be more nectar feeders."

• 05/12/2008:  Website Tracks Animal-Based Diseases, Wisconsin Public Radio
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  By Chuck Quirmbach
  
  Monday, May 12, 2008
  
  Theres a new online map for tracking wildlife diseases that threaten animals and people.
  
  Diseases such as West Nile virus, chronic wasting disease, avian flu and others are now often in the news. A website developed by the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the U.S. Geological Survey aims to track reports of the disease outbreaks around the world.
  
  Project leader and veterinarian Josh Dien (DEEN) says many people want to know when emerging diseases become more widespread. He says it allows for taking proactive action to limit any unfortunate events. Dein says he hopes both health care professionals and the general public use the online map.
  
  Dein says both USGS staff and UW-Madison students help compile the map by gathering news from more than 20 online sources.
  
  The map can be accessed at: http://wildlifedisease.nbii.gov

• 05/10/2008:  Investigation continues into cause of bats' deaths, Daily Gazette - Schenectady, NY
  
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  Saturday, May 10, 2008
  
  By Edward Munger Jr.
  
  Gazette Reporter
  
  CAPITAL REGION Scientists by the dozen continue to study different factors that could be causing the death of thousands of bats.
  
  The use of pesticides, the impact of climate change and unknown pathogens are all possibilities, but nothing has been ruled out, said David Blehert, head of diagnostic microbiology at the U.S. Geological Surveys National Wildlife Health Center in Wisconsin.
  
  Following two massive die-offs discovered in Albany County caves after the winters of 2006 and 2007, wildlife officials began studying a white fungus substance on specimens both living and dead.
  
  Dubbed white-nose syndrome, because of the fungus, the affliction is considered an important issue both for the bats sake and for the role they play in the environment, Blehert said.
  
  Its just unusual. Thats our job, to try to investigate causes of unusual wildlife activity, Blehert said. Youre not supposed to find thousands of dead bats, or, in caves that used to have 100,000 bats, find none at all.
  
  Blehert said scientists are isolating fungi and bacterium in bat tissue samples and large numbers of those tests might lead to a clue.
  
  A sufficient number of tests, once results are complete, will be put on a spreadsheet and studied, he said.
  
  Maybe we will see some trend, Blehert said.
  
  So far, unexplained bat deaths have been confirmed in Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Vermont, according to the USGS.
  
  Afflicted bat species so far include the little brown, big brown, northern long-eared and eastern pipistrelle, according to the USGS.
  
  New York State Wildlife Pathologist Ward Stone said he continues to study dead bats. He was expecting four more on Friday, he said.
  
  Stone said there is still no indication that the affliction poses any threat to people.
  
  Stone said one potentially good sign in related work so far is some of the bats found alive yet still in poor shape have been rehabilitated.
  
  It is hopeful, with at least a couple of species of bats, that the starving animals seem to turn the corner relatively quickly, Stone said.
  
  The ability to rehabilitate the bats could indicate that they are suffering from malnutrition, not some disease they catch that kills them, Stone said.
  
  If you have a virus thats chewing away at you and going to kill you, it will keep on going, he said.
  
  I do not think the bats are going to go extinct, Stone said.
  
  The Northeastern Cave Conservancy recently issued a statement alerting cavers that the conservancys caves, closed since Feb. 10 because of the white nose syndrome, will reopen Thursday.
  
  NCC President Robert Addis on Friday said the conservancy is urging cavers to clean off their gear and follow decontamination procedures when they begin entering caves.
  
  Addis said the progress in research will affect decisions on whether the conservancy will close down its caves in the fall. Typically, the organization does not, he said.
  
  In the interest of the bats health, the conservancy may shut caves down by Oct. 15, which is considered the start of winter hibernation in the northeast.
  
  More information on research into the bat mystery can be found at www.nwhc.usgs.gov.
  
  Information on suggested decontamination procedures can be found at www.fws.gov/northeast/white_nose.html.

• 05/08/2008:  New online map tracks wildlife disease outbreaks, The Capital Times
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  New online map tracks wildlife disease outbreaks
  
  The Capital Times 5/08/2008 11:49 am
  
  It is now possible to track wildlife disease outbreaks around the world with a new online map, thanks to a collaborative effort by the UW-Madison and the U.S. Geological Survey.
  
  The Global Wildlife Disease News Map -- which also explains possible effects on domestic animals and human beings -- can be accessed at http://wildlifedisease.nbii.gov. It is updated daily.
  
  The site contains information about diseases such as chronic wasting disease, West Nile virus, avian influenza and monkeypox.
  
  Users can browse the latest reports on almost 50 diseases and other health conditions, such as pesticide and lead poisoning, by geographic location.
  
  The map is a project of the Wildlife Disease Information Node, a 5-year-old collaboration between the University of Wisconsin and two federal agencies that are part of the U.S. Geological Survey -- the National Wildlife Health Center and the National Biological Information Infrastucture.
  
  "If you click on the name of a particular disease, it ... does a quick search of everything that we have on that topic," said Cris Marsh, a librarian with the Wildlife Disease Information Node, which is housed at the UW's Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and the USGS.
  
  WDIN gathers news from more than 20 online sources and makes it available in several formats, from a news digest at wdin.blogspot.com to desktop widgets, e-mail and RSS feeds.
  
  The Capital Times 5/08/2008 11:49 am

• 05/05/2008:  Mapping Wildlife Diseases May Help Prevent Their Spread, Environment News Service
  
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  Mapping Wildlife Diseases May Help Prevent Their Spread
  
  MADISON, Wisconsin, May 5, 2008 (ENS) - Tracking wildlife disease outbreaks around the world is now possible with another online map that shows where threats to the health of wild animals, domestic animals, and people are occurring.
  
  The Global Wildlife Disease News Map, developed jointly by the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the U.S. Geological Survey, USGS, was introduced publicly today at: http://wildlifedisease.nbii.gov
  
  Updated daily, the map displays pushpins marking stories of wildlife diseases such as West Nile virus, avian influenza, chronic wasting disease, and monkeypox.
  
  Users can browse the latest reports of diseases and other health conditions, such as pesticide and lead poisoning, by geographic location. Filters focus on different disease types, affected species, countries, and dates.
  
  The map is a product of the Wildlife Disease Information Node, a five-year-old collaboration between UW-Madison and two federal agencies, the National Wildlife Health Center and the National Biological Information Infrastructure, that are part of the USGS.
  
  The Wildlife Disease Information Node, WDIN, is housed within the university's Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and the USGS.
  
  "If you click on the name of a particular disease, it takes you to our main website and does a quick search of everything that we have on that topic," says Cris Marsh, a librarian who oversees news services for the Wildlife Disease Information Node.
  
  State and federal wildlife managers, animal disease specialists, veterinarians, medical professionals, educators, and private citizens will all find the new map useful for monitoring wildlife disease, says Marsh.
  
  Produced by WDIN staffer Megan Hines, the map is the latest addition to a suite of tools aimed at keeping users abreast of wildlife disease news.
  
  Ultimately, the Wildlife Disease Information Node seeks to provide a comprehensive on-line wildlife disease information warehouse, according to project leader Josh Dein, a veterinarian with the Madison-based USGS National Wildlife Health Center.
  
  "People who collect data about wildlife diseases don't currently have an established communication network, which is something we're working to improve," says Dein. "But just seeing what's attracting attention in the news gives us a much better picture of what's out there than we've ever had before."
  
  The Wildlife Disease Information Node collaborates with a wide variety of public and private entities to gather and provide access to important wildlife disease data. Because of the global significance of these diseases, WDIN encourages others to become involved with the project.
  
  "The more information we can link," says Marsh, "the more robust our service becomes."
  
  Another strong service is ProMED-mail - the Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases, which also maps wildlife diseases.
  
  This Internet-based reporting system is dedicated to rapid global dissemination of information on outbreaks of infectious diseases and acute exposures to toxins that affect human health, including those in animals and in plants grown for food or animal feed.
  
  ProMED-mail was established in 1994 with the support of the Federation of American Scientists and SatelLife. Since October 1999, ProMED-mail has operated as an official program of the International Society for Infectious Diseases, a nonprofit professional organization with 20,000 members worldwide.
  
  ProMED-mail operates with the mission of providing early warning of outbreaks of emerging and re-emerging diseases so that public health precautions at all levels can be taken in a timely manner to prevent epidemic transmission and to save lives.
  
  Editor Larry Madoff says, "We cover the animal and human infectious disease world which in the wake of avian flu and SARS, we now recognize is imperative if we are to understand and slow the spread of diseases jumping from animals to humans."
  
  "We receive no government funding which means we can be totally objective," says Madoff in an email sent to subscribers today requesting donations.
  
  "Each day I and about 30 other scientists receive dozens of e-mailed reports of mysterious outbreaks sent in from experts and amateur disease watchers throughout the world," he says. "We scan newspapers and health department alerts, government reports and other information sources worldwide for inklings that an infectious disease, perhaps not yet reported widely, is threatening animal, human or food crop health."
  
  There are more than 40 diseases in existence today that were unknown a generation ago, and about 1,100 epidemic events verified by the World Health Organization in the past five years, Madoff says.

• 04/30/2008:  Pendleton bats sent to lab were not found dead, DNR says, Charleston Gazette
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Two bats from a Pendleton County cave now being examined by a wildlife disease laboratory in Wisconsin were bearing a small amount of what appeared to be a white fungus, but did not appear to be exhibiting symptoms of white-nose syndrome - a disease that has killed tens of thousands of hibernating bats in the northeast.
  
  By Rick Steelhammer
  
  Staff writer
  
  Two bats from a Pendleton County cave now being examined by a wildlife disease laboratory in Wisconsin were bearing a small amount of what appeared to be a white fungus, but did not appear to be exhibiting symptoms of white-nose syndrome - a disease that has killed tens of thousands of hibernating bats in the northeast.
  
  The bats were collected at Trout Cave in early April.
  
  No dead bats were found at the cave, as previously reported, but two live bats had a very small amount of what appeared to be a fungus on them - one on the ear and the other on its wrist, according to Craig Stihler, the Division of Natural Resources' endangered species coordinator.
  
  "We debated as to whether or not we should collect these bats, but decided we needed to have them looked at by one of the labs working on white-nose syndrome," Stihler said.
  
  After being euthanized, "they were sent to the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wisconsin."
  
  While the bats had little fat remaining on their bodies, that condition is not unusual for bats at the end of their hibernation period. The weights of the bats were within the range normally observed at this time of year.
  
  "Unfortunately, no one knows the cause of white-nose syndrome, so the lab can't test for it, but they are going to examine the bats further," Stihler said.
  
  "I would be very concerned if we found a number of dead bats at the cave, but we did not find any dead bats. We did find a couple bats with a small amount of what appeared to be a fungus, but it did not look like white nose and it may be normal for bats hibernating in a moist cave to occasionally get fungus on them. Before this problem arose, we didn't examine bats closely during our surveys and would not have noticed a small amount of fungus."
  
  White-nose syndrome has decimated hibernating bat colonies in New York, Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut, and it is suspected of having spread to caves in Pennsylvania, including areas near the West Virginia border. Winter surveys have shown that in eight of the affected New York caves, mortality ranged from 80 percent to 100 percent since the syndrome was documented at each site.
  
  While it can't be said for a certainty that white-nose syndrome has not reached West Virginia, "so far, we have not seen anything in West Virginia that alarms me, and I hope it remains that way," Stihler said.
  
  To contact staff writer Rick Steelhammer use e-mail or call 348-5169.

• 04/15/2008:  Keizer lake's dead geese raise alarm, Statesman Journal
  
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  Keizer lake's dead geese raise alarm
  
  Wildlife officials hope federal lab finds explanation
  
  ALAN GUSTAFSON
  
  Statesman Journal
  
  April 15, 2008
  
  Large numbers of Canada cackling geese keep dying at Staats Lake in Keizer.
  
  It's a mysterious trend that alarms some people who live near the private lake and hate to see the waterfowl sanctuary become a graveyard.
  
  "We feel kind of like it's the canary in the coal mine," Keizer resident Debbie Lowery said. "It's a sign to me that something in our ecosystem is not quite right."
  
  About 60 dead geese were recovered at the lake from Friday through Monday, said Brad Bales, the migratory game bird coordinator for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.
  
  Laboratory testing of goose carcasses will be done at the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis. Results from the federal lab should be known within 10 days, Bales said Monday.
  
  Newspaper reports indicate that large die-offs of geese previously occurred at Staats Lake in 2007, 2005, 2001 and 2000.
  
  Bales said the lake itself doesn't appear to be the culprit. Previous investigations linked bird fatalities to aspergillosios, a fungal infection of the lungs, and to pesticide contamination, he said.
  
  "In the past, it has not been anything directly related to Staats Lake," he said. "It's just that it's a heavy goose-roosting area. They may be sick when they get there and that's just where they seem to perish."
  
  Investigators who looked into the earlier cases stopped short of determining where the geese may have ingested lethal amounts of pesticide, Bales said.
  
  "We never really tracked down the exact source, so we don't know where the contamination might have occurred," he said.
  
  Canada cackling geese nest in western Alaska and venture into the Willamette Valley during the winter season. They fly and roost in large flocks, often comprising several thousands of birds.
  
  Lise Payne said she was stunned to come across dozens of dead geese Friday morning as she took her customary walk around the 60-acre lake.
  
  "There were almost 40 birds dead," she said. "I mean, they were just lying side by side."
  
  Payne, who moved with her husband to Keizer from Hawaii in October, said she long will remember the sight of the dead geese, and she's intensely curious about what killed them.
  
  "It's heartbreaking," she said. "I'm still upset. Oregon is supposed to be such a green state."
  
  Lowery, who has lived near Staats Lake for five years, said it's hard to fathom why the prime bird-watching setting has become a recurring place for geese to die.
  
  "Maybe it's a cemetery lake, I don't know," she said. "Why they all flock to our lake to die is kind of weird."
  
  The Keizer case could take on more significance if large numbers of geese turn up dead at other roosting places in the Willamette Valley, Bales said.
  
  "There are a lot of things out there that birds can die of," he said. "We're just concerned about how widespread it is. If this is happening on a big scale, affecting a lot of areas, hopefully we'll be getting that information and be able to kind of pinpoint it a little better."
  
  agustafs@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-670

• 04/09/2008:  Report: Recreational hunting alone will not control CWD, The Capital Times
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Tim Eisele
  
  Special to The Capital Times
  
  April 9, 2008
  
  Members of the Natural Resources Board gave very close attention to a recent report by Bryan Richards, CWD project leader for the USGS National Wildlife Health Center in Madison.
  
  It's a report that should be heard by every person who has an interest in deer in Wisconsin.
  
  Some hunters and landowners naively believe that efforts to reduce deer populations, and CWD, have been too intense and need to back off.
  
  Richards, who has no direct responsibility over Wisconsin deer herd management or CWD management programs, was very clear that more effort is needed. He said that:
  
  ** CWD spreads and prevalence increases.
  
  ** In Wisconsin, CWD poses significant long-term problems.
  
  ** Effective CWD management will require dramatic and sustained efforts.
  
  ** Recreational hunting alone will not control CWD.
  
  Richards, who works for the U.S. Department of the Interior in Madison, stressed that several reasons to be concerned about CWD are the many positive effects deer have on the economy and hunting heritage. Big game hunting in the U.S. is a $10 billion industry each year with 11 million participants. Wisconsin has 600,000 deer hunters who provide a large stimulus to the economy.
  
  But deer populations also have negative effects, including causing more than 35,000 vehicle/deer accidents per year in the state, causing agricultural damage and limiting forest regeneration.
  
  "CWD spreads and prevalence increases," Richards said. "This should be obvious, with a contagious easily transmissible disease, but it is one of the most contentious items. There are constantly challenges that CWD spreads, and the only absolute way to prove it is to test every animal on the landscape."
  
  Richards referred to patterns of CWD on the landscape in several states, where it appears the disease started at a core and dispersed out from the core. In a study of male mule deer in Colorado the prevalence reached over 40 percent, and in Wyoming two out of every five adult female white-tailed deer in one study area had the disease.
  
  Surveys have shown that as prevalence increases, people won't want to hunt deer. Declining hunters means higher deer populations, and more deer/vehicle collisions, crop damage, and suburban nuisance problems from deer.
  
  Richards said that effective CWD management requires dramatic and sustained efforts. His recommendation is that if an area does not have CWD, preventative measures should be implemented to keep it out. If an area does have it, strong management actions are needed and it should be monitored.
  
  Because of budget cuts, the DNR stopped much of its research in outlying areas of the state.
  
  Richards congratulated the State of Wisconsin for its 2002 work to implement measures to reduce risks, and he said the new proposal to restrict the movement of carcasses was an outstanding idea.
  
  "The science is absolutely clear on feeding and baiting," he said. "Where you have high densities of deer congregated around food sources, you have a risk of disease. When you have CWD in the southern Wisconsin and Bovine tuberculosis in Michigan and northern Minnesota, you have a valid rationale for a statewide ban on feeding and baiting."
  
  Richards told the board that if they are depending on the recreational harvest of deer alone to control CWD, they will likely fail.
  
  "Hunters in the State of Wisconsin have not shown themselves as being capable of managing deer populations," he said. Currently over 90 percent of the geographic area of the state is overpopulated with deer.
  
  Minnesota is proposing to allow landowners in a specific area to kill deer 24 hours a day, seven days a week to reduce Bovine TB in the deer population. Their idea is to get rid of restrictions and allow people to kill deer.
  
  Richards raised questions about the current regulations proposed by the DNR and CWD Stakeholders Advisory Committee, saying that the DNR was originally on the right track, but was forced to back off. He believes that the current regulations being considered by the board, which went out to public hearings in March, have no possibility of helping to reduce or eradicate the disease. It would merely slow the spread.
  
  Richards said that, from disease management perspective, he found the proposed CWD regulations for this fall "somewhat stagnant and maybe even taking a step backwards." He sees very little evidence that hunters will bring the deer population back down.
  
  Unfortunately the state is talking about "containment and control," without adequate steps to reduce the disease.

• 04/05/2008:  Dead birds float ashore at Great Salt Lake, Science Daily
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Don't be surprised if you see of hundreds of dead birds along the southeastern shore of the Great Salt Lake during the next few weeks.
  
  More than 15,000 birds died on the lake last fall. Most of the birds were eared grebes.
  
  Testing done at the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wisconsin has confirmed that the birds died of avian cholera. Avian cholera is a disease that sweeps through grebes and other birds on the lake almost every year.
  
  "Avian cholera is caused by a common bacteria that's found all across the country," says Leslie McFarlane, wildlife disease coordinator for the Division of Wildlife Resources. "When the conditions are right, avian cholera takes off. It can spread through a bird population quickly."
  
  Even though the birds died last fall, the salt water in the lake has preserved their carcasses. "The birds you see along the shore of the Great Salt Lake may look like they died recently, but they've actually been dead for several months," McFarlane says.
  
  McFarlane says the bacteria that causes avian cholera does not affect people or other mammals, including dogs. And because the birds have been dead for so long, their carcasses don't pose a threat to other birds. "The birds have been dead long enough that their carcasses no longer carry the bacteria," she says.
  
  Once the carcasses wash onto the beach, they should decompose quickly. "We won't be picking the birds up," McFarlane says. "Die-offs like this are part of nature, and we'll let nature take its course as far as taking care of the birds that died."
  
  For more information, call the Division of Wildlife Resources Salt Lake City office at (801) 538-4700.

• 03/31/2008:  Crows negative for AI strains, Coshocton Tribune (Ohio)
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  COSHOCTON Mark Frank, director of Environmental Health with the Coshocton City Health Department, recently received results from a crow roost die-off.
  
  Two of the crows collected during the January 2008 crow die-off were tested for Avian Influenza (AI) at the Ohio Department of Agriculture, Animal Disease Diagnostics Laboratory in Reynoldsburg. The birds were found to be negative for all strains of AI.
  
  An additional carcass was sent to the United States Geological Survey, National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis. At this time, according to Craig Hicks, Wildlife Disease Biologist with the USDA in a letter to Frank, the diagnosis posted on the NWHCs Web site is Enteritis: hemorrhagic, Viral Infection Suspect; NOS. Without sending the sample to an outside laboratory, this is the limit that can be given for the diagnosis.
  
  According to the NWHC, similar crow die-offs have occurred in neighboring states over the last few years. A few of the die-offs have been attributed to an avian strain of Reovirus. NWHC has stated that in the Coshocton die-off, the cytopathic effect is Reovirus-like, but cannot be labeled as Reovirus without further testing. NWHC also stated that the avian strain of Reovirus is not a known human health hazard.

• 03/30/2008:  Should bird hunters get the lead out?, Victoria Advocate
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Research underway to replace lead shot with various nontoxic loads
  
  BY TARA BOZICK - VICTORIA ADVOCATE
  
  March 30, 2008 - 10:45 p.m.
  
  AUSTIN Hunters dont think that prohibiting the use of lead shots will save the birds.
  
  Marvin Strakos, with MS Guide Service in Port OConnor, said the nontoxic shots are too expensive and wound more birds than they kill.
  
  Im against shooting nontoxic shots at doves or quail,Strakos said. Ive been hunting all my life and I never found pellets in any birds gizzards.
  
  Lead shots were banned for hunting waterfowl in 1991. Now, researchers in Texas discuss whether to do the same for dove hunting.
  
  Texas Parks and Wildlife researched the issues surrounding lead shots versus nontoxic shots for three years and looks for a contractor to conduct hunter attitude surveys, wildlife program leader Jay Roberson said. The surveys would start in the fall.
  
  Doves need to swallow pebbles to digest food and so the concern is they may be ingesting the lead pellets along with them, he said. Research in wildlife management areas in fields close to Kansas City, Mo., determined that up to 6 percent of doves ingested pellets into their gizzards. By doing so, doves may become vulnerable to predation, disease and death.
  
  Human contamination by eating the birds shot with lead pellets is minor, Roberson added.
  
  State and federal agencies have the legal responsibility to investigate any cause that would affect the birds long-term stability, Roberson said. They must take into account the possibility of other birds and wildlife swallowing lead.
  
  But researchers must also determine the economic impact on the shooting and hunting industries and whether switching to nontoxic shots would exclude anyone from hunting.
  
  Roberson estimates it would take five years to get sufficient information to make a recommendation on this issue.
  
  Lead is a well-known toxin thats not essential or beneficial to living organisms, David Dolton, dove coordinator with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said.
  
  It is logical to assume that other animals eat mourning doves that die of lead poisoning, Dolton wrote in an e-mail.
  
  Bald eagles, California condors and peregrine falcons have been poisoned indirectly by lead shot, according to the Field Manual of Wildlife Diseases published by the U.S. Geological Survey.
  
  Hunter and guide David Rosenboom, of Bent Rod Charters in Port OConnor, believe more birds would die of being wounded by nontoxic shots than by ingesting the pellets of lead shots.
  
  Shots like tungsten-nickel-iron would be more effective than steel shots, but cost at least three times more.
  
  Consumers are going to go with the cheapest way, Rosenboom said. Theyre going to end up buying the steel shot.
  
  Rosenboom hunts waterfowl like duck and geese and has seen the impact of using steel shots on those birds. He estimated for one netting survey that 80 percent of the geese were alive and carrying a steel shot in the muscle.
  
  Theyre crippled by it instead of dying, Rosenboom said. For every bird you retrieve with a steel shot, youre probably crippling two of them.
  
  Researchers may worry about lead weakening birds to predation, but crippling birds does that as well, Rosenboom said. He also worries that inefficient shots would keep hunters in the fields longer to reach bag limits and would disturb the wildlife that need to use the habitat.
  
  But Dolton said hunters could learn to reduce the crippling rate and this should not be a problem for hunters already accustomed to hunting waterfowl with nontoxic shots.
  
  Research from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Waterfowl Harvest Survey from 1952 to 2001 shows nontoxic shots for hunting waterfowl became less crippling as hunters learned to use them.
  
  It turns out the crippling rate went down, Dolton said. Its just not a valid argument.
  
  When Dolton hunts, he finds the steel shot shoots in a tighter pattern and that he can actually hit doves better.
  
  Some hunters believe it is easier to hit birds with nontoxic shot because they dont have to lead them as much, Dolton said.
  
  Everybody has an opinion. A lot of environmentalists have good intentions, he said. Ive been raised if youre going to shoot something, you kill it and eat it. You dont want to go out in the field and start crippling animals.
  
  Tara Bozick is a reporter for the Advocate. Contact her at 361-580-6504 or tbozick@vicad.com.
  
  For more information or to state your opinion as a hunter, call the Texas Parks and Wildlife regulations coordinator at 512-389-4775, or Jay Roberson at 512-389-8011. Or visit www.tpwd.state.tx.us, click Contact Us and leave a comment for regulations.
  
  Types of nontoxic shot:
  
  1. Steel
  
  2. Tungsten (including tungsten, tungsten-iron, tungsten-nickel-iron, and tungsten polymers)
  
  3. Bismuth
  
  4. Tin
  
  --Source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
  
  As little as two lead pellets may debilitate a mourning dove.
  
  Source: Missouri Department of Conservation

• 03/25/2008:  Bats Perish, and No One Knows Why, The New York Times
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Al Hicks was standing outside an old mine in the Adirondacks, the largest bat hibernaculum, or winter resting place, in New York State.
  
  It was broad daylight in the middle of winter, and bats flew out of the mine about one a minute. Some had fallen to the ground where they flailed around on the snow like tiny wind-broken umbrellas, using the thumbs at the top joint of their wings to gain their balance.
  
  All would be dead by nightfall. Mr. Hicks, a mammal specialist with the states Environmental Conservation Department, said: Bats dont fly in the daytime, and bats dont fly in the winter. Every bat you see out here is a dead bat flying, so to speak.
  
  They have plenty of company. In what is one of the worst calamities to hit bat populations in the United States, on average 90 percent of the hibernating bats in four caves and mines in New York have died since last winter.
  
  Wildlife biologists fear a significant die-off in about 15 caves and mines in New York, as well as at sites in Massachusetts and Vermont. Whatever is killing the bats leaves them unusually thin and, in some cases, dotted with a white fungus. Bat experts fear that what they call White Nose Syndrome may spell doom for several species that keep insect pests under control.
  
  Researchers have yet to determine whether the bats are being killed by a virus, bacteria, toxin, environmental hazard, metabolic disorder or fungus. Some have been found with pneumonia, but that and the fungus are believed to be secondary symptoms.
  
  This is probably one of the strangest and most puzzling problems we have had with bats, said Paul Cryan, a bat ecologist with the United States Geological Survey. Its really startling that weve not come up with a smoking gun yet.
  
  Merlin Tuttle, the president of Bat Conservation International, an education and research group in Austin, Tex., said: So far as we can tell at this point, this may be the most serious threat to North American bats weve experienced in recorded history. It definitely warrants immediate and careful attention.
  
  This month, Mr. Hicks took a team from the Environmental Conservation Department into the hibernaculum that has sheltered 200,000 bats in past years, mostly little brown bats (Myotis lucifugus) and federally endangered Indiana bats (Myotis sodalis), with the worlds second largest concentration of small-footed bats (Myotis leibii).
  
  He asked that the mine location not be published, for fear that visitors could spread the syndrome or harm the bats or themselves.
  
  Other visitors do not need directions. The day before, Mr. Hicks saw eight hawks circling the parking lot of another mine, waiting to kill and eat the bats that flew out.
  
  In a dank galley of the mine, Mr. Hicks asked everyone to count how many out of 100 bats had white noses. About half the bats in one galley did. They would be dead by April, he said.
  
  Mr. Hicks, who was the first person to begin studying the deaths, said more than 10 laboratories were trying to solve the mystery.
  
  In January 2007, a cave explorer reported an unusual number of bats flying near the entrance of a cavern near Albany. In March and April, thousands of dead bats were found in three other mines and caves. In one case, half the dead or living bats had the fungus.
  
  One cave had 15,584 bats in 2005, 6,735 in 2007 and an estimated 1,500 this winter. Another went from 1,329 bats in 2006 to 38 this winter. Some biologists fear that 250,000 bats could die this year.
  
  Since September, when hibernation began, dead or dying bats have been found at 15 sites in New York. Most of them had been visited by people who had been at the original four sites last winter, leading researchers to suspect that humans could transmit the problem.
  
  Details on the problem in neighboring states are sketchier. In the Berkshires in Massachusetts, we are getting reports of dying/dead bats in areas where we do not have known bat hibernacula, so we may have more sites than we will ever be able to identify, said Susi von Oettingen, an endangered species biologist with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.
  
  In Vermont, Scott Darling, a wildlife biologist with the Fish and Wildlife Department, said: The last tally that I have is approximately 20 sites in New York, 4 in Vermont and 2 in Massachusetts. We only have estimates of the numbers of bats in the affected sites more or less 500,000. It is impossible for us to count the dead bats, as many have flown away from the caves and died we have over 90 reports from citizens across Vermont as well as many are still dying.
  
  People are not believed to be susceptible to the affliction. But New Jersey, New York and Vermont have advised everyone to stay out of all caverns that might have bats. Visitors to affected caves and mines are asked to decontaminate all clothing, boots, ropes and other gear, as well as the car trunks that transport them.
  
  One affected mine is the winter home to a third of the Indiana bats between Virginia and Maine. These pink-nosed bats, two inches long and weighing a quarter-ounce, are particularly social and cluster together as tightly as 300 a square foot.
  
  Its ironic, until last year most of my time was spent trying to delist it, or take it off the endangered species list, Mr. Hicks said, after the states Indiana bat population grew, to 52,000 from 1,500 in the 1960s.
  
  Its very scary and a little overwhelming from a biologists perspective, Ms. von Oettingen said. If we cant contain it, were going to see extinctions of listed species, and some of species that are not even listed.
  
  Neighbors of mines and caves in the region have notified state wildlife officials of many affected sites when they have noticed bats dead in the snow, latched onto houses or even flying in a recent snowstorm.
  
  Biologists are concerned that if the bats are being killed by something contagious either in the caves or elsewhere, it could spread rapidly, because bats can migrate hundreds of miles in any direction to their summer homes, known as maternity roosts. At those sites, females usually give birth to one pup a year, an added challenge for dropping populations.
  
  Nursing females can eat up to half their weight in insects a day, Mr. Hicks said.
  
  Researchers from institutions like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the United States Geological Surveys National Wildlife Health Center, Boston University, the New York State Health Department and even Disneys Animal World are addressing the problem. Some are considering trying to feed underweight wild bats to help them survive the remaining weeks before spring. Some are putting temperature sensors on bats to monitor how often they wake up, and others are making thermal images of hibernating bats.
  
  Other researchers want to know whether recently introduced pesticides, including those released to stop West Nile virus, may be contributing to the problem, either through a toxin or by greatly reducing the bats food source.
  
  Dr. Thomas H. Kunz, a biology professor at Boston University, said the body composition of the bats would also be studied, partly to determine the ratio of white to brown fat. Of particular interest is the brown fat between the shoulder blades, known to assist the bats in warming up when they begin to leave deep hibernation in April.
  
  It appears the white nose bats do not have enough fat, either brown or white, to arouse, Dr. Kunz said. Theyre dying in situ and do not have the ability to arouse from their deep torpor.
  
  His researchers cameras have shown that bats in the caves that do wake up when disturbed take hours longer to do so, as was the case in the Adirondack mine. He also notes that if females become too emaciated, they will not have the hormonal reactions necessary to ovulate and reproduce.
  
  In searching for a cause of the syndrome, researchers are hampered by the lack of baseline knowledge about habits like how much bats should weigh in the fall, where they hibernate and even how many bats live in the region.
  
  Were going to learn an awful lot about bats in a comprehensive way that very few animal species have been looked at, said Dr. Elizabeth Buckles, an assistant professor at Cornell who coordinates bat research efforts. Thats good. But its unfortunate it has to be under these circumstances.
  
  The die-offs are big enough that they may have economic effects. A study of Brazilian free-tailed bats in southwestern Texas found that their presence saved cotton farmers a sixth to an eighth of the cash value of their crops by consuming insect pests.
  
  Logic dictates when you are potentially losing as many as a half a million bats in this region, there are going to be ramifications for insect abundance in the coming summer, Mr. Darling, the Vermont wildlife biologist, said.
  
  As Mr. Hicks traveled deeper in the cave, the concentrations of bats hanging from the ceiling increased. They hung like fruit, generally so still that they appeared dead. In some tightly packed groups, just individual noses or elbows peeked through. A few bats had a wing around their nearest cavemates. Their white bellies mostly faced downhill. When they awoke, they made high squeaks, like someone sucking a tooth.
  
  The mine floors were not covered with carcasses, Mr. Hicks said, because raccoons come in and feed on them. Raccoon scat dotted the rocks along the trail left by their footprints.
  
  In the six hours in the cave taking samples, nose counts and photographs, Mr. Hicks said that for him trying for the perfect picture was a form of therapy. Its just that I know Im never going to see these guys again, he said. Were the last to see this concentration of bats in our lifetime.

• 03/07/2008:  Strange Malady Wreaks Havoc on Bat Population, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  New Englanders may face an uptick in mosquito swarms, insect bites and moths this summer as a strange malady has threatened the insects' top predator: bats.
  
  
  
  Bats are dying at an alarming rate in the Northeast, and wildlife biologists fear the outbreak could lead to the extinction of the already endangered Indiana bat.
  
  A typical bat cave during winter months is dark, quiet and smells faintly of guano. The winged mammals are usually found hanging upside down in a state of torpor, the decreased physiological activity of hibernation. Some hibernate alone; some in clusters.
  
  But an epidemic has swept through bat populations in the northeastern United States, disrupting the lives of the wintering cave bats. And scientists are puzzled as to what is causing it.
  
  The so-called "white-nose syndrome" has ravaged bat colonies in Vermont, Massachusetts and New York, leading to deaths in large swaths of the region. In caves where bats normally spend the winter hibernating, biologists are finding them emaciated and awake, or lying dead in the snow. Some have a coat of white fungus blanketing their nose and other parts of their bodies.
  
  Bats have been spotted flying around in greater numbers than is normal for this time of year. Scientists suspect they may be starving and searching for food in a desperate attempt to survive.
  
  Of the roughly 500,000 bats hibernating in the caves affected by the syndrome, Scott Darling, a bat biologist with the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department, estimates that the fatality rate has exceeded 90 percent. And he fears the toll is rising.
  
  "At this time, biologists are not optimistic that we won't lose all of those 500,000 bats," he said.
  
  The cause of the deaths is unknown. Nearly all of the bats are noticeably gaunt, with extremely low fat reserves. But pathologists have found no indications of any known infection, bacteria or virus that would help pinpoint a cause. And the name, white-nose syndrome, could be misleading, as only a portion of the bats have the white fungus.
  
  Susi von Oettingen, an endangered species biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, suspects the cause may be a complex interplay of factors.
  
  "It may be environmental," she said. "It may be a combination of something environmental and a pathogen the bats encountered in the fall. We're looking at everything and letting our imaginations run wild."
  
  Scattered across the country, scientists in 10 different labs are trying to target the source of the epidemic. When a deceased bat arrives at the lab, pathologists inspect its ears, nose, eyes, wings and fur. Then they slice open the carcass, inspect the organs and collect tissue samples for testing.
  
  Scientists also take cultures of bacteria, examine fungus found on the bats and test for rabies, said Kimberli Miller, a wildlife disease specialist with the USGS National Wildlife Health Center. "We've been looking at parasites, and we've been examining the tissues microscopically. But so far, it's not coming together neatly."
  
  Among those threatened is the Indiana bat, which is already on the federal list of endangered species.
  
  "If we lose the Indiana bat, we're losing a species from the Northeast," von Oettingen said. "The whole species may be gone. To me, that's almost incomprehensible that on our watch, we'd lose a species."
  
  But Darling considered the little brown bat an even greater concern, since they make up a much larger portion of the bat population. About 22,500 of the 23,000 bats in Vermont's Aeolus Cave, for example, are little brown bats.
  
  Bats are chowhounds, capable of consuming as many as 1,000 insects in an hour -- and biologists predict that this year's die-off will cause insect populations to swell.
  
  "When you do the math and you figure the bats might be feeding five to six hours a night -- that can add up to an awful lot of insects," Darling said.
  
  He points to caterpillars in particular, which eat leaves and farm crops. Bats also eat beetles, flies and mosquitoes, and are believed to play a vital role in controlling outbreaks of these insects.
  
  "We may be living in an ecological experiment that will demonstrate the role of bats," Darling said.
  
  ---- By Jenny Marder, NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

• 02/29/2008:  Bats in Northeast Are Mysteriously Dying, Lancaster Farming
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Submitted by Editor on Fri, 02/29/2008 - 1:20pm.
  
  Cornell Vet College Scientists Aid Investigation
  
  Krishna Ramanujan
  
  Cornell Chronicle
  
  First it was bees that were mysteriously dying. Now its bats.
  
  Following a summer when honeybees across America began to die in great numbers, researchers are now finding thousands of sick bats in caves in New York, Vermont and Massachusetts. The deaths of the two species appear to be unrelated.
  
  Bat specialists from the New York State Department of Conservation (NYDEC) have found 15 sites, up from four discovered last year, with sick bats: one in Massachusetts, two in Vermont and 12 in New York between Albany and Watertown.
  
  To help diagnose the problem, NYDEC scientists are sending samples to Beth Buckles, assistant professor of biomedical sciences in Cornells College of Veterinary Medicine.
  
  The affected bats are mostly little brown bats (Myotis lucifugus), among the most common North American bats. Other affected bats include the endangered Indiana bat (Myotis Sodalis), the northern long-eared bat (Myotis septentrionalis) and the eastern pipistrelle (Perimyotis subflavus). The bats live year round in the general area and usually hibernate each year in the same caves.
  
  Buckles and colleagues are conducting postmortem exams of organs and tissues and testing for signs of inflammation, bacteria, viruses and toxins. So far, the researchers do not yet know what is causing the massive casualties, Buckles said.
  
  We have some good leads. We are continuing to look for infectious causes and are developing protocols to assess the bats metabolic states. They may not have enough fat to make it through the winter, she said.
  
  Many of the sick bats have a white fungus growing on their faces, are very thin and are congregating near to the cave entrances, a habit of ill bats. But it is unprecedented to find so many sick bats grouped near entrances, said Buckles.
  
  In two caves the researchers studied last year that together had an estimated 18,000 bats up to 97 percent died. The caves found this year may hold between 150,000 and 200,000 bats, many of them sick.
  
  This winter, regarding the mortalities, to say weve lost large numbers now would be inaccurate, because we havent, said Al Hicks, a bat expert at NYDEC. But we expect them to start dying now in substantial numbers.
  
  Researchers are checking for diseases that have previously caused mortality in other animals and may be impacting bats, said Buckles. Possible causes include parasites, distemper, toxins and rapid changes in temperature, though none of these has been verified. There is no evidence that the bat sickness poses any threat to humans, Buckles stressed.
  
  As a pathologist, we see an animal at one point in the disease process, (and) we try to get more bats as the season progresses to see how their tissues change, Buckles said. We will continue to monitor bats from other parts of New York and the country so we can compare healthy bats with unhealthy bats.
  
  Anyone who finds a dead or sick bat should not handle it, but call the local DEC, Buckles said.
  
  As for bees, many continue to die inexplicably. Scientists are investigating whether a virus and pesticides may be playing roles.
  
  Researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey National Wildlife Health Center, New York State Department of Health and Disneys Animal Kingdom are also working with Buckles and colleagues to better understand the problem.

• 02/11/2008:  Elk Herds Upsetting Ecosystems In Parks, The Washington Post
  
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  Officials Favor Shooting to Restore Natural Balance
  
  By Peter Slevin
  
  Washington Post Staff Writer
  
  Monday, February 11, 2008; A03
  
  CHICAGO -- Elk like to eat. Elk like to eat a lot.
  
  This is a problem for creatures fond of the same greenery coveted by the weighty elk. It is not so good for the ecosystem, either, according to the stewards of three national parks in Colorado and the Dakotas that are faced with growing herds of the herbivorous mammals.
  
  Scientists at Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota are preparing to do an elk count, sending an airplane aloft after a fresh snow, when it is easier to spot the quarry in rugged terrain.
  
  "Based on last year's survey, we expect to see a thousand or so elk," said Bill Whitworth, the park's chief of resource management. "We'd like to have somewhere between 100 and 400. We're balancing our elk population with bison, feral horses, other deer and animals that use the forage out here."
  
  Reducing elk herds is not a gentle business. The National Park Service mostly figures on shooting elk, either on parkland using staff members and designated deputies, or on private land where hunters can load up.
  
  Nature in the form of drought or severe snow sometimes helps. It used to be that elk could be shipped elsewhere, but the surfeit of elk and the rise of chronic wasting disease made that option less attractive. In Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, 60 female elk, called cows, were injected with a contraceptive designed to be effective for several years.
  
  Spokeswoman Kyle Patterson said proposals to curb the elk population at Rocky Mountain have inspired "strong feelings across the board." Recommendations ranged from shooting and fencing to contraception and the introduction of wolves, one of elk's few natural predators.
  
  Park managers settled on "lethal reduction," as shooting is called, as the preferred way to control the herd. Sharpshooters with night-vision goggles and silencers would target elk after dark. A formal decision is expected to be released soon, Patterson said, with the program likely to begin next winter and continue for two decades.
  
  "This is a 20-year plan that we've been working on," Patterson said, explaining that the elk population will be monitored through fat times and thin. "Willow and aspen stands are declining. That's what we're concerned about, because that deprives other species of habitat they need.
  
  "We have to manage for the others . . . beaver, butterfly, a variety of birds, insects," Patterson continued. "It's a whole ecosystem concept, and it can get out of whack."
  
  The 415-square-mile park has a winter elk population between 1,700 and 2,200. The park's goal is 1,600 to 2,100 elk, down nearly half from highs reached as recently as 2001.
  
  Since then, unusually deep snow in March 2003 and December 2006 motivated the elk to migrate to more hospitable climes at lower elevations outside the park, Patterson said. Last year, she noted, hunts supervised by the Colorado Division of Wildlife culled 750 elk outside the park.
  
  "We have to plan for some of those things not happening," Patterson said. "If they do, we would cull fewer animals."
  
  A conservation group called WildEarth Guardians opposes shooting elk, preferring the introduction of wolves, which helped control the elk population in Yellowstone National Park -- more than eight times larger than Rocky Mountain -- beginning in the mid-1990s. The organization has threatened to file a lawsuit.
  
  Bryan Richards, who studies elk for the U.S. Geological Survey, said the combination of healthy habitat and few predators is likely to create a continuing elk problem for Rocky Mountain, Theodore Roosevelt and South Dakota's Wind Cave National Park. Human intervention is a necessity, he said.
  
  "Unfortunately, with the hand of cards that has been dealt to the Park Service, there aren't any clear-cut great answers," he said. "If there are not tools implemented to keep those populations in check, the populations will spiral out of control."
  
  Steve Torbit, Colorado-based regional director for the National Wildlife Federation, sees lessons for the future in the elk conundrum. He said the nation is "paying the price for these smaller parks that do not allow for the animal herds to have seasonal movement."
  
  When parks expand, or new parks are created, Torbit says, they should include buffer zones where hunting and wildlife management are permitted "and you don't build the subdivisions or the ranches right up against the park boundary."

• 02/08/2008:  Elk boom leads to debate over culling, Associated Press
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Elk Boom Leads to Debate Over Culling
  
  By BLAKE NICHOLSON 6 hours ago
  
  MEDORA, N.D. (AP) The number of elk roaming the nation's parks is booming, and that's bad news for them.
  
  A debate has started among wildlife and conservation officials about how the animals should be culled by sharpshooters' bullets or by their natural enemy, wolves.
  
  The National Park Service has no firm estimate on the total number of elk in national parks, simply because they live in the wild and migrate in and out of many parks.
  
  But managers at Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota and Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota have documented overpopulation problems.
  
  At Theodore Roosevelt, officials are considering several options, including the use of government and volunteer shooters. A draft management plan is due out early this year.
  
  One option not on the table: rounding up the animals and shipping them out. That's because the transfer of living elk is restricted for fear they have chronic wasting disease.
  
  "Now that we're not moving elk, we've got to do something else to control elk numbers," said Bert Frost, the Park Service's acting associate director for natural resource stewardship and science.
  
  Moving elk once was a common management tool at Theodore Roosevelt. After a 2000 roundup, elk were given to zoos, American Indian tribes and even the state of Kentucky.
  
  Since the practice was stopped, the herd at the park in southwestern North Dakota has grown to as many as 900 animals, on land that can sustain only about 360.
  
  At Rocky Mountain, where chronic wasting disease was discovered in the early 1980s, the elk herd is estimated to be at the high end of a target range of 1,600 to 2,100 animals.
  
  At Wind Cave, where the disease also was detected, the animals number about 650, nearly double the ideal herd size. The park had been shipping out elk as recently as 1994.
  
  All three parks are working on new elk management plans. Rocky Mountain's plan includes the use of National Park Service employees and volunteers to cull the herd.
  
  The conservation group WildEarth Guardians advocates the restoration of wolves to manage elk at Rocky Mountain. Executive Director John Horning said the group will sue in federal court by spring to block that park's plan to shoot the animals.
  
  The preferred approach in the Wind Cave plan, which will be presented to the public in draft form in the spring, is to allow animals to move outside the park and be hunted, said Dan Foster, the park's chief of resource management.
  
  Theodore Roosevelt officials agreed to consider volunteer shooters under pressure from U.S. senators and state wildlife officials in Colorado and North Dakota. Private hunting is usually not legal in the three parks.
  
  Wolves have kept down elk herds in other parks, said Margaret Wild, a National Park Service wildlife veterinarian and an expert on chronic wasting disease.
  
  The elk herd at Yellowstone National Park grew largely unchecked in part because of the loss of most predators. That changed when wolves were released there in 1995.
  
  "The Park Service mission is to preserve ecological processes, and the way we try to do that is to let natural processes take their course," said P.J. White, supervisory wildlife biologist at Yellowstone. "Restore native species such as wolves, and minimize human intervention to the extent that we can."
  
  Elk at Rocky Mountain are damaging trees that park biologist Therese Johnson said are important to many animal species. At Theodore Roosevelt, the large number of elk in the park have even caused problems for ranchers like Bill Lowman who live outside of the fenced boundaries.
  
  "Elk will run through a fence, just tear it out by the hundreds of feet," he said. "Elk don't know the difference between federal land and private land. They like private land because it has more hay and feed."
  
  Since elk have to be killed to be tested for chronic wasting disease, there is little hope for any future elk transfers out of national parks until a live test for the disease becomes available for general use.
  
  "We're years away from a live test that could be used," said Bryan Richards of the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis.
  
  There is a live test for deer but it does not work in elk because chronic wasting similar to mad cow disease develops differently in the animals, Richards said.
  
  Removing infected herds and starting over is not an option, Frost said. Potentially infected elk would simply wander back into the parks from surrounding areas, he said.
  
  The Black Hills have a lot of mountain lions, but they cannot remove enough elk to be an effective management tool, Foster said. In the absence of natural predators, he said, "we, the managers, have to be the predators."

• 01/30/2008:  Bat Deaths in NY, Vt. Baffle Experts, Associated Press
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Bat Deaths in NY, Vt. Baffle Experts
  
  By MICHAEL HILL 21 hours ago
  
  ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) Bats are dying off by the thousands as they hibernate in caves and mines around New York and Vermont, sending researchers scrambling to find the cause of mysterious condition dubbed "white nose syndrome."
  
  The ailment named for the white circle of fungus found around the noses of affected bats was first noticed last January in four caves west of Albany. It has now spread to eight hibernation sites in the state and another in Vermont.
  
  Alan Hicks, a bat specialist with New York's Department of Environmental Conservation, called the quick-spreading disorder the "gravest threat" to bats he had ever seen. Up to 11,000 bats were found dead last winter and many more are showing signs illness this winter. One hard-hit cave went from more than 15,000 bats two years ago to 1,500 now, he said.
  
  "We do not know what the cause is and we do not know how it was spread, either from cave to cave, or bat to bat," said Hicks. "You have this potential for this huge spread."
  
  The white fungus ring around bats' noses is a symptom, but not necessarily the cause. For some unknown reason, the bats deplete their fat reserves and die months before they would normally emerge from hibernation.
  
  New York and Vermont environmental officials are asking people not to enter caves or mines with bats until researchers figure out how the infection is spread. There is no evidence it is a threat to humans, but officials want to take every precaution to avoid it spreading from cave to cave.
  
  Bats are considered particularly vulnerable when they hibernate, a time when they can hang together tightly by the thousands. Indiana bats, a federally endangered species, are considered particularly vulnerable, though the highest death count has been among little brown bats.
  
  Researchers with Cornell University and the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis., are among those helping state environmental officials.
  
  The bat die-off has some eerie similarities with "colony collapse disorder," the baffling affliction that began decimating honeybee colonies years ago. Scientists last fall said they suspected a virus previously unknown in the United States.
  
  "I'm very concerned," Hicks said. "I can only hope that what we're seeing today will dissipate in the future."

• 01/22/2008:  Birds in Great Salt Lake Felled by Cholera by the Thousands, New York Times
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  By SANA KHALID
  
  Some of the birds flew upside down or threw their heads back between their wings. Some fell out of the sky. Others tried to land a foot or more above the water, or swam in circles when they got there. And then they died.
  
  The birds eared grebes, ruddy ducks, California gulls and northern shovelers, about 15,000 in all have been discovered over the past month on the shores of the Great Salt Lake in Utah. According to the United States Geological Surveys National Wildlife Health Center, they died from avian cholera.
  
  The disease is not new to the West, but the recent outbreak was especially potent, said Tom Aldrich, an expert at the Utah division of wildlife resources. It flourishes in cold weather last November was the coldest on record, Mr. Aldrich said and rapidly spreads when there are concentrated populations of birds with diminished food resources.
  
  Avian cholera, caused by the bacterium Pasteurella multocida, is the most prevalent infectious disease among wild North American waterfowl. It was first reported in this country in the 1940s and has cropped up every few years in recent decades. In 1994, it killed 10,000 birds in the Great Salt Lake.
  
  Dr. Krysten Schuler, an ecologist at the National Wildlife Health Center, said avian cholera was probably spread by carrier birds. Mr. Aldrich agreed, pointing out that the eared grebes were the first birds to get infected with avian cholera.
  
  He added, The eared grebes in the salty parts of the Salt Lake are likely agents to spread the cholera to the other birds that move to these salty regions when the freshwater marshes freeze.
  
  Can humans contract avian cholera? It is very unlikely that a human would develop an infection from eating a bird infected with P. multocida, Dr. Schuler said. But they could become infected if a wound or scratch is contaminated. A respiratory infection is possible if a person is working with carcasses in an enclosed, poorly ventilated area.
  
  Dr. Schuler recommended wearing gloves and thoroughly washing hands when handling any sick or dead animals.

• 01/04/2008:  Reovirus Blamed for Crow Die-Offs, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
  
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  Reovirus Blamed for Crow Die-Offs
  
  DEC Investigation Indicates New Strain; Humans Not Thought Susceptible
  
  ALBANY, NY (01/03/2008; 1216)(readMedia)-- A strain of avian reovirus is responsible for crow die-offs reported in at least six counties across New York in the last week, according to a New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) investigation.
  
  Dead crows were reported in Albany, Dutchess, Jefferson, Montgomery, Orange and Steuben counties over the last week, sometimes in large groups. (Exact numbers for the total die-off arent available; estimates are in the hundreds.)
  
  Postmortem tests show that the birds were killed by a form of reovirus, said DEC Wildlife Pathologist Ward Stone. The particular strain of this illness attacks the birds intestinal system and is spread through bird fecal matter. Winter provides prime conditions for spreading the virus, as crows concentrate in large roosts during the cold weather, Stone added.
  
  Stone stressed that the incidents were not a result of West Nile virus. While the samples will also be tested by the NYS Health Department, this strain of reovirus is not likely to be contracted by humans, he said.
  
  Over the last decade, the U.S. National Wildlife Health Center has reported several strains of reovirus in various birds, especially the American woodcock. Officials in Ontario, Canada, also have noted its appearance there. In the last few years, a small number of crows in New York were felled by a strain of the virus. But this winter marks the largest die-off, Stone said.
  
  Residents are advised to report any unusual bird mortalities to DEC Regional offices (www.dec.ny.gov/about/255.html#Regional_Offices). Also, residents, if disposing dead birds, should use rubber or plastic gloves, or a double plastic bag used as a glove.

• 01/03/2008:  Avian cholera killing waterfowl at Great Salt Lake, The Salt Lake Tribune
  
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  Avian cholera is killing eared grebes, ducks and gulls on the Great Salt Lake in what is becoming an all-too-regular event on the important migratory bird flyway.
  
  Prevailing northwesterly winds have blown about 1,500 bird carcasses into windrows along a half-mile stretch of the lake's southern shoreline near Saltair, Tom Aldrich, migratory game bird expert for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, said Wednesday.
  
  While the disease doesn't affect humans, people shouldn't pick up the birds or let their dogs chew on them, he said.
  
  Avian cholera has been confirmed in the eared grebes. Gull and duck carcasses have been sent to the U.S. Geological Survey National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis., for analysis.
  
  "If I was a betting man, I would bet it was cholera," Aldrich said.
  
  Introduced from domestic fowl during the 1940s, avian cholera has become the most common infectious disease among wild North American waterfowl but didn't appear in Utah until the late 1990s. In 2004, avian cholera killed about 30,000 eared grebes on the Great Salt Lake.
  
  How avian cholera came to Utah remains a mystery. "For a long time people thought it was snow geese that carried this around, sort of like Typhoid Mary," Aldrich said. "But we don't get snow geese here."
  
  About 1.5 million eared grebes land on the Great Salt Lake each fall during their migration. Aldrich said the cholera outbreaks have always started with the small water birds.
  
  The outbreaks on the lake now occur every couple of years, he said. As fresh water areas on the lake freeze, the birds move to the southern shore to feed on brine shrimp cysts.
  
  Avian cholera is a kind of blood poisoning that spreads quickly when the birds are overcrowded and food supplies are short. Scientists say death occurs so quickly that birds can fall from the sky or die while eating without showing signs of sickness.

• 11/24/2007:  Tadpole Slayer: Mystery epidemic imperils frogs, Science News
  
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  Tadpole Slayer: Mystery epidemic imperils frogs
  
  Janet Raloff
  
  From Alaska to Florida, a novel and yet-unnamed protozoan is knocking off tadpoles. Species vulnerable to "the beast" belong to the genus Rana, which includes leopard frogs, green frogs, and bullfrogs, says ecologist John C. Maerz.
  
  His team at the University of Georgia in Athens stumbled across mass die-offs of southern leopard frog tadpoles in nearby ponds last year. Dissection showed the animals' innards peppered with spherical, one-celled parasites. Genetic testing confirmed these are loosely related to Perkinsus, a disease-causing organism that affects marine shellfish.
  
  Maerz' group now offers the first published photos of the pathogen and descriptions of its effects in the September EcoHealth. Infected tadpoles become lethargic and developmentally stunted, the Georgia scientists report. Although the mystery parasite infects all organs, it clusters in the liver, sometimes tripling that organ's size and giving the false impression that an animal is fat and robust. So many protozoa swamped and killed tissue in the liver of one sick tadpole, Maerz recalls, that throughout most of the organ "we could find no identifiable liver cells."
  
  He notes that his team did not discover the pathogen. It was first found by veterinary pathologist D. Earl Green of the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wisc., part of the U.S. Geological Survey.
  
  Since 1999, Green has quietly been recording a steady and growing incidence of the novel infection in frogs sent to his lab. All came from east of the Mississippi except for two outliers: frogs from Alaska's Kenai Peninsula, several years ago, and one sample that he ran across 3 weeks ago from the West Coast.
  
  Fueled by warm weather, "this infection kills steadily and slowly over the course of summer," Green says. Although it targets tadpoles, there's a chance that adults could also carry it and serve as amphibian Typhoid Marys.
  
  When Green can steal a moment, he intends to publish his experiences with the pathogenand name it. But that may require yet a bit more information on the shape of its mitochondria, explains Sanford H. Feldman of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, a collaborator on Green's studies. Feldman says his work indicates that "this wicked-looking organism is very primitive" and appears to "phylogenetically sit at the spot where animals and fungi diverged."
  
  It's one of only three infectious agents capable of causing large die-offs of amphibiansalmost all of which are in decline the world over. To date, the new protozoan has been reported only in the United States, Green says, where it has emerged as the "principal threat" that could lead to extinction of the Mississippi gopher frog. This amphibian's sole wild population breeds in only one infected pond, where for at least 4 years virtually all tadpoles have died.

• 11/22/2007:  Panel examines states response to CWD, River Valley Newspapers
  
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  Jerry Davis column: Panel examines states response to CWD
  
  By Jerry Davis / Freelance Outdoors writer
  
  FITCHBURG, Wis. A Department of Natural Resources Chronic Wasting Disease Stakeholder Advisory Group was appointed last summer by then DNR secretary P. Scott Hassett.
  
  The 18-member group has met one Saturday each month, beginning last July, and will continue to meet through January, 2008, when it will make a management recommendation to Matt Frank, the new DNR secretary.
  
  Hassetts charge to this group was to revisit the way Wisconsin agencies are managing CWD, realizing the disease has not been eradicated and that it is present in wild deer in the southern part of the state. Several captive herds, which are not limited to southern Wisconsin, have also had CWD-positive animals and some of the herds have been de-populated since discovering the infected deer.
  
  CWD is a contagious, fatal brain disease in deer, elk and moose. In addition to the infectious prions being transferred deer to deer, there is evidence that prions that are shed by deer onto soil can be picked up by other deer.
  
  The group accepted the following statement to guide their deliberations: How should Wisconsin manage CWD to minimize the impact of the disease on Wisconsins free-ranging deer population, the habitats and biological systems, which include deer, the economy, hunters, landowners and others who benefit from a healthy deer herd?
  
  Most advisory group members are not employees of the DNR, Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, or Health and Family Services. Some members represent conservation groups or businesses, which have an interest in deer management.
  
  While most members are from southwest Wisconsin, Al Brown of Stanley, Robert Page of Appleton, Ken Anderson of Eagle River, Steve Hookstead of Helenville, Ron Kulus of Delafield and Dan Griffiths of Lomira represent state regions where no CWD exists.
  
  Most members are hunters, but Tom Givnish, a Madison resident and University of Wisconsin botany department instructor, is not. He has studied diseases and ecological impacts on the environment and presented an overview of foot and mouth disease.
  
  Each meeting is coordinated by Pat Van Gorp of Beacon Associates in Stoughton, a public participation and consulting firm.
  
  Nearly three months were spent listening to wildlife and CWD researchers, mostly from Wisconsin, but also from surrounding states, including Illinois, where CWD was found in 2002.
  
  Since the discovery of CWD in Wisconsin in 2002, from deer killed during the 2001 gun-deer season, Wisconsin has tested 131,587 animals, many from outside the CWD areas. All 682 deer testing positive were found in either a core area, called the Disease Eradication Zone, or a larger surrounding region, the Herd Reduction Zone, which reaches into the southeast portion of Vernon County.
  
  So far, Wisconsin has attempted to contain CWD by reducing the deer herd in the CWD areas, banning feeding and baiting deer, monitoring the locations and prevalence of the disease and educating hunters about the disease.
  
  Early in the process, Scott Craven, University of Wisconsin wildlife instructor, described CWD as no longer being on a radar screen of many hunters, landowners and the general public.
  
  Deer are still incredibly important to the state in terms of the economy, the environment, hunting and vehicle collisions, Craven said. People do care about the deer, but CWD needs to be brought back on a radar screen. But we dont want a human or livestock disease to be what brings it back.
  
  Members did not hear of any evidence that CWD can jump a species barrier and infect humans or domestic livestock as other prion diseases have been able to do.
  
  The members also heard from Jordan Petchenik, DNR resource sociologist.
  
  We, and others, have found that attitudes are often poor predictors of specific behaviors, when it comes to deer hunting, Petchenik said. There is support to curtail the spread of CWD and opposition to doing nothing, but 90 percent of the hunters dont believe in killing more deer than they can use, 80 percent dont want the herd reduced anymore and 75 percent believe CWD cant be stopped.
  
  Copying what other states have tried, should not be a driving force, according to Bryan Richards, CWD project leader with the United States Geological Service National Wildlife Health Center.
  
  There appears to be very, very low risk to humans and other wildlife except cervids, Richards said. The economics of big game hunting are large, amounting to $10 billion annually in United States.
  
  Richards, when asked how long CWD may have been present in Wisconsin, said his best guess is about 20 years.
  
  He said most studies are too short in duration to determine if methods of managing the disease are working.
  
  Just because one state tried something and quit, shouldnt mean that Wisconsin should follow that plan, Richards said. Situations are very, very different from one state to another.
  
  He also told members that observed dispersion patterns are indicative of long-term spread, that prevalence in free-ranging populations can reach high levels, that research suggests CWD can impact deer populations and that each state must determine its own course of action.
  
  Earlier this month, members agreed not to recommend a do-nothing approach. However, with the present knowledge about CWD, eliminating the disease from Wisconsin was unlikely at the present time, but should remain a long-term goal.
  
  That leaves a combination of things, which may look like a modification of what is presently being done. Namely, slowing the spread or containing the disease until other methods of containment or elimination are possible.
  
  Jerry Davis can be reached at (608) 924-1112 or at sivadjam@mhtc.net

• 11/06/2007:  Thousands of bluebills dead since Thursday, Duluth News Tribune
  
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  Thousands of bluebills dead since Thursday
  
  Sam Cook Duluth News Tribune
  
  Published Tuesday, November 06, 2007
  
  
  
  Dan Markham and Noel Hill of Duluth were setting up to hunt ducks on Lake Winnibigoshish near Deer River on Saturday when they noticed a dead bluebill on shore. A quick walk along the shore turned up another three dozen dead bluebills.
  
  Waterfowl biologists with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources estimate that as many as 3,000 bluebills, also known as lesser scaup, may have died along the west shore of Lake Winnie.
  
  The die-off began Thursday, said Steve Cordts, DNR waterfowl specialist in Bemidji. Biologists believe the cause is a microscopic trematode, a kind of fluke, present in snails that the bluebills are feeding on.
  
  Cordts thinks the die-off could continue. Were going to find a lot more dead, he said in a telephone interview Monday.
  
  Cordts and other DNR employees collected about 1,000 dead bluebills from a stretch of shoreline on Friday. In the time it took to collect about 900 of those birds, another 30 to 50 had died in the same stretch.
  
  This is potentially pretty bad because of this snail, Cordts said. The trematode is likely brand new to the system. It could be along the whole stretch of the Mississippi River and could get into other lakes and into other species. Its way too early to speculate a lot.
  
  We were just heartbroken, Markham said. Its depressing.
  
  The die-off also has affected coots, Cordts said, although most coots have already left Lake Winnie. He didnt know how many bluebills remained on the lake.
  
  The snail that apparently is a host of the trematode is the banded mystery snail, Cordts said. It was first documented on Lake Winnie eight years ago by fisheries biologists.
  
  Its been concentrated on the west side of the lake, he said. Its numbers have really exploded.
  
  Die-offs of waterfowl due to trematodes have occurred in the spring and fall since about 2002 on the Mississippi River near Winona, Minn., Cordts said, though not in numbers as high as those on Lake Winnie.
  
  DNR officials sent a few ducks to the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis., on Thursday. An initial inspection turned up the trematode identification in one duck, but DNR officials were waiting Monday for confirmation of that in other samples.
  
  Hunters or others should not eat any duck that appears to be obviously diseased, Cordts said. Hunters should use latex gloves when cleaning their ducks.
  
  Cordts said he doesnt know of any other major waterfowl die-offs due to trematodes other than those near Winona. Controlling the snail that serves as a host would be almost impossible, he said.

• 11/01/2007:  Flu lab nears completion, Wisconsin State Journal
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  MON., OCT 29, 2007 - 11:28 PM
  
  Flu lab nears completion
  
  David Wahlberg
  
  608-252-6125
  
  dwahlberg@madison.com
  
  Ten-inch walls made with crack-resistant concrete. Outlets sealed with silicone.Sensors for broken windows. Infrared surveillance beams. Redundant air handling systems. A back-up generator.
  
  UW-Madison's $12.5 million Institute for Influenza Viral Research, nearing completion at University Research Park, will have a collection of safety and security features the university hasn't seen before.
  
  Many people will be watching the work of the institute, to be directed by virologist Yoshihiro Kawaoka.
  
  The observers include health officials, who want a better understanding of the bird flu virus that is threatening a global flu epidemic. They include scientists, who are competing with Kawaoka to make discoveries about bird flu and other flu viruses.
  
  They also include critics, who have charged Kawaoka with circumventing safety rules.
  
  Critics objected three years ago to Kawaoka's research at UW-Madison involving the deadly 1918 flu virus, saying his safety measures were not strict enough.
  
  This September, they revealed that the university halted his work on components of the Ebola virus last year after the National Institutes of Health said the studies must be done in a lab more secure than any on campus.
  
  Without proper precautions, the critics say, such viruses can escape.
  
  "It's a very significant and a very real risk," said Edward Hammond, of the Austin, Texas-based Sunshine Project, which released documents about the Ebola work. "They handle viruses that could kill tens of millions of people."
  
  Jan Klein, UW-Madison's biological safety officer, said Kawaoka and other researchers at the university take adequate measures to manage the risks.
  
  Kawaoka said his detractors didn't understand the extent of the precautions he used for the 1918 flu virus research. After shifting the work to a higher-security lab in Canada, he started doing some of it again in Madison this year after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention approved it.
  
  He said the guidelines regarding the Ebola research, which he hasn't resumed in Madison, are open to interpretation. Klein said the university may appeal the NIH's ruling about the Ebola work.
  
  Kawaoka, a prominent and prolific flu researcher, was being wooed to the University of Pittsburgh until UW-Madison promised him the new institute. The 28,000-square-foot facility on Science Drive, to be finished next month, will enable him to expand his studies, he said.
  
  Kawaoka plans to study several kinds of flu viruses in the institute including H5N1, the bird flu virus circulating in Asia, and a reconstructed version of the 1918 flu virus, which killed some 50 million people when it spread worldwide.
  
  "Space has been a limiting factor for our research," Kawaoka said of the School of Veterinary Medicine lab he has been using. "Now we'll be able to do multiple experiments at the same time. We want to show people that the work we do is safe."
  
  BSL3-Ag
  
  The institute contains lab space classified as Biosafety Level 3-Agriculture, a standard higher than any other lab at the university. BSL3-Ag is near the top of the federal government's four-level scale for labs involving infectious agents.
  
  Only a few BSL4 labs, in which workers don special suits with self-contained breathing devices, exist nationwide.
  
  Several labs at UW-Madison, including some of Kawaoka's lab space in the veterinary school, are BSL3. In those labs, researchers wear gloves and masks and the air is specially filtered.
  
  The BSL3 Ag designation carries additional requirements, such as extra air handling systems, showers upon leaving the lab and in the case of bird flu research, no contact with birds for several days.
  
  Additional features also will ensure safety, said James Corkery, president of ACS. The Madison construction management company is overseeing the remodeling of a former office building, last used by Epic Systems, to create the institute.
  
  Corkery said the steel airlock door used to enter the BSL3 Ag lab is welded to its frame, like in a submarine.
  
  He said petri dishes, animal cages and other lab equipment will be washed and run through autoclaves, sterilizing machines that use heat and pressure to kill germs. Liquid waste will be cooked in a separate system at 250 degrees Fahrenheit for an hour before flowing into the sewer system.
  
  "Nothing can live after that," Corkery said, pointing to steam tanks surrounded by stainless steel pipes in the institute's basement.
  
  The $12.5 million cost up from the $9 million cited when the university announced plans for the institute last year is being shared, roughly equally, by UW-Madison and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, the university's tech-transfer agency.
  
  Only one other BSL3-Ag lab exists in Madison, at the National Wildlife Health Center off Schroeder Road.
  
  CDC inspection
  
  Though Kawaoka said he is eager to move his 18-person lab group into the institute and hire more researchers, the shift may not happen for months.
  
  In order for him to use the H5N1 virus or the 1918 virus in the new building, the CDC must first inspect the lab and grant approval. The agency may visit in late November.
  
  When Kawaoka applied for similar approval at his existing lab, it took a year, he said.
  
  CDC permission to use the new space "could take weeks, months or even one year," he said. "I don't expect it to be done within this year."
  
  Much of the research in the institute will involve animals. Rooms are available for rodents, ferrets, poultry and monkeys.
  
  Initially, Kawaoka said, he'll continue three research areas: studying how and why the H5N1 virus, the 1918 virus and other flu viruses are virulent, improving techniques for making flu vaccines and screening compounds that could lead to new antiviral drugs against flu.
  
  Though bird flu has dropped off the national news radar, Kawaoka said its threat of causing a pandemic continues. The virus has killed 204 of the 332 people known to be infected since 2003, mostly in Asia, including 31 deaths in Indonesia this year.
  
  A single genetic change could make the virus capable of spreading easily among people, Kawaoka said. If that happens, experts say the virus could be more dangerous than the 1918 flu.
  
  H5N1 "is still spreading," Kawaoka said.

• 10/26/2007:  Massive bird die-off tied to invasive snail, Winona Daily News
  
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  Massive bird die-off tied to invasive snail
  
  
  
  By Amber Dulek | Winona Daily News
  
  FRENCH ISLAND, Wis. Circling high over Lake Onalaska, two eagles fought over an American coot in one of the eagles talons.
  
  The eagle lost its grip, and the coot plunged into the water near Broken Gun Island. It bobbed to the surface but made little effort to escape as the eagles swooped overhead.
  
  Hes probably sick and they know it. Its easy pickings around here, said Calvin Gehri, a biological technician with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services La Crosse District.
  
  The dying coot would soon join the thousands of dead waterfowl Gehri and other refuge staff have collected along the shores of the Mississippi between Dresbach, Minn., and northern Iowa.
  
  More than 25,000 birds mostly coots and scaup have died on the upper Mississippi River since 2002 as a result of eating faucet snails that carry an intestinal parasite, according to federal wildlife officials. From 2005 to 2006, there was a 16-fold increase in bird deaths in pools 8 and 9. Last fall, there were an estimated 5,000 bird deaths in the area between La Crescent, Minn., and MacGregor, Iowa.
  
  Faucet snails are found along the Mississippi between Nelson, Wis., and Fulton, Ill., but the highest concentration of the infected snails is in the La Crosse region. More recently, theyve been found downriver as well.
  
  Wildlife experts are trying to figure out how to get rid of the snails without affecting native snails. Last year, the FWS tried covering underwater rocks with sand and gravel in an attempt to reduce the snails habitat.
  
  There arent enough snails between Wabasha, Minn., and Winona to create a large die-off of birds, said Mary Stefanski, Winona district manager for the FWS. She said the problem snails tend to follow the water downstream.
  
  The exotic snails came to the Great Lakes region from Eastern Europe in the late 1800s. The species got its name when it invaded municipal water systems, Gehri said. Its unknown how the snails got into the Mississippi, though most aquatic invaders are carried in ships ballast water.
  
  Wildlife staff first noticed a water bird die-off in Lake Onalaska in 2002, said Jim Nissen, La Crosse FWS district manager. Since then, there has been a multi-agency effort to track down the faucet snail trail.
  
  Scientists from the U.S. Geological Surveys National Wildlife Health Center and Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center are working with local agencies to monitor the faucet snail population. Professors and students from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and Minnesota State College-Mankato have conducted sideline studies on distribution.
  
  Theyve discovered that two varieties of trematodes, a kind of fluke worm, infect the snails, which can host up to 100 of the parasites; birds can get a lethal dose in less than 24 hours of feeding and die within three to eight days.
  
  Infected birds die from blood loss, shock from a chemical imbalance or a stomach infection. Nissan said theres no way to save an infected bird.
  
  Its pretty sad when you see a sick one. They cant swim. They cant dive, Gehri said. Some are like a decoy and you can pick (them) up with your bare hands. Some will maybe flock a bit, but theyre so sick its all they can do.
  
  As with most exotic species, eradication is difficult without disturbing natives species. But Gehri said the declining bird population is cause for concern.
  
  Last week, Gheri collected about 200 dead coots along the bank of Broken Gun Island. On Thursday, he picked up 160, a fraction of the birds floating among wild celery and algae.
  
  Carcasses dropped by eagles hung in trees on the island, and feathers littered the shore.
  
  Predatory birds are apparently immune to the parasite, scientists say. About 25 eagles loomed above, waiting for a second go at the coots Gheri didnt pick up.
  
  The dying coot that dropped from an eagles talons slowly disappeared around the islands corner. When Gehri circled the island, it was gone.
  
  Contact reporter Amber Dulek at amber.dulek@lee.net or (507) 453-3513.

• 10/15/2007:  Ultralight Pilots Lead A New Flock Of Cranes To Florida, Aero-News.net
  
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  Ultralight Pilots Lead A New Flock Of Cranes To Florida
  
  Mon, 15 Oct '07
  
  Seventeen Endangered Whooping Cranes Take to the Sky on Ultralight-Guided Flight to Florida
  
  Seventeen young whooping cranes began their ultralight-led migration, Saturday morning, from central Wisconsin's Necedah National Wildlife Refuge (NWR).
  
  This is the seventh group of birds to take part in a landmark project led by the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership (WCEP), an international coalition of public and private groups that is reintroducing this highly imperiled species in eastern North America, part of its historic range. There are now 52 whooping cranes in the wild in eastern North America thanks to WCEP's efforts.
  
  Four ultralight aircraft and the juvenile cranes took to the air for the first leg of the 1,250-mile journey to the birds' wintering habitat at Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge along Florida's Gulf Coast.
  
  "This will be our seventh migration along this route and although we have done it before, each season brings new challenges and the weather is always unpredictable," said Joe Duff, senior ultralight pilot and CEO of Operation Migration, the WCEP partner that leads the ultralight migration.
  
  "It has consistently taken us 22 to 23 flying days to cover the 1,250 miles from here to Florida. However, each year, it seems to take a longer period to get those 23 good weather mornings and last season we were on the road for 76 days. The team works very hard to prepare these birds for their first migration and they deserve a break. We are asking everyone to hope and pray for good weather this year and speed the birds to their new winter home."
  
  In addition to the 17 birds being led south by ultralights, biologists from the International Crane Foundation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reared 10 whooping cranes at Necedah NWR. The birds will be released in the company of older cranes in hopes that the young whooping cranes learn the migration route, part of WCEP's "Direct Autumn Release" program, which supplements the successful ultralight migrations.
  
  Whooping cranes that take part in the ultralight and Direct Autumn Release reintroductions are hatched at the U.S. Geological Survey's Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Laurel, Md., and at the International Crane Foundation in Baraboo, Wis. Chicks are raised under a strict isolation protocol and to ensure the birds remain wild, handlers adhere to a no-talking rule and wear costumes designed to mask the human form.
  
  Each year since 2001, ultralight pilots of project partner Operation Migration have conditioned and led juvenile whooping cranes to follow their aircraft on their first migration south. Each year's new class of young cranes is shipped from Patuxent Wildlife Research Center to Necedah NWR in June to begin their summer of "flight training" behind Operation Migration's ultralights in preparation for their migration south. Pilots lead the birds on gradually longer training flights over the refuge throughout the summer until the young cranes have sufficient stamina to follow the ultralights along the migration route.
  
  Graduated classes of whooping cranes spend the summer in central Wisconsin, where they use areas on or near Necedah NWR, as well as various state and private lands.
  
  In the spring and fall, project staff from the International Crane Foundation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service track and monitor the released cranes in an effort to learn as much as possible about their unassisted journeys and the habitat choices they make both along the way and on their summering ground.
  
  WCEP asks anyone who encounters a whooping crane in the wild to please give them the respect and distance they need. Do not approach birds on foot within 200 yards; try to remain in your vehicle; and do not approach in a vehicle within 100 yards. Also, please remain concealed and do not speak loudly enough that the birds can hear you. Finally, do not trespass on private property in an attempt to view whooping cranes.
  
  Whooping cranes were on the verge of extinction in the 1940s. Today, there are only about 350 of them in the wild. Aside from the birds reintroduced by WCEP, the only other migrating population of whooping cranes nests at the Wood Buffalo National Park in the Northwest Territories of Canada and winters at the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge on the Texas Gulf Coast. A non-migrating flock of approximately 50 birds lives year-round in the central Florida Kissimmee region.
  
  Whooping cranes, named for their loud and penetrating unison calls, live and breed in wetland areas, where they feed on crabs, clams, frogs and aquatic plants. They are distinctive animals, standing five feet tall, with white bodies, black wing tips and red crowns on their heads.
  
  Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership founding members are the International Crane Foundation; Operation Migration Inc.; Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; the U.S. Geological Survey's Patuxent Wildlife Research Center and National Wildlife Health Center; the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation; the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin; and the International Whooping Crane Recovery Team.
  
  Many other flyway states, provinces, private individuals and conservation groups have joined forces with and support WCEP by donating resources, funding and personnel. More than 60 percent of the project's budget comes from private sources in the form of grants, public donations and corporate sponsors.
  
  FMI: www.bringbackthecranes.org

• 10/01/2007:  Avian Flu Update, Ducks Unlimited
  
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• 09/27/2007:  Saving a national symbol from the landfill, DailyPress.com
  
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  Saving a national symbol from the landfill
  
  A bald eagle is nursed to health and released after being found injured at a landfill in Gloucester.
  
  BY SARA E. LEWIS | Daily Press
  
  September 26, 2007
  
  Waste Management employees at the Gloucester landfill see many birds, particularly sea gulls and eagles, said Richard Drouin of Gloucester.
  
  The scavengers are just looking for something to eat.
  
  Drouin and fellow employee Danny Brown of Colonial Beach noticed a weak-looking bald eagle on the perimeter road to the landfill in late July and stopped to call the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (VDGIF). They had found a bird in similar condition earlier in the week, but it died before the VDGIF could get there.
  
  Drouin stayed with this bird for an hour and a half.
  
  "I petted him or moved his wing to keep him stimulated so he wouldn't drift off," he said.
  
  Last Friday, Drouin and Brown got to see their bird again, rehabilitated and strong. He was released at Westover Plantation in Charles City County by Ed Clark, president and co-founder of the Wildlife Center of Virginia. Clark was assisted by Cyntia Kayo Kashivakura, a veterinarian from Brazil who is spending three months in training at the Wildlife Center.
  
  Clark said the released bald eagle is a juvenile that hatched in the spring. The adult bird found dead earlier in July was tested at the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center in Wisconsin, where traces of barbiturate poisoning were detected.
  
  "We think that the first bird ate an animal that had been euthanized through injection of a barbiturate," Clark said.
  
  It is unlikely that the eagle would have eaten that quantity of barbiturate by any other means. Clark noted that it is against the law to dispose of a euthanized animal in a landfill, but that the animal might not have necessarily come from the Gloucester landfill.
  
  "We cover it over every night," Drouin said.
  
  Lisa Kardell, a Waste Management employee with the regional office, concurred and noted that procedures are followed closely to ensure public and environmental safety.
  
  Clark also agreed. He thought that the second bird was most likely malnourished. No test for barbiturate poisoning was administered to the live animal after giving him a complete diagnostic workup, including x-rays and blood work.
  
  The Wildlife Center gets many injured young birds. Eagles have multiple young that don't always learn how to become independent at the same time.
  
  Once the juvenile eagle became separated from his parents, and without having mastered his survival skills, he couldn't find enough to eat. Such birds are often the ones who are found scavenging at landfills, fighting over scraps. Eagles prefer fish, but they are opportunist eaters and will eat whatever they can find, including other birds, snakes, turtles, and, as a last resort, carrion - dead or rotting animals.
  
  "This bird was lethargic and emaciated when he came into the center," said Clark. "But he became notorious for being aggressive."
  
  The bird was treated and given cage rest. When he recovered, he was placed in one of the center's large flight pens to demonstrate that he was ready to return to the wild.
  
  Clark donned heavy, elbow-length gloves to extract the eagle from a cage in the back of his SUV. He grabbed talons and neck while Kashivakura loosened film from the eagle's wings. The sheets of x-ray film had been attached so that he would not beat his wings against the cage while in the car.
  
  As Clark paid close attention to his grip, he explained that eagles exert 500 pounds per square inch of pressure with their talons.
  
  The gathering of about a dozen onlookers stood back while Clark said, "one, two, three," and released the eagle. He ascended quickly, banked right, and disappeared between branches of the towering tulip poplars surrounding Westover Plantation house. The open sky above the James was not far away.
  
  The Wildlife Center of Virginia releases eagles at Westover because of the vast amount of open acreage on either side of the river. The 4,200-acre James River National Wildlife Refuge is located on the south side of the James in Prince George County.
  
  "This is some of the best bald eagle habitat in the United States," Clark said. "Around the end of June, early July, you can see hundreds of birds at a time."
  
  Just west of the preserve, chemical plants released kepone in the mid-20th century. It nearly wiped out eagles and osprey that ate fish and then absorbed the chemical. Kepone caused thinning of egg shells and eggs broke easily when mother birds sat on them. Banned in the 1970s, kepone has settled and is bound up in the bottom layers of the James River, keeping present-day birds relatively free of disease.
  
  Clark applauded the efforts of Waste Management and other large corporations that preserve habitat for wildlife.
  
  "The good news is that there are more eagles today," he said. "The bad news is that there is less habitat."
  
  This means that the birds are nesting in places where they never were meant to nest and that many are injured while fighting with each other over territory.

• 09/19/2007:  Is Wisconsin DNR doing enough to combat CWD?, The Capitol Times
  
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  Eisele: Is Wisconsin DNR doing enough to combat CWD?
  
  Tim Eisele
  
  Special to The Capital Times 9/19/2007 10:13 am
  
  A lot of Wisconsin hunters and legislators are upset that the state is not making better progress getting a handle on chronic wasting disease.
  
  They feel the state is not making progress fast enough, they hear that other states are doing things differently from what Wisconsin is doing, and they believe that CWD will eventually run its course and never amount to anything big.
  
  The disease, caused by an abnormal protein called a prion, is a neurological illness that is fatal to white-tailed deer, mule deer, elk and moose.
  
  The "doubting Thomases," and anyone who would like a good idea of the status of CWD in North America, should listen to Bryan Richards, CWD project coordinator for the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center here in Madison when he summarizes what other states are learning about CWD Saturday morning for the state's CWD Advisory Committee.
  
  CWD has been detected in free-ranging deer and elk herds and in captive herds in 14 states and two Canadian provinces.
  
  Originally CWD was only known to occur in Colorado and Wyoming but after 2002, when it unexpectedly was found in Wisconsin, the U.S. Congress appropriated money to help states look for CWD and more states found it.
  
  "It is not that the disease spread within the past five years, but it is our detection that increased," Richards said. "That is not to say that there are not small pockets of CWD out there, there probably are. But there probably are not more raging epidemics out there that have been missed. Surveillance should have picked them up."
  
  The main tool used to manage the disease is deer population reduction, but population reduction doesn't change disease prevalence in the short run.
  
  "In the short run, if there is 10 percent prevalence in the deer herd and you take away half of the herd, you still have 10 percent prevalence," he explains. "With CWD, it might be more important to have a lower overall number of infected deer. By reducing the number of infected deer, you reduce the amount of environmental contamination."
  
  The Department of Natural Resources has been criticized because it hasn't changed the prevalence of the disease in the CWD zones, but prevalence is a long-term thing. If hunters and sharpshooters are harvesting all animals, that doesn't affect prevalence. If they just take out infected animals, then they could change prevalence. However, identifying and removing infected animals is expensive, and targeted shooting by agency sharpshooters is unpopular with landowners.
  
  Richards points to a case study of wintering free-ranging, adult male mule deer in Colorado, showing a dramatic increase in prevalence of disease over six years. One herd had prevalence up to 30 percent, while another herd was infected up to 40 percent.
  
  "Prevalence increased quite dramatically over a short period of time," Richards said. "In another study at Colorado State University, they saw CWD as a causative agent for population decline and the researchers feel that without some management this population is destined for extinction."
  
  Wyoming conducted a five-year study in which white-tailed deer were captured, had tonsil biopsies to identify if they were infected with CWD, and then let the deer go including those that were infected. Researchers found 4 percent prevalence in fawns, 15 percent in yearlings, 34 percent in 2 1/2-year-old deer, 44 percent in 3 1/2-year-old deer; and 48 percent in deer over 4 1/2 years old.
  
  "This is almost one out of two adult deer with CWD," Richards said. "This is the only free-ranging herd that I am aware of where detected prevalence in the female segment (32 percent) exceeds that of in males (22 percent). This is the reproductive component, and researchers believe that the data suggests that CWD is a major concern in white-tailed deer and may limit population growth."
  
  "In Colorado and Wyoming we've seen prevalence get very high," Richards said. "The geographic area where CWD is found in Wisconsin is much smaller than that of Colorado."
  
  Richards emphasizes that although various strategies of managing the disease vary from state to state, patterns that he sees on the landscape strongly suggest that it spreads geographically.
  
  Although some people believe CWD can't get to high prevalence, several locations where it has been the longest indicate it can increase much higher. There is no reason to anticipate that it will not happen in the Mount Horeb area given enough time.
  
  The research also suggests that CWD can impact populations once it has been there long enough.
  
  Bryan Richards will give a synopsis of what is taking place in different states at the DNR's CWD Advisory Committee meeting on Saturday at 9:55 a.m. The meetings begin at 9 a.m. at the DNR South Central Regional Headquarters at 3911 Fish Hatchery Road, Fitchburg, and are open for the public to attend.
  
  Tim Eisele (teisele@chorus.net) is a full-time freelance outdoor writer and photographer.

• 09/19/2007:  Outdoors: With CWD, each state charts its own course, The Capital Times
  
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  Outdoors: With CWD, each state charts its own course
  
  Tim Eisele
  
  Special to The Capital Times 9/19/2007 10:14 am
  
  Bryan Richards, CWD project leader for the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, keeps track of research and management of CWD throughout the nation and provides guidance to states.
  
  Richards, who holds degrees in wildlife ecology from UW-Madison and Southern Illinois University and then worked for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission as a deer ecologist, has worked for the National Wildlife Health Center for three and a half years.
  
  Richards does not takes sides in issues with different states, and does not make recommendations to states. He points out differences and lets states know what is taking place in other states.
  
  "Everybody is in a different boat and their management philosophies are different and each state must determine its own course of action," Richards said.
  
  Thus, Wisconsin should not automatically accept actions just because other states are doing or not doing them.
  
  Richards says that baiting and feeding restrictions are up to individual states, but now that it has been confirmed that contact with saliva from an infected animal can lead to a new infection in another animal, any situation that artificially congregates animals enhances the chances of disease transmission.
  
  Similarly, whether or not deer farms are allowed to exist are up to individual states. He said there is no doubt that the captive industry has moved disease across the landscape, and that it is likely that disease leaked out of captive farms into the wild herd. But it is also highly possible that CWD leaked from outside the fence to inside the fence. Rigorous health monitoring within the captive industry has been beneficial.
  
  Richards points to the Hall Deer Farm near Almond which had the first CWD-positive deer discovered in 2002, and eventually the herd was "depopulated" in 2006 and 80 percent of the herd had CWD. It shows how disease can increase to high levels.
  
  Richards said that the only way people will learn more about CWD is through research, but unfortunately one of the first things that is cut -- as is being done in Wisconsin this fall -- is research

• 09/09/2007:  Federal biologists test North Dakota ducks for bird flu, Bizmarck Tribune
  
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  Federal biologists test North Dakota ducks for bird flu
  
  
  
  Sep 09, 2007 - 04:03:58 CDT
  
  UPHAM (AP) - Federal biologists have tested ducks at a northern North Dakota wildlife refuge as part of a bird flu surveillance effort.
  
  "The reason they came here is that we can catch a lot of ducks, and they can get a lot of samples," said Gary Erickson, assistant manager of the J. Clark Salyer National Wildlife Refuge.
  
  Erickson and his staff captured several hundred migratory ducks on Friday with the use of cannon nets. The ducks were outfitted with leg bands and then tested.
  
  Bob Dusek, a biologist with the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis., said testing was done for different types of avian flu, including H5N1.
  
  The H5N1 virus has killed at least 199 people worldwide, according to the World Health Organization, and led to the slaughter of more than 200 million birds since 2003.
  
  It is hard for humans to catch, but experts fear it could mutate into a form that spreads easily among people, potentially sparking a global pandemic. To date, most human cases have been traced to contact with infected birds.
  
  "H5N1 has not been found in North America (but) it is important to keep monitoring it," Dusek said. "It could be fairly devastating to the poultry industry and to agriculture."
  
  Biologists also are working to refine testing techniques, to hopefully lead to earlier detection of bird flu. Dusek said test results from the ducks at the J. Clark Salyer refuge will be compared with similar samples taken in Canada.
  
  It likely will be several months before test results from the refuge are known.

• 08/20/2007:  West Nile Virus found in Dead Pelicans, The Bizmarck Tribune
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Aug 15, 2007 - 04:03:47 CDT
  
  By RICHARD HINTON
  
  Bismarck Tribune
  
  The carcasses of two juvenile American white pelicans from Chase Lake National Wildlife Refuge have tested positive for West Nile virus, and federal wildlife managers are awaiting results from tests on four other carcasses.
  
  "It's a slow process," Ken Torkelson, a spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Bismarck office, said Tuesday of the testing being done at the USGS National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis.
  
  "The big problem this year was all that moisture - Ithink 10 inches of rain - in late June. Between the rain, wind and cold, it's pretty tough on those birds without much protection in their natural systems," Torkelson said.
  
  "Later on, the warm temperatures probably were equally hard on them," he added.
  
  The moisture also helped produce a prolific crop of mosquitoes that carry West Nile virus.
  
  Researchers are uncertain of the extent of the outbreak because all of the rain has produced lush foliage on the nesting islands, and the heat also tends to make the carcasses decompose quickly.
  
  "And we hate to disturb them too often. It's just a bad situation," Torkelson said.
  
  The West Nile virus was first diagnosed in the pelican colony in 2002, and the disease has been hitting young pelicans pretty hard just about every year since, Torkelson said.
  
  An aerial census in June showed 22,524 of the beachball-sized white birds were nesting at Chase Lake. The population was down from the 34,604 pelicans counted in 2006 but up significantly from the summers of 2004 and 2005 when adult pelicans abandoned nests en masse at the 4,385-acre refuge in west-central Stutsman County.
  
  In 2004, an estimated 30,000 adult pelicans abandoned their longtime summer nesting grounds north of Medina, leaving chicks and eggs unattended. Researchers pointed to coyote intrusion as a possible cause. In the summer of 2005, approximately 18,850 birds pulled out after their chicks died during two periods of cool, wet and windy weather that hit when the chicks were vulnerable.
  
  Adults are pulling out of the nesting colony again this year but only because their chick-raising skills are no longer required, Torkelson said.
  
  "As soon as the young are old enough to fend for themselves, the adults take off. There are a number of adults in smaller ponds around the area."
  
  (Reach outdoor writer Richard Hinton at 250-8256 or richard.hinton@;bismarcktribune.com.)

• 07/21/2007:  Mystery Of Dead Ducks May Be Solved, Central Florida News 13
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  The mystery of the dead ducks in Sanford might finally be solved.
  
  More than 70 ducks turned up dead at Lake Monroe over the past month. After conducting several tests, experts from the National Wildlife health Center in Wisconsin said most of the deaths appeared to have been caused by botulism.
  
  They said the bacterium found is not a form dangerous to humans.
  
  Liver damage was also found in some of the ducks which suggested an algae-related toxin might have contributed to those deaths.
  
  Officials are still awaiting test results on those ducks.

• 07/20/2007:  Lake Monroe duck mystery seems to be partially solved, The Orlando Sentinel
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Lake Monroe duck mystery seems to be partially solved
  
  Robert Perez | Sentinel Staff Writer
  
  July 20, 2007
  
  The mystery surrounding the deaths of more than 70 ducks on Marina Island appears to be solved. Botulism likely caused most of the deaths.
  
  Experts at the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis., made the determination based on tests on one of the Lake Monroe ducks.
  
  State wildlife officials ruled out pesticides and herbicides as possible causes.
  
  But liver damage that was found in other ducks has created another mystery.
  
  At least two ducks had liver lesions that suggest an algae-related toxin could have contributed to their deaths.
  
  "The acute cause of death was botulism," said Mark Jankowski, a wildlife-disease ecologist for the federal center. "But two birds did have some liver problems."
  
  The spate of duck deaths began in late June. During three weeks, more than 70 of the mallards that congregate on the man-made peninsula were found dead or dying. State wildlife officials collected the birds and sent some to labs in Kissimmee and Gainesville and ultimately to Wisconsin, where the final determination was made.
  
  Botulism is a common cause of duck deaths in Florida in summer, said Mark Cunningham, a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission veterinarian.
  
  Low oxygen levels in lakes can cause fish kills and the dead fish become infected with botulism bacteria. Maggots that feed on the dead fish become carriers. Ducks that eat the maggots then become infected, Cunningham said.
  
  The symptoms exhibited by some of the dying ducks are consistent with botulism poisoning. The botulism toxin causes paralysis, and several ducks were described as moving sluggishly or being paralyzed.
  
  Botulism is a rare but serious paralytic illness caused by a nerve toxin that is produced by a bacterium. The type of bacterium found in the Lake Monroe duck, type C, is not one of the forms dangerous to humans.
  
  What remains unclear is what caused the liver damage in some ducks. Liver samples have been sent to multiple labs, but results have not come back, Cunningham said.
  
  Earlier this month, state biologists testing water in Lake Monroe found a form of blue-green algae called cylindrospermopsis. Toxins created by some algae, including this one, are known to cause liver damage.
  
  Officials with the state's Fish and Wildlife Research Institute in St. Petersburg said algae blooms have been documented in numerous lakes in the state, including along the St. Johns River. The algae found in Lake Monroe could be a contributing factor to the deaths, said Jan Landsberg, a research scientist at the institute.
  
  Landsberg, whose doctorate focused on algae blooms and its effects on aquatic animals, said there is little public-health threat from the algae. Any algae that might get into a water supply would be filtered out in treatment.
  
  "It's not an issue here because it doesn't show up in tap water," she said.
  
  What's more, there is no research to suggest that toxins build up in fish in lakes where algae blooms occur, Landsberg said.
  
  A University of Florida professor said his research casts doubt on whether algae found in Lake Monroe could produce liver-damaging toxins. Ed Phlips, whose studies on toxic algae include the lower St. Johns River, said his tests on more than a dozen strains of cylindrospermopsis found in Florida show they cannot produce any toxin.
  
  Phlips said that based on current research, a more likely culprit is Microcystis, the most prolific producer of toxins among algae found in Florida waters.
  
  "Cylindrospermopsis is one of the usual suspects when you talk about hepatotoxins toxins that affect the liver," he said. "But the main suspect is Microcystis."
  
  Robert Perez can be reached at rperez@orlandosentinel.com or 407-322-1298.

• 06/28/2007:  Whooping cranes begin training for migration to Florida, Baraboo News Republic
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Whooping cranes begin training for migration to Florida
  
  
  
  By Karolyn Maurer
  
  The eight cranes that arrived at the Necedah Wildlife Refuge last week after hatching at Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Laurel, Md., have begun to prepare for a cross-country flight.
  
  Following an ultralight airplane across eight states, 21 whooping cranes will migrate to Florida in October as part of the eastern migratory whooping crane reintroduction project.
  
  Eight whooping cranes will arrive at the refuge around July 3 and with five more will follow around July 18. The first group arrived June 19. The whooping cranes will spend the summer building endurance for the flight south, said Larry Wargowsky, Necedah Wildlife Refuge's manager.
  
  While whooping cranes inhabit the western United States, the migratory whooping crane project focuses on bringing cranes eastward, said Ann Burke, director of public relations for the International Crane Society in Baraboo.
  
  With the help of nonprofit organizations such as Operation Migration, Inc. Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, National Wildlife Health Center and the International Crane Foundation, among others, whooping cranes are trained to follow an ultralight airplane that will lead them to Florida in October. After they are born at Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, the chicks are transported to Necedah Wildlife Refuge, where they are raised as if in the wild, Wargowsky said. The birds' handlers and the plane's pilot wear crane costumes when working with the birds.
  
  Whooping cranes are the rarest of the 15 species of cranes in the world and only are found in North America. On average, they stand 5 feet tall with a 6-foot wingspan and weigh 14 to 17 pounds. In the wild, whooping cranes live for 20 to 30 years but often live longer in captivity because of consistent healthcare, Burke said.
  
  After the migration to Florida in October, biologists from the International Crane Foundation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service care for the birds during their first winter.
  
  But the whooping cranes have to find their own way back to Wisconsin, Burke said.
  
  "Just from doing it that one time, they really know how to get home."

• 06/27/2007:  Whooping cranes begin training for migration to Florida, Baraboo News Republic
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

  ---

  
  

  By Karolyn Maurer
  
  The eight cranes that arrived at the Necedah Wildlife Refuge last week after hatching at Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Laurel, Md., have begun to prepare for a cross-country flight.
  
  Following an ultralight airplane across eight states, 21 whooping cranes will migrate to Florida in October as part of the eastern migratory whooping crane reintroduction project.
  
  Eight whooping cranes will arrive at the refuge around July 3 and with five more will follow around July 18. The first group arrived June 19. The whooping cranes will spend the summer building endurance for the flight south, said Larry Wargowsky, Necedah Wildlife Refuge's manager.
  
  While whooping cranes inhabit the western United States, the migratory whooping crane project focuses on bringing cranes eastward, said Ann Burke, director of public relations for the International Crane Society in Baraboo.
  
  With the help of nonprofit organizations such as Operation Migration, Inc. Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, National Wildlife Health Center and the International Crane Foundation, among others, whooping cranes are trained to follow an ultralight airplane that will lead them to Florida in October. After they are born at Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, the chicks are transported to Necedah Wildlife Refuge, where they are raised as if in the wild, Wargowsky said. The birds' handlers and the plane's pilot wear crane costumes when working with the birds.
  
  Whooping cranes are the rarest of the 15 species of cranes in the world and only are found in North America. On average, they stand 5 feet tall with a 6-foot wingspan and weigh 14 to 17 pounds. In the wild, whooping cranes live for 20 to 30 years but often live longer in captivity because of consistent healthcare, Burke said.
  
  After the migration to Florida in October, biologists from the International Crane Foundation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service care for the birds during their first winter.
  
  But the whooping cranes have to find their own way back to Wisconsin, Burke said.
  
  "Just from doing it that one time, they really know how to get home."

• 06/18/2007:  Preventing Diseases at Backyard Bird Feeders, The Daily Green
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  An outbreak of salmonellosis has bird watchers concerned that feeding birds could abet the spread of disease. Here are some tips from the National Wildlife Health Center about how to avoid spreading salmonellosis. The disease can be present and deadly but hard to detect.
  
  * Clean feeders with a 10 percent bleach and water solution. Rinse well, dry.
  
  * Wait 1-2 weeks before re-filling your feeder, so that you avoid inviting the same congregation of birds to the same spot, where any disease can spread from bird-to-bird or from feces to bird.
  
  * Hang feeders in a different location with each filling.
  
  * Rake up waste seeds and droppings below the feeders.
  
  * Use only feeders with smooth surfaces, so that rough or cracked surfaces dont accumulate bacteria.
  
  * Store seed in rodent-proof containers

• 06/18/2007:  New Bird Parasite Found in Lake Onalaska, The LaCrosse Tribune
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  New bird parasite found in Lake Onalaska
  
  By Tribune staff
  
  .
  
  ONALASKA, Wis. Wildlife officials have identified a new variety of snail-borne parasite in Lake Onalaska that can be fatal to certain waterbirds.
  
  A coot found dead on Lake Onalaska in spring was infested with about 600 flatworms, or trematodes, identified as Leyogonimus polyoon.
  
  The flatworm also was found in a faucet snail collected at Arrowhead Island in Lake Onalaska in May, confirming it as the third snail-borne trematode to reach the upper Mississippi River system, according to the U.S. Geological Surveys National Wildlife Health Center in Madison.
  
  The faucet snail is a European species that has spread into Wisconsin waters, and can carry all three varieties of trematode, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Waterfowl that eat the snails become infested with the flatworms, which can multiply into the tens of thousands.
  
  Before 1996, Leyogonimus polyoon had not been found outside eastern Europe until it triggered the death of more than 1,500 coots in the Wolf River system in northcentral Wisconsin. It is thought to affect only coots and moorhens, a related waterbird species.
  
  The two other types of trematodes have caused deaths in coots and ducks, primarily lesser scaup, on the Mississippi Rivers Pools 8 and 9 since spring 2002, according to the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge.
  
  The trematodes are not considered a risk to humans or predators that feed off the infested birds, though hunters are advised to use gloves when handling waterfowl and avoid taking any visibly ill birds.

• 06/06/2007:  Disease strikes ducks living in Kenner canals, The Times-Picayune
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Disease strikes ducks living in Kenner canals
  
  Experts: Full-blown plague unlikely
  
  Wednesday, June 06, 2007
  
  By Mary Sparacello
  
  It hasn't been a good spring for the Muscovy ducks living in Kenner's drainage canals.
  
  Kenner police are investigating several reports of possible abuse of the birds, including some spotted with darts in their bodies and others who were apparently stepped on or otherwise hurt.
  
  And now at least two ducks that frequented the Duncan Canal have died of a highly contagious and sometimes fatal illness, duck virus enteritis, commonly known as duck plague.
  
  The only silver lining is that while the disease is called a plague, it does not spread widely and humans and other animals cannot catch it, experts said.
  
  The virus was discovered after Kenner resident Linda Gallagher saw one dead and one dying duck near the Duncan Canal a couple of weeks ago.
  
  She took the birds to Dr. Gregory Rich's office. Rich, who runs the West Esplanade Veterinary Clinic and Bird Hospital, sent them to the Louisiana State University veterinary school, which diagnosed the duck plague.
  
  The school hasn't seen a case of duck virus enteritis in "a while," spokeswoman Ginger Guttner said.
  
  It's uncertain how the disease came to Kenner, said Christopher Brand, chief of research at the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis.
  
  Migratory birds may have transmitted the disease or the domesticated birds may have carried it without developing symptoms until they were stressed.
  
  Mark Jankowski, a wildlife disease specialist at the center, said the ducks might develop symptoms because of the hormonal stress during mating season, which occurs in the spring, he said.
  
  Not all water fowl that contract the disease will die, Jankowski said.
  
  Muscovy ducks are more susceptible than mallards, said Diane Stemnock, production manager at the Duck Research Laboratory at Cornell University. Also, the disease affects only water fowl, including ducks, geese and swans.
  
  And there's little danger to ducks that don't frequent the same areas, around the 3700 block of Arizona Avenue, as the two ducks that Gallagher brought to Rich.
  
  Although the disease is called a plague, it does not usually become a big outbreak, said Greg Butcher, director of bird conservation for the National Audubon Society.
  
  "It seems to pop up locally and then work itself out locally without infecting everything in sight," he said.
  
  Meanwhile, Kenner police are still on the lookout for people who might have abused ducks along the Vintage Canal. Officials also want to know what killed four ducks at the Duncan Canal around the 3400 block of Arizona.
  
  Police spokesman James Gallagher said those four ducks had no obvious physical signs indicating the cause of death.
  
  Kenner resident Catherine Tauzier, who found those four ducks, said she hopes to learn whether they were killed by humans or the virus.
  
  "There was no way to tell what was wrong," she said. "I really would have liked to know what happened to them."
  
  . . . . . . .
  
  Mary Sparacello can be reached at msparacello@timespicayune.com or (504) 467-1726.
  
  May 31, 2007
  
  At least two ducks living along Kenner's Duncan Canal have been felled by duck virus enteritis, commonly known as duck plague. 3306588

• 05/26/2007:  Lab in city tests for bird flu, Wisconsin State Journal
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  DAVID WAHLBERG
  
  608-252-6125
  
  May 26, 2007
  
  An unusual delivery expected in Madison this week will mark the second year of a high-stakes effort to protect the country from deadly bird flu.
  
  Shipping boxes will carry waste samples, frozen in tiny vials, from birds in Alaska to the National Wildlife Health Center off Schroeder Road. Scientists will test the samples to see if the H5N1 bird flu virus, which continues to devastate flocks in Asia and Europe and kill some people, has arrived in the U.S.
  
  Meanwhile, the state will again test for bird flu this summer, with an increased focus on dead birds.
  
  None of the 28,000 samples from ducks, geese and other wild birds tested at the National Wildlife Health Center last year -- or the 102,000 samples tested at other U.S. labs -- showed evidence of the troublesome H5N1 virus, though other strains of bird flu were found.
  
  But the threat of H5N1 remains. Scientists fear the virus could trigger a global flu epidemic in humans. It could also harm the U.S. poultry industry if found here.
  
  "We have shown as best we can that H5N1 was not in North America in 2006," said Hon Ip, who oversees the diagnostic virology lab at the National Wildlife Health Center. "But as long as the situation is unresolved in other parts of the world, surveillance needs to continue."
  
  H5N1 is still plaguing birds -- mostly domestic poultry -- in China, Indonesia, Vietnam and other countries. The virus has killed 185 of the 306 people known to be infected since late 2003.
  
  The 400 or so samples to arrive this week at the National Wildlife Health Center are from birds killed this spring by hunters in Alaska.
  
  Other samples will come this summer and fall from live birds trapped by biologists, mostly in West Coast states but also in other parts of the country, Ip said. Nearly 28,000 samples will be tested again this year.
  
  The testing of last year's samples revealed two new findings, Ip said.
  
  Some bird species, such as the Glaucous gull, were found for the first time to carry some kind of bird flu. And samples from several birds showed that viruses from Asia and North America mixed in the same bird -- the kind of genetic exchange that could create a pandemic strain.
  
  "We are indeed collecting the right birds at the right time," Ip said.
  
  The state Department of Natural Resources will test about 1,500 birds this year, said Julie Langenberg, a veterinary wildlife health specialist.
  
  Many samples will come from ducks and geese killed by hunters, as was the case last year, Langenberg said. Some samples will again be taken from live shorebirds. But the state hopes to test more dead birds this year because studies suggest they are most likely to carry bird flu, she said.
  
  Anyone who sees unusual clusters of bird deaths is asked to call the state's Dead Bird Hotline at (800) 433-1610.
  
  "We want everybody to do what they can to help us identify dead birds," Langenberg said.

• 05/17/2007:  Bird hit hard by West Nile Virus, study finds, Austin American-Statesman
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Bird hit hard by West Nile Virus, study finds
  
  Crows, six other species ravaged by contagion.
  
  By Jia-Rui Chong
  
  LOS ANGELES TIMES
  
  Thursday, May 17, 2007
  
  Since West Nile virus began spreading across North America in 1999, it has ravaged seven bird populations that once flourished, according to a study published today.
  
  Of the 20 species included in the study, American crows were the most affected, declining about 45 percent from 1998 to 2005. Populations of American robins, chickadees, eastern bluebirds, blue jays, tufted titmice and house wrens also dropped, according to the study.
  
  "West Nile was able to traverse a continent in the avian community and have significant impacts on our most familiar native species, our backyard birds," said Shannon LaDeau, the study's lead author and a postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Institution's Migratory Bird Center.
  
  The study, in the journal Nature, also found that populations of 13 species, including the common grackle, gray catbird and mourning dove, appear unaffected by the virus.
  
  Leslie Dierauf, director of the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center, who was not connected with the study, cautioned that variables such as weather, temperature and habitat destruction also can drastically change bird populations. She said blaming the bird declines on West Nile virus could be too simplistic.
  
  Bob Dusek, a wildlife biologist at the center, said the chickadee population, for example, had been growing at record rates and reached a 26-year high just before the arrival of the virus.
  
  "Is the decline the result of the population going up too high or is it West Nile?" he asked.
  
  West Nile virus, which is primarily transmitted by mos- quitoes, is named after the district in Uganda where it was first isolated. It reached New York in 1999, probably on a plane or ship, and quickly spread across the United States, leaving a large but unknown number of birds dead in its wake, along with thousands of horses and, to date, about 1,000 people.
  
  In humans, the virus can cause fever, encephalitis and other nervous-system diseases.
  
  The study found that crows showed the most consistent decline across all regions. The populations of the other six species declined unevenly. Chickadees fell at least 50 percent below expected abundance in Maryland, Virginia and through the Northeastern states in 2005 but rose in Illinois.
  
  In Texas, 126 dead birds tested positive for West Nile virus in 2006, according to statistics compiled by the Texas Depart- ment of State Health Services.
  
  One of those birds, a blue jay, was found in Travis County. None of the birds that tested positive was from Hays or Williamson counties.
  
  "We're not aware that there are any species of birds in Texas whose existence has been devastated by West Nile," agency spokesman Doug McBride said.
  
  Nationwide, three of the affected birds blue jays, tufted titmice and house wrens appeared to bounce back to expected levels after sharp one- or two-year declines.
  
  LaDeau hypothesized that mosquitoes turned to these species temporarily because West Nile had decimated populations of the birds they preferred.
  
  These species might have been particularly vulnerable because of other stressors, such as drought, she said.
  
  While the study did not look at the wider effects of the declines, LaDeau surmised that such losses could upset the ecological balance in some areas.
  
  "Mosquitoes have to feed on something," LaDeau said. "As their priority species decline, it might be another bird species currently not impacted or humans."
  
  Crows, for example, are important scavengers, clearing away road kills and keeping competing pests at bay.
  
  "American crows are often considered a nuisance, but when the crows go, do we get more rats?" LaDeau asked.
  
  Greg Butcher, director of bird conservation at the National Audubon Society, was hopeful.
  
  "All of those (bird populations) have the capacity to rebound," he said.
  
  Additional material from Statesman staff writer Katie Humphrey and other wire sources.

• 05/17/2007:  Study tallies West Nile virus' toll on North American birds, LATimes
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Study tallies West Nile virus' toll on North American birds
  
  The American crow and 6 other species took the biggest hits, while some populations weren't affected. Other factors may have played a role.
  
  By Jia-Rui Chong, Times Staff Writer
  
  May 17, 2007
  
  Since West Nile virus began to spread across North America in 1999, it has ravaged seven different bird populations, according to a study published today.
  
  Of the 20 species included in the study, American crows were the most affected, declining by as much as 45% in some regions from 1998 to 2005. Populations of American robins, chickadees, Eastern bluebirds, blue jays, tufted titmice and house wrens also dropped, the study said.
  
  "West Nile was able to traverse a continent in the avian community and have significant impacts on our most familiar native species, our backyard birds," said Shannon LaDeau, the study's lead author and a postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center.
  
  The study, published in the journal Nature, also found that populations of 13 species, including the common grackle, the gray catbird and the mourning dove, appeared unaffected by the virus.
  
  Leslie Dierauf, director of the U.S. Geological Survey National Wildlife Health Center, who was not connected with the study, cautioned that there were too many variables, including weather, temperature and habitat destruction, that could drastically change bird populations. She said blaming the bird declines all on West Nile virus could be too simplistic.
  
  Bob Dusek, a wildlife biologist at the center, said the chickadee population, for example, had been growing at record rates and reached a 26-year high just before the arrival of West Nile virus.
  
  "Is the decline the result of the population going up too high, or is it West Nile?" he asked. Dusek said the study was not detailed enough to provide an answer.
  
  West Nile virus, which is primarily transmitted by mosquitoes, is named after the district in Uganda where the disease was first isolated. It circulates mostly among birds, but has also been found in some mammals and reptiles.
  
  The virus first appeared in New York in 1999, and quickly spread west across the country, reaching California in 2002.
  
  In humans, the virus can cause fever, encephalitis and other severe nervous-system diseases. From 1999 to 2006, 962 people have died due to the virus, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Deaths reached their peak in 2002 with 284. Last year, 177 people died across the country.
  
  The study analyzed data from the North American Breeding Bird Survey, overseen by the USGS' Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland.
  
  LaDeau and colleagues analyzed data on five bird species that laboratory tests indicated were highly vulnerable to the virus, 10 species expected to suffer moderate to little impact, and five species not previously studied.
  
  Using data from 1980 to 2005, they calculated the birds' expected population trends.
  
  Seven species showed significant population declines after the appearance of the virus in 1999, compared with their projected trends, LaDeau said.
  
  The researchers could correlate the population declines with the spread of the virus west and south, she said.
  
  Crows showed the most consistent decline across all regions. The populations of the other six species declined unevenly. Chickadees, for example, fell at least 50% below expected abundance in Maryland, Virginia and through the Northeastern states in 2005, but rose in Illinois.
  
  Three of the affected birds blue jays, tufted titmice and house wrens appeared to bounce back to expected levels after sharp one- or two-year declines.
  
  Researchers are not sure why that happened, but LaDeau hypothesized that mosquitoes only turned to these species temporarily because West Nile had reduced populations of the birds they preferred.
  
  These species might have also been particularly vulnerable in those years because of other stressors, such as drought, she said.
  
  Though the study did not look at the wider effects of the declines, LaDeau surmised that such large losses could upset the ecological balance in some areas.
  
  She said, for example, that a severe decline of one species could spark declines in another as mosquitoes hunt for more food.
  
  "Mosquitoes have to feed on something," LaDeau said. "As their priority species decline, it might be another bird species currently not impacted, or humans."
  
  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
  jia-rui.chong@latimes.com

• 05/16/2007:  West Nile virus depletes bird species from coast to coast, USA Today
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  West Nile virus depletes bird species from coast to coast
  
  By Anita Manning, USA TODAY
  
  West Nile virus has dramatically reduced populations of several common bird species, including robins, chickadees and other backyard visitors, says the first national assessment of the virus's effect on wild birds.
  
  HUMAN ELEMENT: CDC maps and figures on West Nile cases
  
  None of the declines has reached the point at which species are threatened, "but the impact is extensive. Almost 50% of crows have declined in some regions," says Marm Kilpatrick, senior research scientist with the New York-based Consortium for Conservation Medicine at the Wildlife Trust, a co-author of the paper in today's issue of the journal Nature.
  
  Researchers examined 20 species, but "there are another 300-400 species of birds in North America. It would be foolish to think these are the only birds that have been affected."
  
  West Nile, a mosquito-borne virus, first appeared on this continent in New York in the summer of 1999. During the next five years, it spread across the country and is now considered established here. It infects birds, humans, horses and many other animals, usually through the bite of an infected mosquito. There is a vaccine for horses, but not for humans.
  
  FIND MORE STORIES IN: West Nile virus | Shannon Ladeau
  
  Last year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it infected 4,268 people and killed 177.
  
  Kilpatrick and researchers at the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center used 26 years of data from North American Breeding Bird Survey sites across 10 states to predict the size of populations of common bird species. They compared the predictions with what was seen in the bird survey in the years after West Nile arrived and found that once the virus appeared in a region, there was a "steep and sometimes progressive" decline in populations of crows, robins, chickadees and eastern bluebirds, all of which had been increasing before the virus arrived. Declines also were seen in populations of tufted titmice, house wrens and blue jays.
  
  Of the 20 species studied, 13 hit 10-year population lows after the West Nile epidemic of 2003, the worst year so far in the USA, when the CDC reported 9,862 people were infected and 264 died.
  
  "We show a wave of bird decline from the East Coast to the West Coast that mirrors what we know about the dispersal of West Nile virus," says lead author Shannon LaDeau. But the decline is not uniform, even within regions. Crows, among the hardest-hit species overall, show declines up to 45% in the mid-Atlantic, she said, but "some sites in Maryland had declines closer to 85% and some had none at all." Researchers are trying to understand the variations.
  
  Though the declines have been significant, the news is not all bad, says Erik Hofmeister of the U.S. Geological Survey. The survey shows an increase in some populations in the last year counted, he said, suggesting "there may be a rebound in some species." The report notes that blue jays and house wrens, which suffered declines, had returned to their pre-West Nile virus populations by 2005.

• 05/16/2007:  West Nile Devastated U.S. Bird Species, National Geographic
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  West Nile Devastated U.S. Bird Species
  
  Anne Minard for National Geographic News
  
  May 16, 2007
  
  
  
  West Nile virus or a similar disease could wipe out many of the U.S.'s backyard birds, profoundly changing some of the country's most familiar wildlife and ecosystems.
  
  That's the finding of a new analysis of 26 years of data from the national Breeding Bird Surveydata that reveal the dramatic effects of the 1999 arrival of West Nile virus in the U.S.
  
  Lead author Shannon LaDeau of the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center and her colleagues found that species that thrive near humans suffered extremely high death rates from the disease.
  
  Up to 45 percent of crows died after the virus arrived, with robins, chickadees, and eastern bluebirds not far behind.
  
  Some of these populations had been increasing before the virus hit, which is a good indication that West Nile caused the declines, the authors write.
  
  The disease may not completely wipe out bird populations on its own, the scientists add, but it is an alarming addition to existing population threats such as climate change and habitat loss.
  
  "They're our backyard species, and we haven't been watching them as much as we're watching the other species, because people consider them safe," LaDeau told National Geographic News.
  
  The study appears in this week's issue of the journal Nature.
  
  Mosquito, Bird Link
  
  Since West Nile Virus began its mosquito-borne spread across the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has logged more than 12,000 human West Nile cases and 960 deaths.
  
  Spikes in bird deaths among some speciesincluding crows, house wrens, and eastern bluebirdswere linked with numbers of human cases, which peaked in 2002 and 2003, the study found.
  
  That's because mosquitoes that carry West Nile fare best around people, where sources of stagnant water used for breedingincluding sewers, old tires, and forgotten watering cansabound, LaDeau said.
  
  Likewise, birds found to suffer the greatest West Nile death rates also do well around people. For crows, "the more dumps, the merrier," LaDeau pointed out.
  
  Not all of the 20 bird species studied in the paper showed the same response to the introduction of West Nile virus, though.
  
  Crows, robins, chickadees, and bluebirds suffered steep, sometimes progressive, multi-year declines after the disease arrived. (Related: "West Nile Mosquitoes Prefer Robins, Study Finds" September 25, 2006.)
  
  Blue jays, tufted titmice, and house wrens, however, showed strong one- or two-year declines after intense West Nile virus epidemics, but little or no impacts at other times. Blue jays and house wrens had rebounded by 2005, in fact.
  
  Other species seemed to do just fine in the face of West Nile. But that could be because the effects of the disease got lost in population fluctuations or long-term declines, the authors write.
  
  Growing Problem
  
  The study results raise new concerns about bird species that aren't included in backyard bird counts, LaDeau added.
  
  "We can't talk about impacts of West Nile virus to those species because we don't have the data," she said.
  
  West Nile may be worst for bird populations when the disease is paired with other threats, the study authors point out.
  
  In a May 12 press release commemorating International Migratory Bird Day, the American Bird Conservancy warned that migratory birds are still dying in large numbers from collisions with lighted buildings and communication towers, pesticide poisoning, and free-roaming cat predation.
  
  New concerns, the organization said, include poorly placed wind farms and the spread of corn farming for biofuels, which may usurp vital bird habitats.
  
  The conservancy organization estimates that more than a third of the 650 bird species that breed in the U.S. now have declining populations, are restricted to small ranges, or face serious threats.
  
  Unanswered Questions
  
  Leslie Dierauf is director of the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wisconsin.
  
  She said the new Nature article is a good start because it's the first thorough look at the effects of West Nile virus on available bird numbers.
  
  But it doesn't go far enough.
  
  "I don't think they've brought enough of the complexities into the paper," she said.
  
  It's quite difficult to tease out all the interrelated factors that can impact bird populations, such as habitat, climate, and diet, Dierauf added.
  
  The next steps include comparisons of how closely related bird species to the ones studied fared in the face of West Nile, along with other surveys, she said.
  
  Only then can experts make definitive conclusions about the West Nile's effects on U.S. birds.

• 05/16/2007:  West Nile virus emergence and large-scale declines of North American bird populations, Nature
  
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  West Nile virus emergence and large-scale declines of North American bird populations
  
  Shannon L. LaDeau1, A. Marm Kilpatrick2 & Peter P. Marra1
  
  1. Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center, National Zoological Park, Washington DC 20008, USA
  
  2. Consortium for Conservation Medicine, New York, New York 10001, USA
  
  Correspondence to: Shannon L. LaDeau1 Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to S.L.L. (Email: ladeaus@si.edu).
  
  Top of page
  
  Abstract
  
  Emerging infectious diseases present a formidable challenge to the conservation of native species in the twenty-first century1. Diseases caused by introduced pathogens have had large impacts on species abundances2, including the American chestnut3, Hawaiian bird species4 and many amphibians5. Changes in host population sizes can lead to marked shifts in community composition and ecosystem functioning3, 4, 6. However, identifying the impacts of an introduced disease and distinguishing it from other forces that influence population dynamics (for example, climate7) is challenging and requires abundance data that extend before and after the introduction2, 5. Here we use 26 yr of Breeding Bird Survey (BBS)8 data to determine the impact of West Nile virus (WNV) on 20 potential avian hosts across North America. We demonstrate significant changes in population trajectories for seven species from four families that concur with a priori predictions and the spatio-temporal intensity of pathogen transmission. The American crow population declined by up to 45% since WNV arrival, and only two of the seven species with documented impact recovered to pre-WNV levels by 2005. Our findings demonstrate the potential impacts of an invasive species on a diverse faunal assemblage across broad geographical scales, and underscore the complexity of subsequent community response.
  
  Seven years after the emergence of WNV in New York City in 1999, the population-level impacts of this disease on wild birds remain largely unknown9, 10. Tens of thousands of dead individuals from wild, zoo and pet populations have tested positive for WNV across North America11, and challenge experiments have demonstrated interspecific variability in mortality rates under laboratory conditions12. Early field studies documented mortality in some species13, 14 and evidence of spatially heterogeneous fluctuations9, 15, 16, but overall population patterns were inconclusive. Our study tests the hypothesis that WNV has caused significant population declines in a broad taxonomic range of avian hosts across North America. We explicitly considered variability in host susceptibility, spatio-temporal heterogeneity in pathogen transmission, and impacts on populations.
  
  To test this hypothesis, we developed a set of independent predictions of WNV impact for 20 species of birds from 11 families on the basis of published laboratory infection experiments, mosquito feeding studies and seroprevalence surveys (Table 1 and Supplementary Table 1). Target species span a range of expected impacts, from crows with high mortality to gray catbirds and mourning doves, which seem to tolerate infection without significant morbidity12, 17. Additionally, we chose five species (Baltimore oriole, chipping sparrow, eastern bluebird, eastern towhee and white-breasted nuthatch) that have not been the focus of previous work to assess potential disease impacts on a broader community. We then used a bayesian hierarchical regression fit to 26 yr of survey data to test these species-specific predictions across the large geographical scale represented by WNV emergence in North America.
  
  Table 1: Predicted and observed impact of WNV, climate influence and 10- and 26-yr minimum abundances
  
  Table 1 - Predicted and observed impact of WNV, climate influence and 10- and 26-yr minimum abundances
  
  Full table
  
  Thirteen of the twenty species studied reached 10-yr population lows after the large-scale human WNV epidemics that occurred in much of the United States in 200203 (ref. 11) (P = 0.002, assuming probability of 10-yr low after 2002 = 0.30), and eight recorded their lowest abundance over the 26 yr studied (P = 0.001, assuming probability of 26-yr low after 2002 = 0.12) (Table 1 and Fig. 1). However, to determine whether WNV was involved in these declines, changes in abundance must be evaluated in the context of long-term trends, climate and habitat availability. We included climate variability (El Nio/Southern Oscillation) in final population models for eight species for which model fit was significantly improved (Table 1 and Supplementary Information). We did not include a land-use component in the population model and thus, are unable to rule out a potentially confounding role of changes in land cover during this study (but see below).
  
  Figure 1: Time series of mean abundance per BBS route adjusted for missing observations and observer variance.
  
  Figure 1 : Time series of mean abundance per BBS route adjusted for missing observations and observer variance. Unfortunately we are unable to provide accessible alternative text for this. If you require assistance to access this image, or to obtain a text description, please contact npg@nature.com
  
  Error bars show 2 standard errors. Open circles denote years after WNV was first detected in North America. Population growth rates between 1980 and 1998 that were significantly different from 0: American crow (95% CI for linear trends (0.014, 0.020)), American robin (0.06, 0.010), Black-capped and Carolina chickadees (0.003, 0.012), chipping sparrow (0.118, 0.175), eastern bluebird (0.046, 0.060), northern cardinal (0.006, 0.011), tufted titmouse (0.026, 0.033), white-breasted nuthatch (0.014, 0.028), Baltimore oriole (-0.0.016, -0.006), common grackle (-0.022, -0.014) and wood thrush (-0.023, -0.017).
  
  High resolution image and legend (246K)
  
  Observed abundances after WNV emergence were significantly lower than expected given two decades of population variability for seven species across multiple geographical regions (Figs 2 and 3). Six of these species were independently predicted to suffer high or moderate impacts, and the seventh was previously unstudied (Table 1). These seven species included two members of the family Corvidae (American crow and blue jay), two from Turdidae (American robin and eastern bluebird), two from Paridae (chickadees and tufted titmouse) and one from Troglodytidae (house wren). Population deviations (average difference between modelled and observed abundances) were highly correlated with categorical predicted impacts for the 15 species with prior information (Supplementary Information; r = -0.67, n = 15, P = 0.007). All seven of these species are peridomestic, with known suburban association8, 18. Thus, the declines observed for these species are opposite from expectations given continued suburbanization after 199919, but are consistent with impacts owing to WNV.
  
  Figure 2: Declining American crow populations.
  
  Figure 2 : Declining American crow populations. Unfortunately we are unable to provide accessible alternative text for this. If you require assistance to access this image, or to obtain a text description, please contact npg@nature.com
  
  Observed abundances (circles) versus mean posterior estimates (solid line, with 95% CIs) by region across North America are shown. Values on the y axis are the average number of birds observed per BBS route adjusted for observer differences and missing data. Shaded histograms show numbers of reported annual human infections11 per region (maximum cases per year in northeast, 370; Maryland, 73; Virginia, 29; Illinois, 884; Colorado, 2,947; and Oregon, 7). Vertical dotted lines denote the initial detection of WNV in birds, mosquitoes or humans11.
  
  High resolution image and legend (112K)
  
  Figure 3: Population declines and WNV epidemics in the northeastern United States and Maryland.
  
  Figure 3 : Population declines and WNV epidemics in the northeastern United States and Maryland. Unfortunately we are unable to provide accessible alternative text for this. If you require assistance to access this image, or to obtain a text description, please contact npg@nature.com
  
  Observed abundances (circles; birds observed per BBS route) versus mean posterior estimated population abundances (solid line, with 95% CIs) for six impacted species are shown. The vertical dotted lines denote the initial detection of WNV in birds, mosquitoes or humans11. The complete version of this figure presents observed and expected abundances for each species in each geographical region where it is present (Supplementary Fig. 1).
  
  High resolution image and legend (207K)
  
  Observed impacts included steep and sometimes progressive multi-year declines in regional populations of American crows (Fig. 2), American robins, chickadees and eastern bluebirds, which were all increasing before WNV arrival (Fig. 1). Other species, including blue jays, tufted titmice and house wrens showed strong 1- or 2-yr declines after intense WNV epidemics, but little or no impacts at other times. Regionally, we found significant deviations from expected abundances for all seven species in the eastern United States (Figs 2 and 3). In other areas where WNV has been present for fewer years, the intensity of impact varied among species (Supplementary Fig. 1). Common grackle populations in Maryland declined significantly after WNV emergence in that state, although in other regions this species remained at expected abundances (Supplementary Fig. 2).
  
  The intensity of declines after pathogen emergence was most marked in American crows (Fig. 2). By 2005, crow abundances had declined regionally by up to 45% from 1998 levels, although they had increased steadily for two decades. American crow declines were positively correlated with the intensity of human WNV epidemics within each region (r = -0.56, n = 21, P = 0.0003), despite variability in human behaviour and feeding of mosquitoes on humans compared with birds11, 17, 20. Similar correlations between human infections and impacts on other avian species were strongest for house wrens and eastern bluebirds (P < 0.002), marginally significant for tufted titmice, American robins and chickadees (0.05 < P < 0.10), and nonsignificant for blue jays (P = 0.34; Supplementary Table 2) and the 13 species without detectable WNV impact (P-values > 0.1).
  
  Similarly, the intensity of WNV impacts on these six affected species was not always consistent across species or regions (Fig. 3). American robin, eastern bluebird and tufted titmouse populations remained below expected abundance across their entire ranges in 2005. Deviations in chickadee populations were significantly reduced in the east but not at their western range limits. Neither house wren nor blue jay populations showed significant declines in Virginia, whereas abundances were up to 22% and 26% below that expected in other regions before recovering in 2005 (Supplementary Information).
  
  Assessing the impacts of an invasive pathogen on host populations across a continent requires difficult assumptions regarding exposure rates, and analyses that are correlational in nature. We approached these challenges by using two decades of local population surveys and climate data to predict species abundance distributions in all years after WNV was first identified. We further strengthened our conclusions by comparing our results to the species-specific impacts predicted from a collection of previous studies (Table 1 and Supplementary Table 1) and to the spatial and temporal pattern in human epidemics (Fig. 2 and Supplementary Table 2). We detected significant declines for six species predicted to have high or moderate WNV impacts, and did not detect declines in the five species with predicted low impact. Additionally, we identified sudden and significant declines in eastern bluebird populations, highlighting the possibility that species that have not been studied with respect to WNV may also be affected by this disease. The fact that we did not detect declines in the eight other species, which appeared to persist at the same abundance or even show increased abundance in the presence of WNV (Baltimore oriole, chipping sparrow, eastern towhee, northern cardinal, white-breasted nuthatch), suggests that the impacts of WNV were relatively low or that detection of population declines may have been masked by regional variability in population fluctuations or long term declines (common grackle, fish crow, song sparrow).
  
  After significantly low abundances, both blue jays and house wrens returned to expected population levels in 2005. The resiliency of species and the lasting impact of WNV will ultimately depend on the species-specific interactions between susceptibility, exposure and intrinsic population growth rates. The rank of observed impacts in corvids is consistent with susceptibility to experimental WNV infection studies, which suggest that American crows suffer the greatest mortality (100%), followed by blue jays (75%) and then fish crows (53%)12. Such interspecific differences in pathogen effects on populations have been observed in other disease systems7, 21 and can result in important changes in community composition.
  
  The spatial heterogeneity in disease impact apparent for some species may reflect underlying regional differences in the intensity of viral transmission. Several key factors in WNV transmission are known to vary across the continental United States, including the dominant enzootic vectors22, the relationships between vector abundance and land use23, and differences in the composition of host communities that can, in turn, influence mosquito feeding preferences20. The role of these and other factors in determining WNV transmission and exposure among hosts is an important topic for future research.
  
  Changes in population abundance such as those documented in this study may themselves alter WNV transmission dynamics20, 24. Mortality is likely to facilitate WNV amplification because the infectiousness of hosts (magnitude of viraemia and length of viral shedding) is greater in individuals that die relative to those that survive12, and hosts that die from infections are not present as immune or dead-end hosts. Mortality also increases the vector to host ratio, which increases the reproductive ratio of the pathogen, R0. Decreases in host abundance may have other impacts on WNV transmission. For example, decreases in the abundance of American robins, which appear to be an important WNV amplification host in several regions of the USA17, 25, have been linked to higher incidences of mosquitoes feeding on humans and intensified human WNV epidemics20.
  
  The impacts of invasive pathogens compound existing stressors and create formidable challenges for protecting native wildlife1, 26. West Nile virus will continue to affect avian communities in the foreseeable future, and substantial ecosystem effects may become evident with time. Finally, we believe that the findings presented here are probably conservative estimates of population-level impacts because the hardest hit avian sub-populations may reside outside the BBS survey areas, which are limited to secondary roads and generally exclude urban centres where the predominant Culex mosquito vectors in the eastern United States are most common. Nonetheless, the population changes that we have documented have already led to marked changes in the composition of avian communities across North America.
  
  Top of page
  
  Methods summary
  
  We selected 20 common North American bird species that were regularly present along survey routes in the northeastern United States where WNV first emerged. We further chose species with available background information regarding susceptibility to WNV infection (Supplementary Information), and selected the species pool to cover the range of expected mortality. Finally, we randomly selected five species from the group that satisfied our general survey criteria but had not been previously studied with regard to WNV. This produced a total of 20 species, which was chosen as the number that we could efficiently model and evaluate.
  
  We used 26 yr of North American BBS8 data (19802005) for each of the species selected. We included data from an average of 38 routes (range 1588) and 1,900 distinct census points per region (selected to represent WNV dispersal westward from its east coast introduction) so that the patterns we detected would represent regional population changes, rather than local-scale stochasticity9, 15, 16. We used a hierarchical bayesian regression model27 fit to data collected before the emergence of WNV to estimate probability distributions for expected abundance in all subsequent years to 2005. Posterior distributions for expected abundance explicitly incorporated trends before WNV emergence and regional climate variability (Supplementary Information), as well as stochasticity associated with location and observation error. We considered a species to have been significantly affected when observed abundances fell outside 95% credible intervals (95% CIs) from the posterior abundance distributions. We validated our results by comparing the species-specific deviations from expected population abundances with predicted WNV impacts based on a collection of previous exposure and mortality studies. Finally, we evaluated the agreement between the timing of our estimated WNV impacts with known WNV presence in a region (first documented and human epidemics).
  
  Full methods accompany this paper.

• 05/15/2007:  Wildlife Monitoring Could Provide Clues on Pandemics, Congressional Quarterly
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  CQ HOMELAND SECURITY GOVT. REORGANIZATION
  
  May 7, 2007 10:10 p.m.
  
  Wildlife Monitoring Could Provide Clues on Pandemics
  
  By Matthew E. Berger, CQ Staff
  
  Lawmakers are looking for new programs that would improve surveillance of wildlife in order to gather clues about the onset of avian influenza and other diseases.
  
  Animal experts say monitoring changes in disease patterns for wild animals can flag potential threats to livestock and humans as well.
  
  Diseases in wildlife populations can mutate to effect humans, such as the avian flu, or can be transmitted to livestock with disastrous economic consequences, like mad cow disease.
  
  Wildlife Center of Virginia President Ed Clark said the goal would be to create a surveillance network like that of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, first in the United States and eventually around the world.
  
  Were looking at providing a smoke alarm, Clark said.
  
  Experts say the federal government is spending too much money tracking livestock and birds but not investing in wildlife. New legislation is being considered that would create a federal wildlife information network.
  
  A bill (HR 1405) approved by the House Foreign Affairs Committee in March would start the Wildlife Global Animal Information Network for Surveillance (GAINS). Through the Agency for International Development, it would provide $50 million over five years to detect infectious diseases in wildlife and delineate threats to domestic animals, livestock and humans.
  
  A similar bill (S 1246) was introduced in the Senate on April 26.
  
  Wildlife GAINS would be a comprehensive tool to prevent the outbreak and spread of new diseases that have no treatments or cures, Joseph I. Lieberman, I-Conn., said on the Senate floor April 26. We must prevent and detect the next generation of infectious diseases to prevent the pain and suffering that diseases such as HIV/AIDS and H5N1 have caused millions all over the world.
  
  The effort would include federal and state agencies, as well as food organizations, wildlife groups and academic facilities from around the country. The sites would test for the avian flu and other pathogens, and the United States Agency for International Development would create a database of information on outbreaks and disease prevention.
  
  Canary in the Coal Mine
  
  Clark said more than 100,000 wild animals are treated each year at clinics like his, representing more than 2,000 species.
  
  Thats a pretty darn good snapshot of whats going on in wildlife, he said. There are ample sources of information that are not networked in any way, shape or form.
  
  Spotting trends in animals can have a real effect. When one of Clarks colleagues saw similar eye infections in house finches in the 1980s, there was great concern that poultry could be susceptible. In the end, the disease was determined not to be contagious to chickens, but the alert to poultry producers led many to increase their fencing to keep finches out.
  
  Similarly, he said, sickness in ducks near a water supply could show you that the water supply is contaminated, perhaps from terrorists.
  
  Its the old canary in the coal mine, he said. If your cat and you are subject to the plague on the same day, the cat is going to die before you get sick. Animal surveillance can help brace for, and mitigate, what is yet to be diagnosed in people.
  
  Joshua Dein, a project leader for the Wildlife Disease Information Node at the National Wildlife Health Center, said theres a great deal of crossover between diseases in humans and wildlife.
  
  Understanding wildlife disease gives us a better understanding of whats out there, he said. And once you know whats a baseline, we can determine problems for wildlife and how it can affect domestic animals and humans.
  
  Avian Flu
  
  Dein and others said concerns about avian influenza have helped raise the awareness of animal surveillance, and they hope the tools crafted for bird flu will be expanded.
  
  Currently, the federal government is targeting its bird flu surveillance to birds, which has a proven link to the H5N1 avian influenza strain.
  
  Karen Eggert, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, said about 84,000 bird samples were collected last year, along with 50,000 environmental samples.
  
  The framework we have put in place for highly pathogenic avian influenza helps us research other diseases in the United States, she said.
  
  Clark said he hopes the government will expand its research beyond birds and livestock, and toward wildlife.
  
  So much of the surveillance that is going is so focused on areas where we are already looking, he said. The whole notion that somehow the thousands of other species out there are irrelevant to the spread or detection of disease is myopic thinking.
  
  Matthew E. Berger can be reached at mberger@cq.com.

• 05/10/2007:  Special Feature: The Quiet Spread of CWD, Field and Stream
  
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  By Jim Thornton. Illustration by Jason Holley.
  
  In the fall of 2004, a highway crew picked up the carcass of a road-killed buck near Slanesville, W.Va. The workers took the animal to a compost facility, where a wildlife manager -arrived to pull tissue samples. He made an incision in the deers neck and popped out a lymph node the size of a cocktail olive. He then cut through its neck vertebrae and removed a slightly larger brain structure called the obex. After being fixed in formaldehyde, these samples were sent to the University of Georgia, where preliminary test results were positive for CWD, or chronic wasting disease. By fall 2005, the tissues had been forwarded to the USDAs National Veterinary Services Lab in Ames, Iowa, which confirmed the diagnosis. It was the first positive case of CWDfound in an -east-central state.
  
  Like mad cow disease in cattle, scrapie in sheep, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in people, CWD
  
  is an incurable and fatal condition that afflicts whitetails, mule deer, elk, and moose. All are transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, which researchers believe are caused by mysterious, nonliving proteins known as prions. Prions accumulate in lymphatic and nerve tissues, riddling a victims brain with holes (the sponge in spongiform), and in the process causing a horrific death.
  
  CWD was first discovered in the 1960s in captive cervids in Colorado. In 1981, the first wild cases appeared
  
  in Rocky Mountain National Park. Over the next few decades, it spread through free-ranging deer and elk populations in Colorado and Wyoming, and eventually into adjacent states.
  
  In 2002, the disease moved east of the Mississippi, with whitetails in Wisconsin, then Illinois, testing positive. For eastern state game managers, the jump to the Midwest was a nightmare realized: proof that the Easts much more densely populated herds were at risk. Wildlife managers stepped up their surveillance. In West Virginia, this included a cooperative agreement between the Division of Natural Resources and the highway department to sample road-killed deer. For the next three years, monitoring throughout the East was reassuring, with no new cases reported.
  
  Then in April 2005, one emerged in Oneida County in central New York. The deer was a local game-farmed whitetail whose meat had been donated to a sportsmens charity feast. The test result came back only after some 350 people had consumed steak, chili, stew, and sausage from the diseased animal. Subsequent testing of a 15-mile area in Oneida County found that CWD had crossed into wild deer populations. New Yorks experience left eastern DNR officers no longer wondering if but when the disease would strike their states.
  
  In the case of West Virginia, it took less than six months to become the 14th state (along with two Canadian provinces and the nation of South Korea) to report CWD. Slanesville, perched as it is in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia, sits a mere 10 miles from the Virginia line and only a couple of dozen miles from Pennsylvania and Marylandall of which support huge wild deer populations. You probably couldnt have picked an area that affects more states, says Paul Johansen, assistant chief of the West Virginia DNR. We got word of our positive reading late on a Friday afternoon, and one of the first things we did was pick up the phone and call our counterparts in neighboring states. They immediately offered their assistanceeverything from staff to equipment to moral support.
  
  Among other strategies, wildlife authorities immediately established a containment zone, and a collection team of sharpshooters harvested 216 deer, four of which tested positive. To further lower deer populations, the DNR proposed an antlerless season, restricted the transport of carcasses outside the zone, and outlawed baiting and backyard feeding.
  
  That fall, hunters took an additional 1,016 deer within the zone; all were negative. Alas, in the spring of 2006, a second collection team culled 85 more deer, four of which tested positive.
  
  So far our preliminary surveillance indicates the disease is still confined geographically, says Johansen. I think we have a chance of containing it in this area. I just hope it holds.
  
  Even if West Virginia succeeds at thissomething no other affected states have managed to dothe costs are already soaring. From a conservation standpoint, says Brian Preston, a regional representative for the National Wildlife Federation, its like trying to get the toothpaste back into the tube. Once CWD gets into the wild, you virtually cant get it off the landscape. Management of it is a huge distraction of resources. Money for fisheries, quail, and every other game species gets diverted to deal with this nasty disease.
  
  Recent computer models now predict that the once unthinkablelocal extinctions of deer populations due to CWDare not only conceivable but increasingly likely within the next 20 to 50 years. For his part, Johansen tries not to dwell on the distant future, adding that he has enough to worry about in the short term. Since we got our first case, he says, life has totally changed here at the WVDNR. I dont like to think about worst-case scenarios, but I can tell you from our agencys perspective, were running flat out right now. If CWD surfaces in another location, thats going to really stretch us thin. Im not sure Ive got any more resources to throw at this thing.
  
  The Long-term Spread
  
  Although CWD has not yet panned out as a significant health concern for humans (a fact that seems to have engendered a sense of public complacency regarding the disease), it remains a staggering threat to cervids. The chief reason: Unlike other prion diseases, this form has proved remarkably easy to pass from one animal to the next. This is perhaps the most unique feature of CWDhow readily it can be transmitted from deer to deer, says veterinarian Edward A. Hoover, PhD, a professor at Colorado State University in Fort Collins.
  
  Hoover is the lead author of a landmark CWD study published in the October 2006 issue of Science, a report that has further stoked anxiety levels in wildlife managers. He and his colleagues proved that the abnormal prions exist in both the saliva and blood of infected cervids. Though transmission via the latter is less likely in the wild, the former is inevitable given a wide range of deer behaviors, from licking scrapes and nose nuzzling to side-by-side grazing and grooming.
  
  On game farms, where cervids are concentrated in high numbers, one contaminated animal can quickly infect 80 percent of the herd. In a few localized hot zones in Colorado and Wyoming, where the disease has been present for decades, prevalence rates of 30 to 50 percent have been reported in wild herds.
  
  Cervids have no natural immunity to CWD, and there is no treatment. Most researchers believe animals are contagious long before they develop noticeable symptoms. These may take years to show, but eventually all victims succumb to a pattern of staggering, shaking, and excessive salivation, thirst, and urination. This night of the living deer stage leads to death.
  
  Equally disturbing, the prions responsible dont disappear along with their victims demise but rather leach intact into the environment. Recent studies have shown that prions are extraordinarily resistant to natural decay. Take the carcass of a deer felled by CWD, dump it in a fenced pasture, return in a couple of years and remove the now bare skeleton from the landscape, then reintroduce healthy deer. Many of these animals, researchers have found, will become infected.
  
  Prions bind tightly to soil particles, says Bryan J. Richards, head of CWD research at the Department of the Interiors National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis. For at least three yearsthe longest these paddock studies have been conducted in deerprions in the soil continue to be infectious. Though admittedly less efficient than direct deer-to-deer transmission, it is enough of a threat that wildlife officials must go to great lengths to safely dispose of CWD-positive carcasses.
  
  In Wisconsin, for instance, any deer testing positive must, by law, be placed into a monstrous contraption called a tissue digester, which uses heat and chemicals to break down the prion protein. Its expensive, but only one of multiple costs that have together rung up a $26 million tab for CWD management in Wisconsin since 2002. And its an important preventive measure.
  
  Conservation for future generations is one of the core missions of natural resource agencies, says Richards. Even at $26 million, are we doing enough to combat CWD? Years from now, do you want to go deer hunting in an area where every other deer is infected with a neuro-degenerative disease?It will be up to future generations to judge our efforts.
  
  The High-Fence Factor
  
  With no way to treat the disease, all wildlife managers can do to contain CWD is to curtail accelerants of the contagion. For cervids, the prime accelerants revolve around concentrating deer numbers beyond natural limits. The greater the overpopulation of a species, the greater the likelihood that disease will spread through its ranks.
  
  Even in locales where wild deer have not exceeded the lands carrying capacity, human behavior can dangerously increase local deer densities. Take baiting, for instance. Ethical or not, researchers believe the practice can serve as a powerful CWD accelerant. What you get, says Preston, is an already high-density herd, all coming together to swap spit every night at the bait pile.
  
  Arguably the most controversial means of concentrating cervids occurs within the so-called captive-deer industry. In some cases, popu-lation densities of fenced-in deer, elk, and other farmed cervids extrapolate out to 10,000 animals per square mile. Some 8,000 such businesses exist in the multiple states that allow them. Fawns are born in pens, raised to adulthood, then sold for a variety of purposes, from Velvet Viagra (an aphrodisiac harvested from antlers that was exported to South Korea until a farmed elk tested positive for CWD) to meat sold to restaurants and supermarkets.
  
  But by far the greatest revenue for most of these operators comes from the lucrative sale of trophy animal targetsbig bucks for big bucks. Top-class whitetails can go for up to $12,000, and in Texas some hunts have been documented in the $40,000 range. The marketing slogan for one establishment nicely sums up the hunting ethic at many such places: We supply the trophyyou supply the lie.
  
  There are some responsible, regulation-compliant proprietors in the captive-cervid industry, but officers like Wisconsin game warden Ron Preder have seen firsthand how farms that operate under the radar can contribute to the CWD problem. Weve been involved in this business long enough, he says, to know that not everybody plays by the rules.
  
  Take the curious case of Buckhorn Flats, a captive-cervid operation in Portage County, Wis., consisting of a 59-acre hunting preserve and a smaller breeding facility. On September 4, 2002, a hunter paid $4,000 to shoot a captive buck, which tested positive for CWD. When state authorities tried to trace its history to see what other captive herds might have been exposed, they were stymied by its lack of a -state-mandated ear tag as well as inadequate record keeping by the preserves owner, Stanley Hall.
  
  Hall, who did not respond to an interview request for this article, had a long history of trafficking captive deer. From 2000 to 2001 alone, he shipped at least 39 deer to seven other operations both across Wisconsin and out of state.
  
  The state DNR involved 60 game wardens in tracing the trophy bucks movement. Ultimately, Buckhorn Flats and a handful of other Wisconsin game farms were put under quarantine, and Hall was ordered to depopulate all his deer. He chose to appeal the ruling, as was his right, and the legal battle continued for the next three and a half years.
  
  During this period, Wisconsin passed legislation requiring that all captive-cervid hunting preserves in the state needed a minimum of 80 acres. In the spring of 2005, the DNR notified Hall that his 59-acre facility no longer qualified and he had to stop hosting hunts as of that fall.
  
  By December 2005, Hall and his lawyers came to an agreement with state and federal agriculture officials. Hall, who would receive indemnification payments from the state and federal government for each animal killed, told authorities he had around 80 does and yearlings in his breeding area, and 40 or so bucks in his hunting preserve.
  
  On January 12, 2006, several days before the deer were to be put down, Hall notified the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) that someone had cut a hole in the preserve fence and baited the outside area. The DATCP closed the breech and alerted the DNR, which, concerned that dozens of exposed bucks had escaped into the wild, dispatched sharpshooters to the scene. They found none of the purported 40 bucks still inside the preserveand no sign of them outside, either.
  
  We even sent a plane up to look for them, says Preder. One thing we didnt find was a pile of deer running around on the landscape. So what happened to them?
  
  Whatever might have become of those valuable bucks, there were still the does and yearlings in Halls breeding pen. No hole had been cut in their fence. When the DATCP arrived for the scheduled cull several days later, they found three already dead and killed 76 more. When lab results came back, 60 of 79 deer tested positive.
  
  According to their previously negotiated agreement, Hall was indemnified for his loss to the tune of $130,913, which worked out to a little over $1,700 per animala far cry from the $10,000 some hunters at Buckhorn Flats had said that theyd paid for trophy bucks.
  
  Over a year after the mysterious hole in the fence appeared, the fate of the missing bucks is still uncertain. The local sheriffs department and the DATCP initiated criminal investigations but thus far have come to no definitive conclusion.
  
  Most everyone agrees that there was no mass escape into the woods. These were pen-raised deer, dumber than a box of rocks, says Preston. Its also one of the most heavily hunted areas in Wisconsin, and not one of them was seen during the rest of the season.
  
  The majority of those whove followed the case have a hypothesis. The likeliest scenario is that these CWD-exposed bucks were sold and moved by horse trailer to other preserves, says Preston, adding that a bucks value as a trophy animal dwarfs even the most generous governmental buyout. CWD is not being spread by law-abiding citizensits being spread by these midnight cowboys who would sell their mothers soul for a dollar.
  
  Indeed, when it comes to controlling the disease, the short-term financial interests of the few seem to trump the long-term conservation ethics of the many. Drastically culling herds within hot zones; outlawing baiting and backyard deer feeding nationwide; requiring high, double fences around all captive-cervid facilities; clamping down on the interstate transport of both live deer and harvested carcasses: All such tactics could make a real impact on the diseases future course. But are any likely to become widely adopted?
  
  Unfortunately, management strategies must be couched in political and social realities, not biological ones, says Preston. Thats the world we live in. My commander in the National Guard always says, The answer is money. Now what is your f---ing question? As long as theres a market where somebody will pay $20,000 to shoot a piece of livestock in a pen, there will be bad things happening to wildlife.
  
  The Bureaucracy of Containment
  
  The politics of deer management, both wild and captive, is a contentious and cumbersomely bureaucratic matter. If anything, the process seems designed to stall rather than foster constructive action. Were CWD to emerge as a threat to human health, federal authorities such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could step in to direct a unified national strategy to combat it. But as far as we know, CWD doesnt threaten us. It threatens a species that a disconcerting number of nonhunting suburbanites have come to view as rats with hooves.
  
  Any regulatory powers not granted to the federal government by the U.S. Constitution typically default to state and local authorities. Many, though not all, of the laws involving deer and other cervids thus fall under a patchwork of balkanized purviews. Sometimes, as in the case of West Virginia and its neighbors, adjacent states do attempt to coordinate their efforts. Just as often, however, a hodgepodge of different and sometimes contradictory regulations switch abruptly at state lines.
  
  Further complicating the odds of an effective overall strategy is the wrangling within different state agencies. Deer and other game, historically speaking, have largely been the responsibility of natural resource agencies whose mission it is to manage, conserve, and otherwise provide stewardship to wildlife. As more evidence has linked the captive-cervid industry to CWDs spread, many game farmers balked at what they considered to be costly DNR regulations designed to protect free-ranging deer. In many states, they lobbied successfully to have their deer reclassified from wildlife to livestock. This meant that deer in pens would fall under the control of state agriculture departments, whose mission includes the promotion of alternative agriculture.
  
  As soon as captive-cervid operators started feeling pressure from wildlife agencies to have, for instance, taller fences around their property and mandatory ear tags, explains Preston, they went and hid behind the skirt of the ag department. They did this purely to protect themselves from regulations they didnt like. Face it: Nobody is going to pay $20,000 to shoot a deer with a 3-inch orange ear tag.
  
  When it comes to matters affecting multiple states, such as the interstate transport of deer, the federal government does play some role in cervid management. Similar philosophical differencesi.e., the stewardship of wildlife vs. agricultural commerceare regularly debated before Congress. On one side is the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, part of the $16 billion Interior Department. This agency serves as a kind of national-level DNR with a mission of Conserving the Nature of America. On the other side is the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), under the $96 billion Department of Agriculture. APHIS exists to improve agricultural productivity and competitiveness and contribute to the national economy and the public health. In terms of funding and influence, it hardly seems a fair match.
  
  Dean Goeldner, a veterinarian and the APHIS program coordinator for CWD, acknowledges that his agency gets the lions share of the federal budget for this disease. The funds, he says, are targeted primarily at eliminating it from captive cervids but also at helping states address its spread in the wild.
  
  Among other perks for the industry, APHIS shoulders the tab for laboratory testing of some 15,000 captive deer and elk per year. And it pays to depopulate affected captive herds, as well as to compensate operators for their loss. Goeldner denies that the industry has undue influence over his agencys decisions. But not every interest group agrees.
  
  Consider, for example, proposed regulations that APHIS began drafting in 2002 in the wake of the outbreak in Wisconsin. The idea was to create a nationwide captive herd certification program that would, among other provisions, spell out rules for the interstate movement of farmed deer, elk, and moose.
  
  After consulting with various groups, from state wildlife authorities to deer farm lobbyists, APHIS published its final proposed rules last Julyfour years after the process started. These rules were slated to take effect on October 19. Almost immediately, however, there was an outcry. By early August, APHIS had received petitions from the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, the National Assembly of State Animal Health Officials, and the U.S. Animal Health Associationdemanding a review of what they believed was overly lenient treatment of the captive-cervid industry.
  
  To entice game farmers into signing up for its voluntary herd certification program, APHIS proposed to allow them, after a period of surveillance, to move animals from state to state. Problem was, this was shorter than the incubation time necessary for CWD to become detectable.
  
  Moreover, individual states could do nothing more to protect themselves from the unwanted importation of captive cervids. The APHIS guidelines would supersede any more restrictive state legislation.
  
  APHIS recently solicited public comments as part of its review process, whichdepending on the outcomemay wind up in federal court as a states rights issue. Some states do want stricter standards than what were proposing, says Goeldner. But our lawyers are telling us that there has to be one national set of standards. Thats part of why we pulled back and plan to work with the states to sort this out.
  
  Meanwhile, in areas like West Virginia, where the ordeal with CWD has just begun, the prospect of further import and contamination keeps DNR officials like Paul Johansen up at night. I dont think that CWD just arose spontaneously in our state, he says. It was either brought here in a truck in the form of a captive animal, or it came in on an infected carcass. To be sure, as federal agencies, private industry, local authorities, and legions of attorneys debate, CWD prions continue to slip quietly through wire fences and across state lines.

• 05/01/2007:  Official: Whooping crane's death not caused by humans, Associated Press, from Bizmarck Tribune
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  BISMARCK, N.D.
  
  A whooping crane found dead in a farmer's field may have had a heart attack and took a nosedive, breaking its neck, a Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman says.
  
  The whooper, found last month in a field near Almont, west of Bismarck, died of blunt force trauma, spokesman Ken Torkelson said.
  
  The carcass was sent to the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis. for necropsy, Torkelsen said. The analysis found that the rare bird was not killed by humans, he said.
  
  "Naturally, that's a big relief, if it can be a relief to lose one of these rare birds," Torkelson said.
  
  An identification band showed the bird hatched in 1983. Biologists say most whooping cranes do not live much longer than 20 years.
  
  Torkelson said the bird sired seven chicks in the past 21 years.
  
  The whooping crane was among the flock of 237 endangered birds migrating to Wood Buffalo National Park in Canada from Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in Texas.
  
  The whooping cranes, listed as endangered since 1970, make the trip each spring from their Texas wintering grounds to Canada. They are known as America's tallest birds, with the adults about 5 feet tall with a 7-foot wingspan.

• 04/20/2007:  'Very productive' whooping crane found dead, Bismarck Tribune
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  'Very productive' whooping crane found dead
  
  By RICHARD HINTON
  
  Bismarck Tribune
  
  A 23-year-old endangered whooping crane found dead Wednesday in a farmer's field near Almont "was a very productive male," guiding seven chicks south for the winter over its more than two decades of breeding, wildlife biologists said Thursday.
  
  No foul play is suspected in the whooper's death, wildlife officials said.
  
  A preliminary inspection revealed the whooper may have suffered a broken neck. A power line lies about a mile from where the bird was found, but the consensus is a power line that far away was not a factor in its death, said Ken Torkelson, a spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Bismarck office.
  
  The carcass will be sent to the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis., Monday for analysis. Researchers will look for pellet or raptor wounds and examine it for disease. A report from the lab was expected late next week. The whooper appeared to have been in good health.
  
  The crane was designated as r-Y and was identified by its red leg band, showing it was hatched and banded in 1983. The whooper was one of 25 whoopers in the flock still fitted with a band, carryovers from the USFWS's 1977-88 banding project.
  
  Although no evidence of human involvement was apparent, federal agents continued to check the area where it was found on Thursday.
  
  "Anytime you lose a bird like that, it's a big deal," said Torkelson.
  
  Only 236 whooping cranes comprise the flock that winters on the Texas Gulf Coast and breeds at Canada's Wood Buffalo National Park on the Alberta-Northwest Territories border. It's the largest wild flock in North America. Whoopers are making the 2,500-mile migration to Canada for another breeding season, and most are passing through North Dakota.
  
  The dead whooper "first nested in 1986 and brought its first chick to Aransas in 1987," Tom Stehn, the USFWS's national whooping crane coordinator at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in Texas, said in a statement. "In 21 years of nesting, it successfully brought seven chicks to Aransas. It was still a very productive male, having brought six chicks to Aransas out of the last 10 years."
  
  In the wild, whooping cranes typically live to their mid-20s. The oldest bird in the Wood Buffalo-Aransas flock is 29, and 22 birds in the flock are over 20, said Martha Tacha, the coordinator for the USFWS's whooping crane monitoring project in Grand Island, Neb.
  
  The flock reached a record high of 237 whoopers this winter, a rebound from less than two dozen birds in the 1940s. Whooping cranes were listed as endangered in 1970.
  
  A southeast wind has stepped up the migration, pushing sandhill cranes, whooping cranes, American white pelicans, snow geese and other migratory species into North Dakota and increasing whooper sightings.
  
  "There have been a lot of sightings coming though the eastern portion of the state. It's probably a function of more water to hang out on," said Mike Szymanski, a migratory bird biologist for the North Dakota Game and Fish Department who helps monitor the state's whooper sightings.
  
  Counting the dead whooper, there have been 29 confirmed sightings in North Dakota so far this spring.
  
  NDGFD biologist Christ Grondahl sighted two flocks of whoopers Sunday. Five whooping cranes were flying among an estimated 100 sandhill cranes, and another flock of sandhills had 15 whoopers in it, said Tacha. Whooping cranes are stark white with black wingtips, and sandhill cranes are smaller and darker.
  
  Paul Van Ningen, Long Lake National Wildlife Refuge manager and the USFWS's state whooping crane coordinator, confirmed the sighting of a single whooping crane on the ground Sunday evening near Menoken east of Bismarck.
  
  The seven whoopers reported as "probable" when seen near Mandator earlier this month were spotted again and confirmed by a wildlife biologist Sunday near Crookston, Minn., said Tacha.
  
  Most of the whooping cranes already have pulled out of the Aransas area, and some whoopers have settled in at Wood Buffalo, Stehn said.
  
  Anyone seeing a whooping crane is asked to contact the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at 701-387-4397 or the North Dakota Game and Fish Department at 701-328-6300.
  
  The dead bird and its mate were equipped with radio collars in the early 1980s, said Stehn, who has been involved with the protected birds for more than 20 years.
  
  "We called them the 'radio pair.' Not only did they produce seven offspring, but they provided us with a lot of valuable information about whooping crane movements."
  
  (Reach outdoor writer Richard Hinton at 250-8256 or richard.hinton@;bismarcktribune.com.)

• 04/20/2007:  'Very productive' whooping crane found dead, Bismarck Tribune
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  By RICHARD HINTON
  
  
  
  A 23-year-old endangered whooping crane found dead Wednesday in a farmer's field near Almont "was a very productive male," guiding seven chicks south for the winter over its more than two decades of breeding, wildlife biologists said Thursday.
  
  No foul play is suspected in the whooper's death, wildlife officials said.
  
  A preliminary inspection revealed the whooper may have suffered a broken neck. A power line lies about a mile from where the bird was found, but the consensus is a power line that far away was not a factor in its death, said Ken Torkelson, a spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Bismarck office.
  
  The carcass will be sent to the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis., Monday for analysis. Researchers will look for pellet or raptor wounds and examine it for disease. A report from the lab was expected late next week. The whooper appeared to have been in good health.
  
  The crane was designated as r-Y and was identified by its red leg band, showing it was hatched and banded in 1983. The whooper was one of 25 whoopers in the flock still fitted with a band, carryovers from the USFWS's 1977-88 banding project.
  
  Although no evidence of human involvement was apparent, federal agents continued to check the area where it was found on Thursday.
  
  "Anytime you lose a bird like that, it's a big deal," said Torkelson.
  
  Only 236 whooping cranes comprise the flock that winters on the Texas Gulf Coast and breeds at Canada's Wood Buffalo National Park on the Alberta-Northwest Territories border. It's the largest wild flock in North America. Whoopers are making the 2,500-mile migration to Canada for another breeding season, and most are passing through North Dakota.
  
  The dead whooper "first nested in 1986 and brought its first chick to Aransas in 1987," Tom Stehn, the USFWS's national whooping crane coordinator at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in Texas, said in a statement. "In 21 years of nesting, it successfully brought seven chicks to Aransas. It was still a very productive male, having brought six chicks to Aransas out of the last 10 years."
  
  In the wild, whooping cranes typically live to their mid-20s. The oldest bird in the Wood Buffalo-Aransas flock is 29, and 22 birds in the flock are over 20, said Martha Tacha, the coordinator for the USFWS's whooping crane monitoring project in Grand Island, Neb.
  
  The flock reached a record high of 237 whoopers this winter, a rebound from less than two dozen birds in the 1940s. Whooping cranes were listed as endangered in 1970.
  
  A southeast wind has stepped up the migration, pushing sandhill cranes, whooping cranes, American white pelicans, snow geese and other migratory species into North Dakota and increasing whooper sightings.
  
  "There have been a lot of sightings coming though the eastern portion of the state. It's probably a function of more water to hang out on," said Mike Szymanski, a migratory bird biologist for the North Dakota Game and Fish Department who helps monitor the state's whooper sightings.
  
  Counting the dead whooper, there have been 29 confirmed sightings in North Dakota so far this spring.
  
  NDGFD biologist Christ Grondahl sighted two flocks of whoopers Sunday. Five whooping cranes were flying among an estimated 100 sandhill cranes, and another flock of sandhills had 15 whoopers in it, said Tacha. Whooping cranes are stark white with black wingtips, and sandhill cranes are smaller and darker.
  
  Paul Van Ningen, Long Lake National Wildlife Refuge manager and the USFWS's state whooping crane coordinator, confirmed the sighting of a single whooping crane on the ground Sunday evening near Menoken east of Bismarck.
  
  The seven whoopers reported as "probable" when seen near Mandator earlier this month were spotted again and confirmed by a wildlife biologist Sunday near Crookston, Minn., said Tacha.
  
  Most of the whooping cranes already have pulled out of the Aransas area, and some whoopers have settled in at Wood Buffalo, Stehn said.
  
  Anyone seeing a whooping crane is asked to contact the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at 701-387-4397 or the North Dakota Game and Fish Department at 701-328-6300.
  
  The dead bird and its mate were equipped with radio collars in the early 1980s, said Stehn, who has been involved with the protected birds for more than 20 years.
  
  "We called them the 'radio pair.' Not only did they produce seven offspring, but they provided us with a lot of valuable information about whooping crane movements."
  
  (Reach outdoor writer Richard Hinton at 250-8256 or richard.hinton@;bismarcktribune.com.)

• 04/19/2007:  Farmer finds dead 'senior citizen' whooping crane, Associated Press
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Associated Press
  
  A whooping crane found dead in a farmer's field was a "senior citizen" with a colorful past that helped with studies of the rare birds, a Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman says.
  
  The whooper, found Wednesday in a field near Almont, west of Bismarck, appeared to have a broken neck, spokesman Ken Torkelson said. Biologists believe the bird had been dead for at least a day before it was found but they do not believe it was killed by humans, Torkelson said.
  
  The carcass is being sent to the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis. for analysis.
  
  "What caused the broken neck, we're not sure, and we may never know," Torkelson said Thursday.
  
  A power line was about a mile away, but authorities do not know if that played a role, Torkelson said.
  
  "It would be a first, but it's not impossible for that bird to have had a heart attack in the air and suffered a broken neck on impact with the ground," he said. "It could also have been a predator but there are no signs of that. If we had to guess, it appears to have come in a collision with something."
  
  An identification band showed the bird hatched in 1983. Biologists say most whooping cranes do not live much longer than 20 years.
  
  "It was still a very productive male, having brought six chicks to Aransas out of the last 10 years," Tom Stehn, the whooping crane coordinator for the Fish and Wildlife Service at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in Texas, said in a statement.
  
  The dead bird and its mate were equipped with radio collars in the early 1980s and were known as the "radio pair," Stehn said. Along with producing offspring, the pair provided valuable information for researchers, he said.
  
  "He was not the granddaddy of the flock, but he was definitely one of the senior citizens," Torkelson said of the dead whooper. "He apparently he was still mated up this year and still could have produced offspring, so it's certainly a loss to the whooping crane flock."
  
  Stehn also said the whooper found near Almont was involved in the "fastest whooper migration across the United States ever recorded."
  
  The bird and its parents were in a flock of six whooping cranes that landed near Pierre, S.D., on Nov. 8, 1983, and were found on the Texas coast just three days later, he said.
  
  "They were pushed by strong tailwinds and a low pressure system on their way south and must have flown pretty much nonstop," Stehn said.
  
  The whooping cranes, listed as endangered since 1970, make the trip each spring from their Texas wintering grounds to Canada. They are known as America's tallest birds, with the adults about 5 feet tall with a 7-foot wingspan.

• 04/19/2007:  Farmer finds dead 'senior citizen' whooping crane, Dallas News
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Farmer finds dead 'senior citizen' whooping crane
  
  04/19/2007
  
  Associated Press
  
  A whooping crane found dead in a farmer's field was a "senior citizen" with a colorful past that helped with studies of the rare birds, a Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman says.
  
  The whooper, found Wednesday in a field near Almont, west of Bismarck, appeared to have a broken neck, spokesman Ken Torkelson said. Biologists believe the bird had been dead for at least a day before it was found but they do not believe it was killed by humans, Torkelson said.
  
  The carcass is being sent to the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis. for analysis.
  
  "What caused the broken neck, we're not sure, and we may never know," Torkelson said Thursday.
  
  A power line was about a mile away, but authorities do not know if that played a role, Torkelson said.
  
  "It would be a first, but it's not impossible for that bird to have had a heart attack in the air and suffered a broken neck on impact with the ground," he said. "It could also have been a predator but there are no signs of that. If we had to guess, it appears to have come in a collision with something."
  
  An identification band showed the bird hatched in 1983. Biologists say most whooping cranes do not live much longer than 20 years.
  
  "It was still a very productive male, having brought six chicks to Aransas out of the last 10 years," Tom Stehn, the whooping crane coordinator for the Fish and Wildlife Service at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in Texas, said in a statement.
  
  The dead bird and its mate were equipped with radio collars in the early 1980s and were known as the "radio pair," Stehn said. Along with producing offspring, the pair provided valuable information for researchers, he said.
  
  "He was not the granddaddy of the flock, but he was definitely one of the senior citizens," Torkelson said of the dead whooper. "He apparently he was still mated up this year and still could have produced offspring, so it's certainly a loss to the whooping crane flock."
  
  Stehn also said the whooper found near Almont was involved in the "fastest whooper migration across the United States ever recorded."
  
  The bird and its parents were in a flock of six whooping cranes that landed near Pierre, S.D., on Nov. 8, 1983, and were found on the Texas coast just three days later, he said.
  
  "They were pushed by strong tailwinds and a low pressure system on their way south and must have flown pretty much nonstop," Stehn said.
  
  The whooping cranes, listed as endangered since 1970, make the trip each spring from their Texas wintering grounds to Canada. They are known as America's tallest birds, with the adults about 5 feet tall with a 7-foot wingspan.
  
  ___
  
  On the Net:
  
  Fish and Wildlife Service:
  
  http://www.fws.gov

• 04/06/2007:  Unusual seabird mortality recorded on the Oregon coast, Newport News Times
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  By Jason Evans Of the News-Times
  
  January through March 2007, more beached dead seabirds than usual have been counted in Lincoln County and elsewhere on the Pacific Coast.
  
  Dead birds found in unusually high numbers include rhinoceros auklet, horned puffin, tufted puffin and marbled murrelet, among others. It is unclear what is causing the prevalence of dead birds, and whether the event is ongoing. "Something is definitely different in the ocean this year for those species," said Roy Lowe, with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), "These birds are often the bellwether of what is going on underwater. If you are not out there collecting data on plankton or fish, dead birds might be the first thing you see. Especially when you see birds dying on such a length of coastline, it tells you something is going on."
  
  
  
  Determining whether more dead birds counted are reflective of the welfare of the population is an inexact science. "We start to weave these things together," said Lowe, "there is so much unknown about the ocean."
  
  Causes for the bird depositions may include:
  
  * Distribution of birds - If birds were closer to shore this year, then more could be expected to wash ashore rather than sink or decompose at sea. However, data about seabird distribution off the Oregon Coast during January-March are limited.
  
  * Abundance of birds - If birds were more numerous this year, than with normal mortality rates, more could die and wash ashore. Data about abundance off the Oregon Coast during January-March are lacking.
  
  * Ocean conditions - If weather and oceanographic conditions were more conducive to washing dead birds ashore in 2007, then more could be expected to beach than in years when these conditions favor pushing or keeping bird carcasses offshore. Some data may be available but will take time to analyze and may not be definitive.
  
  * Mortality rates elevated - If the proportion of birds which died in 2007, was greater than normal, then more could be beached. However, data on mortality rates and cause of death are lacking.
  
  In the winter horned puffins and tufted puffins are highly pelagic: spending much of their time many miles to sea off Oregon's shore. Little is known about their habits and populations.
  
  Marbled murrelet, rhinoceros auklet and tufted puffin populations are small in Oregon, so even a few dead birds could indicate cause for concern. "Tufted puffin numbers being found are not particularly high, but our tufted puffin population is not very big, and it has declined since the 80s. We may have a couple thousand in the state, and so, finding 18 on one beach could be a big deal if they are our birds," said Lowe, noting, "Our tufted puffins are returning this time of year."
  
  One way to approach current data is to provide scope, by comparison, with data sets collected over time; to speak to the usualness of an event.
  
  Retired from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, Bob Loeffel of Newport began a beached seabird mortality survey nearly 30 years ago on the 4.6 miles of beach he jogged from Henderson Creek to Beaver Creek, south of Newport.
  
  Loeffel's team has surveyed the same stretch of beach, recording dead birds, approximately once per week ever since, lending valuable perspective.
  
  The mortality thus far in 2007 is exceptional for some species in comparison with beached bird surveys by Bob Loeffel's team ongoing since 1978. The total in 2007 was among the top three years for seven species: fork-tailed storm-petrel, black-legged kittiwake, marbled murrelet, parakeet auklet, rhinoceros auklet, horned puffin, and tufted puffin. The four most numerous species on the 4.6 miles of beach surveyed by Loeffel's team so far this year were rhinoceros auklet (49), fork-tailed storm-petrel (14), horned puffin (13), and northern fulmar (8). They recorded 20 species of birds.
  
  Among others counting dead birds on Oregon's coast are CoastWatch volunteers, who report on beach conditions, including dead birds; and COASST, affiliated with the University of Washington. These counts recorded similar data.
  
  Of interest is the fact the dead birds appear almost universally skinny, which likely indicates a shortage of krill and forage fish to support seabird populations. Lowe said, "We sent some of the horned puffins from our Bandon office to the National Wildlife Health Center. They performed necropsies on them, and said, 'the birds are skinny, with nothing in the digestive system and no sub-cutaneous fat.'"
  
  Oceanographer with NOAA in Newport, Bill Peterson reports current ocean conditions are good. "The waters have been relatively cold all winter (always a harbinger for high production the subsequent spring and summer), we had early phytoplankton blooms, the zooplankton began reproducing earlier than usual, and now are already becoming very abundant. I do not think the bird deaths are at all related to ocean conditions here, as observed now, and/or for the past couple of months."
  
  The work of Bob Emmett, with NOAA fisheries, indicates, "The birds may have been stressed from poor feeding conditions last summer, which might actually be linked to poor ocean conditions during the summer of 2005," said Peterson, "Bird deaths were rampant due to lack of food, and due to lack of zooplankton; the small forage fish that these birds feed upon did not produce that many offspring."
  
  Numbers of forage fish in 2006 were among the lowest Emmett has seen since he began his work in 1998. Forage fish populations off the Columbia River last summer were very low and there was little or no recruitment of young for some species, resulting in an abysmal one-year-old population this year; compounding already suppressed numbers of mature fish.
  
  "An alternative idea is that some of the birds may have migrated down here from the Gulf of Alaska," said Peterson, "where feeding conditions might have been poor. The birds thus arrived off Oregon already stressed. Once here, the birds found poor feeding conditions as well, and perished."
  
  Speaking to the natural history of seabird species, Lowe said, dead adult common murres haven't been found in similarly high numbers for this time of year. Because common murres take advantage of invertebrates, whereas some other birds are more reliant on fish, it remains a possibility forage fish populations are reduced.
  
  "Plankton production and forage fish populations will be interesting to watch this year," said Lowe. "It is possible we are over it now, as birds such as puffins and rhinoceros auklets will be migrating back to colonies outside the area, though it remains unclear if the food shortage problem will continue to affect other species, including salmon, which are currently predicted to have a good year."
  
  The public should leave dead birds they find on the beach, to ensure the bird will be counted, if the beach is monitored. Curious beachgoers should also be mindful one ongoing study involves attaching plastic wire ties to dead birds, to improve understanding of rates at which the birds disappear from the beach. However, dead birds with metal leg bands are important to report. The whole bird, or the band, may be brought to the FWS office in Newport. The bands may also be recorded by the finder online. The FWS office based in the Marine Hatfield Science Center in Newport is available to assist, 867-4550.
  
  Jason Evans is a reporter for the News-Times and can be reached at 265-8571 ext. 212, or jevans@newportnewstimes.com.

• 04/04/2007:  NIAID unveils multicenter flu research initiative
  
  NIAID unveils multicenter flu research initiative, CIDRAP
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  NIAID unveils multicenter flu research initiative
  
  Robert Roos * News Editor
  
  Apr 4, 2007 (CIDRAP News) In a major effort to track influenza viruses in nature and learn more about how they interact with the human body, the federal government this week announced a $23-million-a-year program to fund research centers at six institutions around the country.
  
  The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) unveiled the 7-year plan to fund six "Centers of Excellence for Influenza Research and Surveillance" at universities and other institutions from New York City to Los Angeles.
  
  "The goal of the newly created centers is to provide the federal government with important information to inform public health strategies for controlling and lessening the impact of seasonal influenza as well as an influenza pandemic," the NIAID said in an Apr 2 news release.
  
  Research under the NIAID contracts will range from monitoring of Americans' responses to flu vaccination to identification of possible targets for new antiviral drugs and testing of pigs and wild birds. Each center will collaborate with a number of other agencies and institutions.
  
  The new initiative builds on a program launched by the NIAID after the original human outbreak of H5N1 avian flu in Hong Kong in 1997, the agency said. In that program, led by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, researchers studied flu viruses in waterfowl and live bird markets in Hong Kong, shedding light on the natural history of the viruses. St. Jude is one of the six centers named this week.
  
  The six centers, with their principal investigators and main areas of research as described by the NIAID, are as follows:
  
  * St. Jude, Dr. Robert Webster. Research areas include antiviral drug regimens, factors in flu virus resistance to antivirals, virus transmissibility, and human defenses against the H5N1 virus. The center will also maintain surveillance for SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) in Southeast Asia.
  
  * University of California, Los Angeles; Dr. Scott Layne. Researchers will monitor animal influenza internationally and in the Pacific Northwest and will maintain a high-throughput laboratory network for studying circulating flu viruses and antiviral resistance.
  
  * University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; Dr. Marguerite Pappaioanou. Scientists will monitor flu viruses in migratory birds, conduct human flu surveillance in Thailand, and monitor US farm workers who work with swine. (See further information below.)
  
  * Emory University, Atlanta; Dr. Richard Compans. Researchers will study how flu viruses adapt to new hosts and are transmitted between different hosts and will examine human immune responses to flu vaccination and infection.
  
  * Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York City; Dr. Adolfo Garcia-Sastre. Researchers will conduct molecular studies to identify viral genes associated with pathogenicity and the adaptability of flu viruses in birds and mammals.
  
  * University of Rochester, New York; Dr. John Treanor. Investigators will monitor communities in New York for seasonal flu infections and study the effectiveness of annual immunization programs, among other efforts. (See further information below.)
  
  At the University of Minnesota, Pappaioanou said the center will collaborate with a number of other groups to test wild birds for flu viruses throughout the Central Flyway, with studies weighted toward the Upper Midwest. Partners in the effort include the University of Georgia in Athens, the Wildlife Conservation Society, the US National Wildlife Health Center in Madison (Wis.), the Minnesota Board of Animal Health, the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, and Cargill Corp., she said.
  
  Depending on results, the bird surveillance may lead to testing of pigs and possibly testing of people who work with pigs, Pappaioanou, an epidemiologist and veterinarian in the School of Public Health, told CIDRAP News. "If we find birds that are positive, we'll look at swine that are nearby. We'll be interviewing people who own those operations and their employees. If there are reports of human illness that could be flu, we'll be testing specimens from the patients."
  
  In addition, the center will team up with Chulalongkorn University in Thailand, which has battled H5N1 outbreaks in recent years, for a human flu surveillance project in rural Thailand, Pappaioanou said. Researchers will be looking at risk factors for H5N1 exposure and also test people for antibodies indicating past exposure to the virus.
  
  Pappaioanou said the center will receive NIAID funding of about $3 million a year under a contract that requires various "deliverables" along the way. The latter include things like detailed information on the viruses collected plus laboratory reagents and protocols developed. The data generated will be deposited in GenBank and other public databases.
  
  "My role is largely going to be coordinating this, making sure things happen, providing scientific oversight, and making sure we deliver our deliverables to the NIH National Institutes of Health," she said.
  
  At the University of Rochester, scientists are planning research to help in the development of a single vaccine that can work against many different flu strains, Treanor commented in a news release.
  
  The Rochester center will study five topics in particular: (1) how white blood cells recognize qualities shared by many different flu strains, (2) the identity of viral proteins that turn on "helper" T cells, causing them to attack infected cells, (3) communication between immune cells, (4) the nature of changes in the viral protein hemagglutinin when flu viruses jump from birds to mammals, and (5) the qualities of viral polymerase, the enzyme the virus uses to copy its genetic material.
  
  As part of the effort, "Researchers will follow college students, healthy adults, and 150 families with young children in the Rochester area for seven years, monitoring them for exposure to flu and responses to vaccination," the release states.
  
  The Rochester contract is worth a total of $26 million, officials said. The university will collaborate with Cornell University, the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, and community partners.
  
  See also:
  
  Apr 2 NIAID news release
  
  http://www3.niaid.nih.gov/news/newsreleases/2007/fluresearch.htm
  
  University of Rochester news release
  
  http://www.urmc.rochester.edu/pr/current_research/bird_flu/index.cfm
  
  St Jude Children's Research Hospital release
  
  http://www.stjude.org/media/0,2561,453_2816_22870,00.html

• 02/05/2007:  The Tornado Spared One: Endangered Juvenile Whooping Crane Found Alive in FL, The Areo News Network
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  The Tornado Spared One: Endangered Juvenile Whooping Crane Found Alive in FL
  
  Mon, 05 Feb '07
  
  The Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership (WCEP) has informed ANN that one of the juvenile cranes presumed lost in the storms that hit central Florida on Feb. 1 and 2 has been found.
  
  Project biologists with the International Crane Foundation picked up the radio signal of crane 15-06 on Saturday afternoon near the pensite at the Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge where the other birds perished in the storm. They lost the signal briefly before picking it up again on Sunday, tracking the young bird to an area in Citrus County, some miles away from the pensite. The juvenile crane was observed from the air in good remote habitat with two sandhill cranes. Number 15-06 is in the same area with three whooping cranes from the Class of 2005.
  
  During the last leg of the ultralight-led migration last fall, crane 15-06 dropped out, but was found nearby two days later and brought to the pensite with his flockmates.
  
  Finding 15-06 alive represents a ray of light during an otherwise dark time for whooping crane recovery, said John Christian, co-chair of the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership.
  
  While we are still recovering from the initial shock of the loss of so many other young birds, this latest development demonstrates the resilience of this particular crane, and our partnership will bounce back as well.
  
  Seventeen juvenile whooping cranes died as a result of the storms that swept through central Florida during the evening and early morning of Feb. 1 and 2.
  
  WCEP is still determining the cause of death of the 17 whooping cranes, which were part of the ultralight-led Class of 2006 and arrived at the Chassahowitzka NWR in mid January.
  
  Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership founding members are the International Crane Foundation, Operation Migration Inc., Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Geological Surveys Patuxent Wildlife Research Center and National Wildlife Health Center, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin, and the International Whooping Crane Recovery Team.
  
  FMI: www.bringbackthecranes.org

• 02/05/2007:  The Tornado Spared One: Endangered Juvenile Whooping Crane Found Alive in FL, Aero-News.Net
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Mon, 05 Feb '07
  
  The Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership (WCEP) has informed ANN that one of the juvenile cranes presumed lost in the storms that hit central Florida on Feb. 1 and 2 has been found.
  
  Project biologists with the International Crane Foundation picked up the radio signal of crane 15-06 on Saturday afternoon near the pensite at the Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge where the other birds perished in the storm. They lost the signal briefly before picking it up again on Sunday, tracking the young bird to an area in Citrus County, some miles away from the pensite. The juvenile crane was observed from the air in good remote habitat with two sandhill cranes. Number 15-06 is in the same area with three whooping cranes from the Class of 2005.
  
  During the last leg of the ultralight-led migration last fall, crane 15-06 dropped out, but was found nearby two days later and brought to the pensite with his flockmates.
  
  Finding 15-06 alive represents a ray of light during an otherwise dark time for whooping crane recovery, said John Christian, co-chair of the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership.
  
  While we are still recovering from the initial shock of the loss of so many other young birds, this latest development demonstrates the resilience of this particular crane, and our partnership will bounce back as well.
  
  Seventeen juvenile whooping cranes died as a result of the storms that swept through central Florida during the evening and early morning of Feb. 1 and 2.
  
  WCEP is still determining the cause of death of the 17 whooping cranes, which were part of the ultralight-led Class of 2006 and arrived at the Chassahowitzka NWR in mid January.
  
  Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership founding members are the International Crane Foundation, Operation Migration Inc., Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Geological Surveys Patuxent Wildlife Research Center and National Wildlife Health Center, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin, and the International Whooping Crane Recovery Team.

• 02/02/2007:  Duck die-off reaches nearly 7,000, Lake County Record-Bee
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  From staff reports
  
  Record Bee
  
  Article Last Updated:02/01/2007 11:08:40 PM PST
  
  
  
  Rene Morales -- Record-Bee staff
  
  KELSEYVILLE -- The avian cholera duck die-off continued Thursday as 305 ruddy ducks were recovered by the Department of Fish and Game, bringing the total amount of dead ducks to almost 7,000.
  
  "We were only able to utilize have the day due to visibility," said Ryan Maki of the DFG. "We are going to have to wait until the fog clears up to go out tomorrow."
  
  Avian cholera is not related to human cholera, and Associate Wildlife Biologist Paul Hofmann of DFG's North Central Region said he knew of no cases in which a human contracted the disease from a bird.
  
  According to the National Wildlife Health Center, Avian cholera caused by a bacterial infection affects birds so quickly that they have been known to die in mid-flight, or while resting on the water's surface.
  
  Maki also added that this outbreak will have to take its course, however long that may be.

• 01/23/2007:  Massive duck die-off, Lake County Record-Bee (CA)
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Tiffany Revelle
  
  Record-Bee Staff
  
  
  
  NORTH SHORE -- Another duck die-off hit the waters of Clear Lake this weekend, claiming 1,145 waterfowl as of 4 p.m. Experts are tentatively saying avian cholera is the culprit this time, pending lab confirmation.
  
  Avian cholera affects birds so quickly that they have been known to sometimes literally drop out of the sky or die while swimming, according to the National Wildlife Health Center. Approximately 40 percent of the affected birds die; those who don't become carriers.
  
  According to Record-Bee outdoor columnist Terry Knight, although all waterfowl are susceptible, the ruddy duck is Clear Lake's most common carrier. Approximately 3,000 ruddy ducks winter on Clear Lake, he added, which can easily turn into more than 10,000 in a matter of days.
  
  Almost 230 dead ducks were picked up this weekend by the Department of Fish & Game, with some help from local residents. The birds, all ruddy ducks, washed up on the shoreline stretching along Highway 20 between Nice and Lucerne.
  
  Crews on two air boats and a lead biologist from the North Central Region of the Department of Fish & Game arrived Monday afternoon to find about 350 more between Nice and Lucerne and 600 in Paradise Cove. Officials said most of them were ruddy ducks; a few mallards and gulls were also found dead.
  
  Lake County Fish & Game Warden Lynette Shimek said she and the crews expect to work "however long it takes to get the birds cleaned up," possibly stretching into days.
  
  Shimek added Monday night that anyone who finds dead waterfowl along the shoreline should not touch them or attempt to pick them up, but call DFG. Shimek can be reached at 275-8862.
  
  "The birds have not been tested yet," said Shimek Monday morning. "So although this looks like cholera, we can't be guaranteed that that's what it is until they are tested."
  
  So far five samples are ready to go to DFG's Wildlife Investigations Lab in Rancho Cordova, according to Associate Wildlife Biologist Paul Hofmann of the North Central Region of the Department of Fish & Game. There, they will undergo necropsy (the equivalent of a human autopsy for animals) and tested for a variety of diseases.
  
  According to a Jan. 11 DFG press release about an avian cholera outbreak in Butte Sink less than 100 miles east of Lake County avian cholera die-offs usually happen during the winter months in California, especially during cold spells and fog.
  
  Hofmann said outbreaks are usually ending about this time of year, and termed this outbreak "unusual." If avian cholera is to blame for the die-off, he said, it may have been aggravated by the recent cold snap.
  
  "Stress and crowding is bad for people and birds," said Hofmann. "It's the same as with humans ... your resistance is low under stress."
  
  As with any bird disease, said Hofmann, avian cholera is spread when birds concentrate in one area. He added that they tend to fly less and congregate more under stressful conditions.
  
  The virus spreads through mucus when the birds are in close proximity to each other by sneezing, shaking their heads, grooming and pecking each other, and even through a spray emitted through their nostrils when they take off for flight, said Knight.
  
  "You don't stop this," said Knight. "It runs its course, and then the birds leave," he said.
  
  Hofmann noted that recent sunny skies and wavy conditions on the lake from high winds tend to break up mucus on the water surface, making for bad conditions for the spread of avian cholera. He further noted that the ruddy ducks will be heading north again in a couple of weeks.
  
  Lake County saw close to 8,000 waterfowl die during an outbreak of avian cholera in January of 2004.
  
  Contact Tiffany Revelle at trevelle@record-bee.com.

• 01/18/2007:  Testing yields clues to bird virus behavior, Wisconsin State Journal
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  DAVID WAHLBERG dwahlberg@madison.com
  
  January 17, 2007
  
  The state tested 2,000 birds for bird flu. A national lab in Madison tested 22,000 of the 71,000 birds sampled around the country.
  
  Neither of the surveillance efforts last year found the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus that has devastated flocks in Asia and Europe and killed 161 people since 2003, including at least four in Indonesia this month. The virus presents a worldwide threat to poultry farmers and a potential trigger for a human flu pandemic.
  
  But scientists say their lookout for bird flu, even in places as unlikely to see the first U.S. case as Wisconsin, is unearthing important lessons. Testing will continue this year.
  
  A sample last spring from a bird in Alaska, tested in Madison, confirmed that flu viruses from Asia and North America mixed genetically in the same bird - the type of interplay scientists fear could create a pandemic strain.
  
  "It's proof that wild birds do carry viruses between the continents," said Hon Ip, who oversees the diagnostic virology lab at the National Wildlife Health Center off Schroeder Road. "That helps explain why we're doing this."
  
  In Wisconsin, workers at the state Department of Natural Resources used a $100,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to test 2,000 birds, said Kent Van Horn, migratory game bird ecologist with the DNR. Most were ducks, geese and shorebirds such as sandpipers. None had H5N1.
  
  "They had the most potential to interact with birds from Asia or northern Europe before they migrated down here from Alaska or northern Canada," Van Horn said.
  
  He said it's not certain how many birds in the state will be tested this year.
  
  The National Wildlife Health Center has tested 22,400 samples from more than 150 species of birds, most commonly northern pintail ducks and black brant geese, Ip said. The center continues to test samples collected last year while preparing for more activity this spring, he said.
  
  In other national sampling, Ip said, several cases of a low- grade version of H5N1 were found, mostly in Great Lakes states. The Madison lab didn't find any such test results, and the more worrisome version of H5N1 was not found anywhere in the country.
  
  Most of the samples tested at the Madison lab last year were from West Coast states and Pacific island territories, considered the most likely route into the U.S. for the problematic strain of H5N1.
  
  Ip said more samples likely will be collected this year from states along the East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico because scientists believe the virus could also come across the Atlantic or from Central America.

• 01/17/2007:  Testeing Yields Clues To Virus Behavior, Wisconsin State Journal
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Testeing Yields Clues To Virus Behavior
  
  Wisconsin State Journal :: FRONT :: A4
  
  Thursday, January 18, 2007
  
  DAVID WAHLBERG dwahlberg@madison.com 608-252-6125
  
  The state tested 2,000 birds for bird flu. A national lab in Madison tested 22,000 of the 71,000 birds sampled around the country.
  
  Neither of the surveillance efforts last year found the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus that has devastated flocks in Asia and Europe and killed 161 people since 2003, including at least four in Indonesia this month. The virus presents a worldwide threat to poultry farmers and a potential trigger for a human flu pandemic.
  
  But scientists say their lookout for bird flu, even in places as unlikely to see the first U.S. case as Wisconsin, is unearthing important lessons. Testing will continue this year.
  
  A sample last spring from a bird in Alaska, tested in Madison, confirmed that flu viruses from Asia and North America mixed genetically in the same bird -- the type of interplay scientists fear could create a pandemic strain.
  
  "It's proof that wild birds do carry viruses between the continents," said Hon Ip, who oversees the diagnostic virology lab at the National Wildlife Health Center off Schroeder Road. "That helps explain why we're doing this."
  
  In Wisconsin, workers at the state Department of Natural Resources used a $100,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to test 2,000 birds, said Kent Van Horn, migratory game bird ecologist with the DNR. Most were ducks, geese and shorebirds such as sandpipers. None had H5N1.
  
  "They had the most potential to interact with birds from Asia or northern Europe before they migrated down here from Alaska or northern Canada," Van Horn said.
  
  He said it's not certain how many birds in the state will be tested this year.
  
  The National Wildlife Health Center has tested 22,400 samples from more than 150 species of birds, most commonly northern pintail ducks and black brant geese, Ip said. The center continues to test samples collected last year while preparing for more activity this spring, he said.
  
  In other national sampling, Ip said, several cases of a low-grade version of H5N1 were found, mostly in Great Lakes states. The Madison lab didn't find any such test results, and the more worrisome version of H5N1 was not found anywhere in the country.
  
  Most of the samples tested at the Madison lab last year were from West Coast states and Pacific island territories, considered the most likely route into the U.S. for the problematic strain of H5N1.
  
  Ip said more samples likely will be collected this year from states along the East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico because scientists believe the virus could also come across the Atlantic or from Central America.

• 01/12/2007:  Avian Cholera Causes Bird Die-Off at Butte Sink, CA Dept of Fish and Game News Release
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Published on Jan 11, 2007, 14:29
  
  Preliminary laboratory results indicate avian cholera caused a recent waterfowl die-off at the Butte Sink Wildlife Management Area (WMA) in northern California. While avian cholera is lethal to waterfowl and other water birds, it does not affect humans.
  
  "All indications from the history of the area, the weather, the time of year, and the concentrations of ducks was that we had an avian cholera outbreak," said Dr. Pam Swift, Department of Fish and Game (DFG) wildlife veterinarian. "Even so, the Department and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) collected samples from birds involved in the die-off and submitted them to both to state and national laboratories to test for a variety of diseases * including avian influenza * to confirm our assessment."
  
  Avian cholera (not related to human cholera) is a relatively common disease of North American waterfowl. It is caused by a bacterium and spreads rapidly from bird-to-bird and can kill thousands of birds in a single outbreak. A bird infected with avian cholera dies quickly. Avian cholera die-offs in waterfowl commonly occur during the winter months in California, especially during cold spells and fog.
  
  DFG received a report of ruddy ducks, wigeons, coots, and other waterfowl dying at the Butte Sink WMA (part of the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge Complex) from Service personnel on Jan. 9. More than 500 birds have been collected to date by Service personnel. DFG personnel sampled birds and submitted swabs and carcasses to the California Animal Health and Food Safety Lab for necropsy and avian influenza testing * which is standard protocol for any wild bird die-off. The Service separately submitted carcasses to the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, WI for diagnostics.
  
  Samples submitted to the California laboratory were negative for the highly pathogenic avian influenza. Service sample results are still pending.
  
  "Our field biologists routinely deal with avian cholera in wild birds every winter, generally around the time that the temperature drops below freezing," said Kevin Foerster, Manager of the Sacramento Refuge Complex. "We are undertaking standard disease control operations and following all established safety protocols to limit the spread of cholera within the wild bird population."
  
  Over the last 30 years in California, documented bird losses due to diseases ranged from a low of 10,500 in 1977-78 to a high of 169,300 in 1991-92. The majority of the bird losses in 1991-92 consisted of 150,000 eared grebes that died due to avian cholera at the Salton Sea. Average annual loss of migratory birds to disease in California is about 25,000 birds. These figures are for birds actually picked up and disposed of, and the actual losses are greater. In 2005, the last full year of available data from the National Wildlife Health Center, of the nearly 12,000 birds picked up in California, most diagnosed causes of mortality were: petroleum spills (5,000); salmonellosis (2400); botulism (1800) and starvation (1500).
  
  DFG and the Service are working closely and quickly in responding to this die-off, and are poised to rapidly investigate and collect samples for necropsy and avian influenza testing if other die-offs should occur in the Central Valley or elsewhere in California.

• 01/11/2007:  Avian Cholera Causes Bird Die-Off at Butte Sink, YubaNet.com
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Avian Cholera Causes Bird Die-Off at Butte Sink
  
  Author: Department of Fish and Game
  
  Published on Jan 11, 2007, 14:29
  
  Preliminary laboratory results indicate avian cholera caused a recent waterfowl die-off at the Butte Sink Wildlife Management Area (WMA) in northern California. While avian cholera is lethal to waterfowl and other water birds, it does not affect humans.
  
  "All indications from the history of the area, the weather, the time of year, and the concentrations of ducks was that we had an avian cholera outbreak," said Dr. Pam Swift, Department of Fish and Game (DFG) wildlife veterinarian. "Even so, the Department and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) collected samples from birds involved in the die-off and submitted them to both to state and national laboratories to test for a variety of diseases * including avian influenza * to confirm our assessment."
  
  Avian cholera (not related to human cholera) is a relatively common disease of North American waterfowl. It is caused by a bacterium and spreads rapidly from bird-to-bird and can kill thousands of birds in a single outbreak. A bird infected with avian cholera dies quickly. Avian cholera die-offs in waterfowl commonly occur during the winter months in California, especially during cold spells and fog.
  
  DFG received a report of ruddy ducks, wigeons, coots, and other waterfowl dying at the Butte Sink WMA (part of the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge Complex) from Service personnel on Jan. 9. More than 500 birds have been collected to date by Service personnel. DFG personnel sampled birds and submitted swabs and carcasses to the California Animal Health and Food Safety Lab for necropsy and avian influenza testing * which is standard protocol for any wild bird die-off. The Service separately submitted carcasses to the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, WI for diagnostics.
  
  Samples submitted to the California laboratory were negative for the highly pathogenic avian influenza. Service sample results are still pending.
  
  "Our field biologists routinely deal with avian cholera in wild birds every winter, generally around the time that the temperature drops below freezing," said Kevin Foerster, Manager of the Sacramento Refuge Complex. "We are undertaking standard disease control operations and following all established safety protocols to limit the spread of cholera within the wild bird population."
  
  Over the last 30 years in California, documented bird losses due to diseases ranged from a low of 10,500 in 1977-78 to a high of 169,300 in 1991-92. The majority of the bird losses in 1991-92 consisted of 150,000 eared grebes that died due to avian cholera at the Salton Sea. Average annual loss of migratory birds to disease in California is about 25,000 birds. These figures are for birds actually picked up and disposed of, and the actual losses are greater. In 2005, the last full year of available data from the National Wildlife Health Center, of the nearly 12,000 birds picked up in California, most diagnosed causes of mortality were: petroleum spills (5,000); salmonellosis (2400); botulism (1800) and starvation (1500).
  
  DFG and the Service are working closely and quickly in responding to this die-off, and are poised to rapidly investigate and collect samples for necropsy and avian influenza testing if other die-offs should occur in the Central Valley or elsewhere in California.
  
  Copyright 2007 YubaNet.com

• 12/18/2006:  Delaware on guard for avian flu, Delaware News Journal
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Scientists out in force statewide in effort to identify deadly strain
  
  By HIRAN RATNAYAKE, The News Journal
  
  Posted Saturday, December 16, 2006
  
  In the fight against avian flu, these are Delaware's front lines: A makeshift field testing site and a high-security lab at the University of Delaware.
  
  In an otherwise empty Little Creek parking lot, a researcher is taking samples from freshly killed ducks. Those samples are sent to a university lab where they undergo a battery of high-tech tests.
  
  It's all part of a national testing program in which wildlife biologists and virologists will test 100,000 samples from migratory birds this year. In Delaware alone, 3,300 birds will be tested for the disease.
  
  The U.S. Department of Agriculture will screen the majority of these samples, looking for an H5N1 strain that is highly pathogenic, meaning is has a strong capability to cause disease. That strain has killed 154 people in Asia and raised fears of a global pandemic.
  
  For Delaware, which is spending $430,000 on testing -- more than all but one other state -- the stakes are high.
  
  An outbreak could sicken 252,000 people in Delaware, hospitalize 13,000 and kill 3,000, according to state estimates. The disease also could destroy the heart of Delaware's agriculture industry: poultry. Chicken farms consume most of the feed grain produced in the Delmarva region, a $1.7 billion industry itself.
  
  Avian flu has already spread from Asia to parts of Europe. And if it comes to Delaware by way of migratory birds, the most likely source, the state's best shot at finding out before the disease creates a pandemic is in the field.
  
  There, Joyce McGee, a biology aid with the state Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, spends most of her week using cotton swabs to take samples from ducks' rectums. Avian flu resides in birds' intestinal tract.
  
  "We call ourselves 'avian proctologists' or 'duck butt swabbers,' " said Robert Hossler, the department's program manager for game species.
  
  They may joke about their work, but they're part of the largest wildlife disease surveillance effort ever undertaken by the United States.
  
  Testing continues in earnest
  
  After the sampling, the swabs are broken in half and dropped into a broth-filled test tube. Wild birds are natural hosts for certain types of influenza viruses and are often not affected by it. In nature, birds may shed or release the virus, said Jack Gelb, director of the Avian Biosciences Center at the University of Delaware.
  
  At the Charles C. Allen Laboratory in Newark, Viruses are divided into subtypes and named according to the two proteins on the virus' surface, either hemagglutinin (HA) or neuraminidase (NA). The subtypes can show various combinations, such as H1N2 or H3N2. The strains are further classified as either low pathogenic or high pathogenic.
  
  Most viruses are low pathogenic and pose little threat to humans, but high pathogenic viruses can cause severe illness and a high death rate in poultry.
  
  It is the high-pathogen strain of H5N1 that is deadly.
  
  "What we do know is that the highly pathogenic virus of H5N1 does kill people," said Dr. Hon Ip, director of the United States Geological Survey's Diagnostic Virology Laboratory at the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis. "The question has become when one of these labs will find highly pathogenic H5N1."
  
  So far, only one of the 1,600 birds Delaware has sampled was a confirmed case of low-path H5N1. That was a green winged teal shot Oct. 27 by a hunter on the opening day of duck season in Sussex County.
  
  "In terms of human health that teal wasn't a concern at all. It was like me saying we found the common cold in birds," Hossler said.
  
  In fact, the discovery was somewhat normal.
  
  "Finding the avian flu is totally normal. But high-pathogen H5N1 from Asia is not normal," Gelb said. "It's very unique and a very different situation since it's highly virulent in poultry and it's capable of killing some of the waterfowl."
  
  Quick reaction plans in order
  
  If Gelb discovers a positive sample, it is sent to the National Veterinary Services Laboratories in Ames, Iowa for confirmation testing and additional testing to see if it's the N1 subtype.
  
  That lab will inoculate chicken eggs to isolate the influenza virus to see if it will multiply. If it does, a material from a component of the egg with the virus will be injected into chickens in a secure environment and they are observed over 10 days.
  
  "If you inject them today and they die tomorrow, it's a highly pathogenic virus," Ip said. "If they live throughout the 10 days, it's non-pathogenic."
  
  In the chance that there is a highly-pathogenic strain of avian flu found in a Delaware bird, several agencies will converge to the spot where the bird was first spotted.
  
  The public health division will encourage doctors in the area to look at their patients for signs of avian flu.The USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service will canvass the site for other dead birds. Field officials will increase monitoring and surveillance.
  
  "If it's wild birds, we wouldn't be able to quarantine that area," said Karen Eggert, spokeswoman for USDA -- APHIS. "But we've studied all these birds and we'll look at their historical movement patterns, so we'll know where the birds are moving to."
  
  Chickens raised on farms are already under tremendous protection from avian influenza and contamination because they are raised in covered houses and have limited access to flocks.
  
  "The poultry industry is very worried about H5N1 or any influenza virus getting inside their chicken house because it's not good for business," Hossler said.
  
  If there's a positive deadly strain of avian flu found in this area, the Delaware Poultry Industry Inc.'s Emergency Poultry Disease Task Force will be activated to increase the surveillance of nearby farms. Farmers would be advised not to let anyone onto their property, said Bill Satterfield, executive director of Delmarva Poultry Industry.
  
  "It's already intensive surveillance," he said. "But we'd be changing people's normal behavior so they don't track around and carry this virus from farm to farm."

• 12/17/2006:  Moldy Grain, Not Bird Flu, Caused Idaho Duck Deaths, Dow Jones Newswire
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Sunday, December 17, 2006
  
  WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--Moldy grain, not bird flu, caused a large mallard duck die-off in Idaho, a U.S. Department of Agriculture spokeswoman said Friday.
  
  Tests conducted at the National Wildlife Health Center, which is operated by the U.S. Geological Survey, found no avian influenza, said USDA spokeswoman Angela Harless.
  
  Instead, its been determined that the birds were sickened by eating mold on corn, she said. Mold produces a toxin that can sicken wildlife when ingested.
  
  As many as 2,500 mallard ducks died along a southeastern Idaho creek bed, state officials have said. The ducks mysteriously began dying last week around Land Springs Creek, about 180 miles southeast of Boise.
  
  Mark Drew, a wildlife veterinarian with the state Department of Agriculture told The Associated Press earlier this week the ducks likely were exposed to a single contamination source and gathered at the creek, their mutual roosting point, to die.
  
  State officials had said since the investigation into the die-off began that bird flu was unlikely to be the cause.
  
  Source: Dow Jones Newswire service

• 12/16/2006:  Fungal Infection May Have Killed Ducks, The Associated Press
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  By JESSE HARLAN ALDERMAN
  
  The Associated Press
  
  Friday, December 15, 2006; 5:33 PM
  
  BOISE, Idaho -- A fungal infection likely killed 2,500 mallard ducks in a mysterious cluster along a tiny southeastern Idaho creek, a federal wildlife biologist said Friday.
  
  The chances are "extremely high" that Aspergillosis, which can create a fungal toxin on moldy grains and rotting corn, caused the mass die-off, Paul Slota, a biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis., told The Associated Press.
  
  Aspergillosis will not spread from bird to bird. All the dead mallards probably ate from the same tainted food source, Slota said.
  
  "We've seen that before with birds that feed heavily on grains," he said. "Never in Idaho, but there have been enough reports elsewhere in North America. Aspergillosis die-offs are not a terribly uncommon thing. It happens."
  
  The Wildlife Health Center has already screened nine intestinal tissue swabs from the dead ducks. Each sample showed fungal plaque in the lungs typical of Aspergillosis and tested negative for avian influenza, Slota said.
  
  Scientists at the Wisconsin laboratory were still testing additional tissue swabs and eight mallard carcasses shipped from Idaho. They were waiting to cross-check their results with tests performed at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Animal Disease Center in Ames, Iowa, before making an official diagnosis.
  
  The testing was expected to definitively rule out all strains of avian influenza virus, including the much-feared H5N1 Asian bird flu, Slota said.
  
  Officials from the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and several other agencies also were awaiting test results on water samples and grain from nearby farm depots that may have become moldy and poisoned the birds.
  
  Farmland surrounds the backwoods creek near the remote town of Oakley, about 180 miles southeast of Boise. A cattle feedlot is close by.
  
  There are no factories in the area that discharge toxins into local streams and rivers. Wastewater does not run into the spring-fed creek, said David Parrish, the regional supervisor for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.
  
  The ducks began dying last week. On Thursday, state workers cleared the last remaining carcasses and brought them to a nearby incineration site.
  
  Local mallards and migratory ducks from Canada staggered and struggled to breathe before collapsing, Parrish said. The symptoms _ bacterial lesions in the lungs and hemorrhaging in the heart wall _ are consistent with Aspergillosis, Slota said.
  
  Parrish said every mallard in a radius of several miles died.
  
  The massive outbreak had puzzled scientists because scavenger birds feeding on the dead ducks were not showing signs of illness. Golden eagles, geese, magpies, crows and other birds in the area all remained healthy.
  
  Among the 2,500 mallards, wildlife officials found one pintail duck, said Kelton Hatch, a spokesman for Idaho Fish and Game.
  
  Slota said biologists also tested an American Wigeon that died near the creek, which also showed symptoms of Aspergillosis.
  
  Last year, about 500 mostly mallard ducks died in similar circumstances at a pond in Waterloo, Iowa. The Iowa Department of Natural Resources said the ducks likely died from Aspergillosis.
  
  Iowa wildlife officials said the ducks likely all ate from the same store of discarded grain that festered in melted snow.

• 12/15/2006:  Infection blamed for 2,000 Idaho duck deaths, Reuters
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

  ---

  
  

  By Laura Zuckerman
  
  SALMON, Idaho, Dec 14 (Reuters) - Two thousand mallard ducks in Idaho likely died after they ate moldy grain and contracted a fatal infection, scientists said on Thursday.
  
  Paul Slota, a wildlife expert with the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center, said a fungal infection known as aspergillosis was the likely killer.
  
  "The results are certainly consistent with that diagnosis," Slota said.
  
  Dave Parrish, regional supervisor for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, said further tests would be conducted.
  
  The preliminary finding eased fears that the massive mallard die-off, which experts say is unprecedented in Idaho, was linked to bird flu.
  
  Birds can contract aspergillosis after feeding on waste grain and silage pits during bad weather, according to the National Wildlife Health Center. Large-scale, rapid die-offs among waterfowl have chiefly affected mallards, it said.
  
  
  
  An estimated 2,000 mallards died between Friday and Wednesday near the agricultural community of Burley, about 150 miles (241 km) southeast of Boise.
  
  State fish and game officers on Wednesday retrieved carcasses from a stream clogged with dead and dying mallards.
  
  The stream is surrounded by farmland and a cattle feedlot, potential sources of the moldy grain, officials said.
  
  Concerns over the deadly H5N1 flu strain and an extensive national monitoring network prompted officials to submit samples from Idaho to labs specializing in detecting avian influenza and drew the U.S. Department of Homeland Security into the investigation.
  
  A similar aspergillosis outbreak killed 500 mallards in Iowa in 2005, the wildlife health center said. Moldy grain was the culprit in that case. The disease is not contagious.

• 12/14/2006:  Thousands of ducks mysteriously dying in Idaho, Reuters
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

  ---

  
  

  (Adds details and background)
  
  By Laura Zuckerman
  
  SALMON, Idaho, Dec 13 (Reuters) - Officials scrambled on Wednesday to determine what has caused the deaths of thousands of mallard ducks in south-central Idaho near the Utah border.
  
  Although wildlife experts are downplaying any links to bird flu, they have sent samples to government labs to test for the deadly H5N1 flu strain, among other pathogens.
  
  Officials with the federal Bureau of Homeland Security have been also called in to help with the probe.
  
  "We think the possibility of avian flu is very remote but we're not ruling anything out at this point in time," said Dave Parish, regional supervisor for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. "We want to make sure all the bases are covered."
  
  Wildlife officials are calling the massive die-off alarming, with the number of dead mallards rising from 1,000 on Tuesday to more than 2,000 by Wednesday afternoon. "We've never seen anything like this -- ever," Parrish said.
  
  A hunter alerted state conservation officials after finding a handful of dead ducks along a creek near Burley, about 150 miles southeast of Boise, on Friday.
  
  By Wednesday, dead and dying birds clogged sections of the stream and littered its banks. Officials have posted signs warning hunters and others not to touch or eat the birds until a cause of death has been identified.
  
  Preliminary findings by state veterinarians suggest the mallards succumbed to a bacterial infection, officials said. They said it was unclear why a similar outbreak had never before occurred in Idaho.
  
  SIMILAR EVENT IN IOWA LAST YEAR
  
  On Wednesday, officials outfitted with protective gear were gathering hundreds of mallard carcasses. Wildlife managers said the birds will be incinerated.
  
  The only mallard die-off roughly equivalent in recent years happened in Waterloo, Iowa in 2005, when 500 ducks died from a fungus they contracted by eating moldy grain, according to a report by the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center.
  
  The center's Kathryn Converse, a wildlife disease specialist, said early clues suggest the outbreak in Idaho is not linked to insecticides applied to surrounding croplands because it is not affecting other bird species or predators feeding on the dead ducks.
  
  Mallards are the most common duck species in the United States, with populations nationwide. Most mallards that winter in Idaho originate from Alberta, Canada, with a smaller percentage from the Northwest Territories, said Tom Keegan, regional wildlife manager with Idaho Fish and Game.
  
  Although the magnitude and the pace of the die-off is unusual, officials said, migratory birds and other wild animals are more likely to get sick when large numbers congregate in small areas.
  
  That can happen to mallards in the winter, when many of the waterways they depend upon are frozen.
  
  Compounding the seasonal phenomenon is the ever-shrinking habitat available to wildlife because of sprawling development and expanding farm operations.

• 12/07/2006:  New Research Predicts US Entry Of H5N1 Avian Influenza, Science Daily
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Scientists at the Consortium for Conservation Medicine (CCM), the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, and the Smithsonian Institution's National Zoo report that H5N1 avian influenza is most likely to be introduced to countries in the Western Hemisphere through infected poultry trade.
  
  Following the initial outbreaks of H5N1 avian influenza in Hong Kong, scientists and government officials worldwide have debated exactly how the virus was being spread and what could be done to stop it.
  
  Dr. Marm Kilpatrick, senior research scientist with the Consortium for Conservation Medicine, led the team in their efforts to predict the most likely method of introduction to the U.S. Dr. Kilpatrick and colleagues predict that bird flu will most likely be introduced to countries in the Western Hemisphere through infected poultry trade rather than from migrating birds from eastern Siberia, as previously thought. The subsequent movement of infected migrating birds from countries south of the U.S. would be a likely pathway for H5N1 avian influenza to reach the USA.
  
  The research will be published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in December.
  
  Avian influenza has reached more than 50 countries, and millions of chickens have been either infected and/or culled to prevent the spread of the virus to other poultry farms. Estimated financial losses are in the tens of billions of dollars from its spread. In addition, 258 people have been infected and 153 human deaths have occurred, with most cases in Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, and China.
  
  This new research set out to identify the pathways for individual H5N1 introductions as the virus spread through Asia, Europe and Africa. The predictive modeling approach used by the researchers offers substantial promise for understanding past introductions, the pathway for new introductions, and ways to prevent future spread of the deadly virus.
  
  The researchers analyzed the risk of introduction by three different pathways: poultry, wild bird trade, and the movement of migratory birds.
  
  "In order to determine the pathway of introduction we gathered global data on the country-to-country trade in poultry and wild birds and mapped out the migratory routes of every species of duck, goose, or swan. We then compared our analyses basedon these data to the relationships between virus isolates from the different countries," said Dr. Kilpatrick.
  
  Dr. Robert Fleischer, a Smithsonian Institution scientist noted, "The rate of genetic change of the virus is extremely fast, and both the evolutionary and geographic pathways of the virus can be traced from the phylogeny over just the past three or four years."
  
  The findings showed that migratory bird movements were likely responsible for three introductions in Asia, 20 in Europe, and three in Africa. Dr David Gibbons, Head of Conservation Science with the UK's Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, said "Much of the spread of H5N1 around Europe followed an unusually cold period of weather in central and eastern Europe in January and February 2006, with wild birds moving west through Europe in search of more clement conditions, some carrying H5N1 with them. As part of the UK Government's AI surveillance strategy, RSPB staff will be looking for sick or dead ducks, geese and swans this winter."
  
  Dr. Peter Marra, an avian ecologist with the Smithsonian's Migratory Bird Center at the National Zoo commented, "In almost all cases in which we have detected H5N1 in wild birds, it has been found in dead birds. It's critical that dead bird surveillance mechanisms be developed for the early detection of not only H5N1, but also the next pathogenic avian disease to come along."
  
  In comparison, poultry trade was responsible for two bird flu introductions to countries in Africa and nine important introductions in Asia where the disease is still infecting humans and poultry. "The synergistic combination of poultry trade and migratory bird movements spread H5N1 much further than it would have gone by either of these pathways alone," said Dr. Kilpatrick.
  
  Dr. Peter Daszak, Executive Director of CCM, "This study shows how trade between continents opens the door for pathogens to move effortlessly along those routes." Daszak added, "The study of Conservation Medicine strives to understand how human activities drive disease spread and proposes critical action steps on preventing future pandemics."
  
  Donald Burke, Dean of the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, and an advisor to the group, emphasized the importance of a globally coordinated and forward thinking approach to pandemic threats. "This report shows that it is possible to move beyond the conventional 'surveillance and response' mode to one of 'prediction and prevention' he said.
  
  Dr. Mary C. Pearl, President of Wildlife Trust and a co-founder of the CCM noted, "Fully three-quarters of new diseases have an animal origin. By researching the links between wildlife, livestock, and humans, we can better identify the movement of many new disease-causing agents -- not just avian flu -- before they move to people."
  
  Dr. Leslie A. Dierauf, Director of the USGS National Wildlife Health Center, an institutional partner in CCM, expressed the need for additional field and laboratory research into the biology and epidemiology of avian influenza viruses in wild migratory birds --"Such research is integral to our preparedness for the anticipated arrival of HPAI in North America. It is critical to gather data to further inform predictive models necessary to track this emerging disease and stem its spread among wild birds and domestic poultry and its potential transmission to other wildlife, pets, and people."
  
  The study was funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, The New York Community Trust, The Eppley Foundation, and the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation.
  
  About The Consortium for Conservation Medicine
  
  The Consortium for Conservation Medicine is a formal coalition of six scientific organizations including The Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the US Geological Service's National Wildlife Health Center, University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, University of Wisconsin-Madison Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, and Wildlife Trust. The CCM is a think-tank for the origin, prediction, and prevention of emerging diseases. The CCM enables scientists from a multitude of disciplines to collaborate on key issues of human, animal, and environmental health and conservation. For more information visit the web at http://www.conservationmedicine.org.

• 12/06/2006:  Study: Poultry most likely to bring H5N1 to Americas, Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Maryn McKenna Contributing Writer
  
  Dec 5, 2006 (CIDRAP News) Poultry infected with H5N1 avian influenza pose the greatest risk of bringing the disease to the Americas, according to a new study by British and US researchers that challenges US efforts to detect flu in migratory birds.
  
  Once on this continent, avian flu is likely to spread to migratory birds that will cross US bordersbut the greatest risk will be birds from Central and South America that are not sampled in current wild-bird testing, the researchers said.
  
  The study, to be published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, employs a complex analytical method that compares the migratory routes of wild bird species thought to be the main reservoirs of avian flu with data on legal trade in poultry and wild birds and avian-flu gene sequences deposited in the public database GenBank.
  
  Plotting those pieces of data against each other allowed the researchers to hypothesize whether migratory birds, wild bird trade, or poultry were responsible for H5N1 influenza's past spread across the globe, as well as to model its possible future paths.
  
  Heading their conclusions: The combination of poultry trade and bird migrations allowed the virus to spread much farther than either would have allowed on its own.
  
  Heading their predictions: The greatest threat to the continental United States will be the arrival of avian flu in Central and South Americawhere poultry trade is less restricted than in North Americavia live poultry imports from countries where avian flu has affected either domesticated or wild birds. Strict regulation of poultry trade across US borders will not be adequate protection, they concluded.
  
  "The question is not just who you trade with, but who your neighbors trade with," A. Marm Kilpatrick, PhD, a senior research scientist with the Consortium for Conservation Medicine and the lead author of the study, told CIDRAP News.
  
  The Consortium is a New York-based non-profit supported by six institutions: the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University, the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center, the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health, the University of Wisconsin-Madison Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, and the Wildlife Trust. Other authors came from the Royal Society for Protection of Birds and the Smithsonian Institution.
  
  Kilpatrick said the researchers' analytical method allowed them to theorize about which populationpoultry, migratory birds such as ducks and swans, or traded wild birds such as parrots and birds of preywas responsible for the spread of H5N1 influenza across Asia and into Europe.
  
  Poultry played a greater role than wild birds in distributing H5N1 through Asia, they found, but migratory birds that picked up the virus from poultry carried it westward, introducing it to 20 of the 23 European countries where it has been found. In Africa, they suggested, both poultry and wild birds played a role, along with poultry products such as chicken droppings bought for fertilizer and fish feed.
  
  The findings challenge previous conclusions on the routes by which some countries were infected. For instance, plotting genetic sequences from H5N1 isolates against migratory routes revealed that bird flu arrived in Turkey, the first European-region country to be affected, not through previously blamed poultry imports from Thailand but via migratory birds winging from Russia.
  
  The researchers' methodwhich combined estimates of "infectious bird days" (the product of the number of birds entering a country, the prevalence of infection in those populations, and the number of days birds are likely to shed virus) with data on trade and migration from U.S. and international agenciesdoes not consider the possible influence of the illegal trade in poultry and wild birds, an omission that Kilpatrick acknowledged is a weakness.
  
  But the analysis points so strongly to the influence of legal trade in spreading the pathogen that it argues for implementing trade controls, he said.
  
  "Although the risk of H5N1 introduction into the mainland United States by any single pathway is relatively low, the risk of introduction by poultry to other countries in the Americas, particularly Canada, Mexico and Brazil, is substantial unless all imported poultry are tested for H5N1 or trade restrictions on imports from the old world are imposed," the report says.
  
  The argument over the relative roles played by poultry and migratory birds in spreading H5N1 has been bitter, with agricultural interests defending poultry and conservation groups contending that wild birds are victims rather than disease vectors. The researchers' conclusions are likely to find favor with conservation groups, and appear to accord with past observations by avian virologists that migratory-bird importation to the United States is unlikely because flyways and feeding grounds allow relatively little overlap for viral exchange.
  
  But the research implicitly challenges the focus of the $29 million migratory-bird testing effort being conducted in the United States by the departments of Interior and Agriculture. Since April that effort has tested more than 21,000 samples from wild birds in the United States, primarily in Alaska, without finding any high-pathogenic avian flu.
  
  Because the wild birds sampled to date have shown such low prevalence of all avian flu strains2.6% among Alaskan isolates, according to the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis.surveillance should refocus on dead birds, the researchers said.
  
  But scientists at the National Wildlife Health Centerwhich leads the US sampling effort but is also a coalition partner of the Consortium for Conservation Medicinesaid Monday's study lacks enough data to persuade them to shift their efforts. In particular, they said a decision by the authors to exclude shorebirds from their analysis leaves out important information, because shorebirds congregate in large groups that facilitate viral exchange more than individual encounters do.
  
  "A model is only as good as the assumptions you make and the data you put into it," said Leslie Dierauf, VMD, the center's director. "There may be better data we can obtain on trade in domestic fowl. There is certainly in my mind at this point not good enough data for migratory birds."
  
  Nevertheless, Dierauf, who reviewed the paper a year ago when it was in draft form, said the analysis raises questions that are vital for successful avian flu prevention and control.
  
  "I am not certain the paper makes a significant advance in knowledge, but I do know it sets a number of scientific matters on the table that we all need to look at, no matter whether we are looking from the wild-bird perspective or the poultry perspective or the trade perspective," she said. "That is very good."
  
  Kilpatrick AM, Chmura AA, Gibbons DW, et al. Predicting the global spread of H5N1 avian influenza. Proc Nat Acad Sci 2006 (In press)
  
  See also:
  
  Olsen B, Munster VJ, Wallensten A, et al. Global patterns of influenza A virus in wild birds. Science 2006 Apr 21;313(5772):384-8 Full text

• 12/05/2006:  New Research Predicts U.S. Entry of H5N1 Avian Influenza, Business Wire
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Scientists at the Consortium for Conservation Medicine (CCM), Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, and Smithsonian Institutions National Zoo report H5N1 avian influenza is most likely to be introduced to countries in the Western Hemisphere through infected poultry trade.
  
  Following initial outbreaks of H5N1 avian influenza in Hong Kong, scientists and government officials worldwide have debated exactly how the virus was being spread and what could be done to stop it.
  
  Dr. Marm Kilpatrick, senior research scientist with CCM, led the team in their efforts to predict the most likely method of introduction to the U.S. Dr. Kilpatrick and colleagues predict that bird flu will most likely be introduced to countries in the Western Hemisphere through infected poultry trade rather than from migrating birds from eastern Siberia, as previously thought. The subsequent movement of infected migrating birds from countries south of the U.S. would be a likely pathway for H5N1 avian influenza to reach the USA.
  
  Avian influenza has reached more than 50 countries, and millions of chickens have been either infected and/or culled to prevent its spread to other poultry farms. Estimated financial losses are in the tens of billions of dollars. In addition, 258 people have been infected and 153 human deaths have occurred, with most cases in Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, and China.
  
  This new research set out to identify the pathways for individual H5N1 introductions as the virus spread through Asia, Europe and Africa. The predictive modeling approach used offers substantial promise for understanding past introductions, the pathway for new introductions, and ways to prevent future spread of the deadly virus.
  
  The researchers analyzed the risk of introduction by three different pathways: poultry, wild bird trade, and movement of migratory birds. To determine the pathway of introduction we gathered global data on country-to-country trade in poultry and wild birds and mapped out the migratory routes of every species of duck, goose, or swan. We then compared our analyses based on these data to the relationships between virus isolates from the different countries, said Kilpatrick. Dr. Robert Fleischer, a Smithsonian Institution scientist noted, The rate of genetic change of the virus is extremely fast, which means we can use genetic analysis to trace the geographic and evolutionary pathways the virus has taken.
  
  The findings showed that migratory bird movements were likely responsible for three introductions in Asia, 20 in Europe, and three in Africa. Dr. David Gibbons, Head of Conservation Science with UK's Royal Society for the Protection of Birds said, Much of the spread of H5N1 around Europe followed an unusually cold period of weather in central and eastern Europe in January and February 2006, with wild birds moving west through Europe in search of more clement conditions, some carrying H5N1 with them. As part of the UK Government's AI surveillance strategy, RSPB staff will be looking for sick or dead ducks, geese and swans this winter.
  
  Peter Marra, an avian ecologist with the Smithsonians Migratory Bird Center at the National Zoo commented, In almost all cases in which we have detected H5N1 in wild birds, it has been found in dead birds. Its critical that dead bird surveillance mechanisms be developed for early detection of H5N1 and other diseases. In comparison, poultry trade was responsible for two introductions to countries in Africa and nine important introductions in Asia where the disease is still infecting humans and poultry. The synergistic combination of poultry trade and migratory bird movements spread H5N1 much further than it would have gone by either of these pathways alone, said Dr. Kilpatrick.
  
  Dr. Peter Daszak, Executive Director of CCM stated, This study shows how trade between continents opens the door for pathogens to move effortlessly along those routes. Daszak added, The study of Conservation Medicine strives to understand how human activities drive disease spread and proposes critical action steps on preventing future pandemics. Donald Burke, Dean of the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, and an advisor to the group said, This report shows how we can move beyond the conventional surveillance and response mode to one of prediction and prevention. Dr. Mary Pearl, President of Wildlife Trust and co-founder of CCM noted, Fully three-quarters of new diseases have an animal origin. By researching the links among wildlife, livestock, and humans, we can preempt the movement of many new disease-causing agents to people. Dr. Leslie A. Dierauf, Director of USGS National Wildlife Health Center, a Federal laboratory that conducts influenza surveillance, commented, This research is integral to our preparedness for the anticipated arrival of HPAI in North America.
  
  About The Consortium for Conservation Medicine
  
  The Consortium for Conservation Medicine is a coalition of six scientific organizations that enables scientists from multiple disciplines to collaborate on key issues of human, animal, and environmental health and conservation. The CCM is a think-tank for the origin, prediction, and prevention of emerging diseases. www.conservationmedicine.org

• 12/05/2006:  Defending against bird flu, The Desert Sun
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  The Salton Sea is one of the fronts in the biggest multi-agency bird investigation in U.S. history as officials try to determine if a deadly strain of avian flu has entered North America through migratory birds.
  
  Federal and state officials have tested 137 waterfowl shot by hunters this fall at the Wister Unit of the Salton Sea's Imperial Wildlife Area, said Pam Swift, a veterinarian in the California Department of Fish and Game's wildlife investigations laboratory. Officials plan to test 100 more birds throughout December and January, she said.
  
  Some 60 samples of bird feces were also taken for analysis, and officials plan to collect an additional 90 samples by the end of January at the state's largest lake, Swift said.
  
  Of concern is that the deadly H5N1 strain of avian flu could make its way to America via the Pacific flyway, a migratory route flown by hundreds of species of birds, including many of the more than 300 species that use the Salton Sea as a wintering site or a weigh station before
  
  heading on to Mexico, Central America and South America.
  
  More than 1 million geese, 12 million ducks, and 150,000 swans pass through the Pacific flyway each year, beginning in August, on their return from the Arctic.
  
  Some waterfowl that migrate along the flyway, such as northern pintails and American wigeons, nest over the summer in areas in and around Alaska, where they could potentially commingle with birds that migrate along an Asian flyway between countries where the H5N1 virus is spreading.
  
  The World Health Organization has confirmed 258 cases of human infection with the virus, leading to 154 deaths. Most of the cases are linked to direct handling of infected poultry.
  
  There has been no sustained human-to-human transmission of the disease, but the concern is that H5N1 will evolve into a virus capable of human-to-human transmission, which could spark a pandemic like the 1918-1919 influenza outbreak that caused 50 million deaths worldwide.
  
  Of the 80,000 birds tested throughout North America, none have been found infected with the deadly strain of H5N1.
  
  "I'm heartened that we so far haven't had a detection," said Brad Bortner, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's chief of migratory birds for the Pacific region.
  
  But it's too early to say the virus won't reach the U.S. this season, as bird migration continues along the flyway, he said.
  
  Drew Feldmann is president of the San Bernardino Audubon Society, which also covers Riverside County and takes a particular interest in the Salton Sea. Though researchers have not found an infected bird, optimism must be tempered, he said.
  
  "It's good news for now," Feldmann said. "Unfortunately, we don't expect it to continue indefinitely.
  
  "The thinking is we'll probably see the first case of H5N1 within the next few years."
  
  As hunters leave the Wister preserve with their harvested waterfowl, officials use a cotton swab to take a sample from the birds' cloaca, an opening used for both reproduction and evacuation of urine and feces. The samples are labeled and sent to the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center laboratory in Madison, Wis.
  
  Swabs have also been taken from live birds at other locations, captured by shooting rocket nets over them as they rest on the water, said Jane Hendron, an avian flu spokeswoman for the Fish and Wildlife Service.
  
  Sampling of dead birds rounds out the testing, Hendron said.
  
  "This has been an unprecedented effort to sample large numbers of birds," she said.
  
  Though hunter-harvested bird testing will cease when the season ends in January, the importance of dead bird monitoring will continue, Bortner said.
  
  "In Europe and Asia, the first finds that the disease had gotten there were from citizens reporting dead or dying birds," he said.
  
  Why no signs of the virus along the Pacific flyway? Bortner said it may be that there's less interaction between birds while nesting in Alaska than was previously believed.
  
  Researchers will discuss their findings in meetings over the next two months, Bortner said.
  
  "The agencies are getting together and looking at our lessons learned," he said.
  
  Gary Kramer, an author and photographer who served as a refuge manager at the Salton Sea in the mid- to late 1980s, is the author of "Flyways, A Celebration of Waterfowl and Wetlands," recently published by Ducks Unlimited.
  
  Kramer said it makes sense to him that testing is ongoing at the Salton Sea among other places, because it's a "major wintering area for ducks and geese."
  
  Could the deadly virus be initially discovered in North America at the sea, so far south along the Pacific flyway?
  
  "That's why they are testing," Kramer said. "It's an absolute unknown."

• 12/05/2006:  Researchers Debate Potential Path of Bird Flu, National Public Radio
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  by Richard Knox
  
  Audio for this story will be available at approx. 3:00 p.m. ET
  
  
  
  Graphic By studying genetic fingerprints, wild-bird flyways and the global chicken trade, scientists have traced the spread of bird flu through Southeast Asia to Europe and Africa. Arrows give the month of the outbreak and spread of bird flu from 2003 to January 2006. M. Kilpatrick, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
  
  
  
  Day to Day, December 5, 2006 Many experts predicted the bird flu would spread to North America this year. But the virus, which has already migrated from Southeast Asia to three other continents since 2003, has not yet reached the United States.
  
  Some scientists now say it's not likely to happen the way many expected --- through wild migratory birds --- but instead through the global trade in live poultry.
  
  Marm Kilpatrick, a biologist at the Consortium for Conservation Medicine, examined previous migration pathways of the bird-flu strain H5N1 in order to predict its possible path to the Western Hemisphere.
  
  "The two main transmission routes for bird flu are through feces and then taking the virus back in when they feed," says Kilpatrick. "And then it can also be transmitted through infections in the throat."
  
  Kilpatrick thinks the virus might get to American waterways through a two-step process, starting with infected poultry shipped to another country in this hemisphere.
  
  "If migratory birds were to mingle with backyard poultry in Mexico or Brazil or Central America or even in Canada and then become infected, then they might migrate north or south to the U.S.," Kilpatrick says. "And then the virus might infect one of the geese or ducks in here simply by foraging in the same pond with these birds."
  
  Kilpatrick tracked bird-flu migration through genetic fingerprints, wild-bird flyways and the global chicken trade.
  
  "In Asia, it appeared that the poultry trade was responsible for about half the introductions of bird flu," Kilpatrick says. "Whereas in Europe, both the original introduction of avian flu into Europe -- as well as the subsequent spread of the flu throughout Europe -- appeared to be through migratory birds."
  
  Kilpatrick says the flu then reached Africa through both migratory birds and poultry shipments.
  
  Some in the poultry industry remain skeptical that the virus could reach the United States. Elizabeth Krushinskie, an expert on the poultry industry and a technical adviser for the U.S. Agency for International Development, says it is not likely that avian flu could reach the United States through poultry and wild birds.
  
  "Yes, bird flu could come to Central and South America," Krushinskie says. "Would it be a problem? It could be a problem. Could it get into the United States that way? It probably could. Is it likely to? No."
  
  If the avian flu did reach the United States through wild birds, some say the virus wouldn't necessarily devastate the poultry industry, because chickens are usually raised in sealed barns. But growing numbers of chickens are now raised as free-range poultry. By law, free-range birds must spend part of their lives outside, where they can mingle with wild chickens.
  
  The interactions could potentially spread the bird flu, which worries scientists. Leslie Dierauf, the chair of the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wisconsin, believes that it's just a matter of time before the strain makes its way to the United States.
  
  "You know, I don't say 'if' anymore," she says. "I go with the majority of scientists who say 'when.'"
  
  Dierauf says the new study, which appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, underscores there are still big gaps in scientists' knowledge about how the bird-flu virus spreads.

• 12/04/2006:  Field Notes, CommericalAppeal.com (Memphis online)
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  December 3, 2006
  
  INSIDE DU
  
  There is no known case of the highly pathogenic Asian H5N1 strain of bird flu in the Americas now.
  
  But even apparently healthy wild birds and other wild game can be infected with other wildlife diseases that could pose a threat to hunters and others out enjoying the outdoors.
  
  You can protect yourself from these diseases by following the recommendations listed below from the National Wildlife Health Center.
  
  Thoroughly wash your hands with soap and water (or with alcohol-based hand products if the hands are not visibly soiled).
  
  This is a very effective method for killing influenza viruses, including the highly pathogenic Asian H5N1 strain of bird flu.
  
  These viruses are also killed with many common disinfectants such as detergents, 10 percent household bleach, alcohol or other commercial disinfectants.
  
  Viruses are more difficult to kill in organic material such as feces or soil.
  
  The general public should, as a rule, observe wildlife -- including wild birds -- from a distance.
  
  This protects you from possible exposure to pathogens and minimizes disturbance to the animal.
  
  Avoid touching wildlife. If there is contact with wildlife do not rub your eyes, eat, drink, or smoke without first washing your hands with soap and water as described above.
  
  Do not pick up diseased or dead wildlife. Contact your state or federal natural resource agency if a sick or dead animal is found.
  
  Hunters, especially, should follow these routine precautions when handling game:
  
  Do not handle or eat sick game.
  
  Wear rubber or disposable latex gloves while handling and cleaning game, wash hands as described above, and thoroughly clean knives, equipment and surfaces that come in contact with game.
  
  Do not eat, drink, or smoke while handling animals.
  
  All game should be thoroughly cooked (well done or 160 degrees F).
  
  Following these common sense rules of good hygiene greatly reduces your chances of contacting any form of wildlife disease.
  
  And it's all pretty much what your mother already taught you when you were a kid.

• 11/29/2006:  National Bio and Agro Defense fits Wisconsin, Wisconsin Technology Network
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  State will soon find out if it's on the fed's short list
  
  By Tom Still 11/28/06
  
  Madison, Wis. - It's not every day that Wisconsin has a chance to attract a major federal laboratory. It has been more than 30 years since the National Wildlife Health Center was established in Madison, and nearly 100 years since the University of Wisconsin was selected over the University of Michigan as the site for the National Forest Products Laboratory. Both labs have contributed immensely to the world's knowledge of wildlife diseases and forests - as well as the state's economy.
  
  Early in 2007, Wisconsin will learn whether it's on the short list for another major federal project: the National Bio and Agro Defense Facility. Like the wildlife and forest products labs, this center would be a near-perfect match with the state's tradition of natural resources stewardship, agriculture, and life sciences research.
  
  The UW-Madison's Kegonsa Research Facility near Stoughton has already made the cut from 29 proposed sites to 14 for the NBAF, where foreign and domestic animal pathogens that plague farmers - and sometimes humans - would be isolated and studied. The center would be built on 40 acres in the Dane County town of Dunn and eventually employ as many as 400 people, most of them researchers and technologists.
  
  Managed jointly by the federal Agriculture and Homeland Security departments, the NBAF would have a Level 4 biosafety security rating, the highest available. It would replace the aging Plum Island Animal Disease Center near Long Island, N.Y., where this type of work has been conducted since the 1950s.
  
  Wisconsin is a national leader, and has been so for generations, in the types of research that would take place in a National Bio and Agro Defense Facility. At the UW-Madison alone, the breadth of interdisciplinary research expertise that could be brought to bear is as expansive - if not more so - as any place in the United States. In fact, Wisconsin and the University of Wisconsin System have a history, dating back to the early 19th century, of being on the cutting edge of research involving plant and animal genetics, zoonotic pathogens, and public health solutions.
  
  Assets galore
  
  The UW-Madison's assets include the School of Veterinary Medicine, among the top 10 in the nation. The School of Medicine and Public Health was the home of the late Howard Temin, just one in the long line of University of Wisconsin Nobel laureates. The School of Pharmacy houses the new Lenor Zeeh Pharmaceutical Experiment station. The College of Agricultural and Life Sciences is host to the UW Biotechnology Center and the Genome Center of Wisconsin, where breakthroughs such as the sequencing of the E.coli genome took place.
  
  The UW-Madison campus also boasts one of the nation's only biotrons, the Institute for Molecular Virology, the Molecular and Environmental Toxicology Center, the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center, the Department of Food Microbiology and Toxicology, and experienced centers in biomedical engineering, nanotechnology, and molecular biology.
  
  On the planning boards: The UW Institute for Discovery, a $375 million project, which will serve as a national model for interdisciplinary research.
  
  Wisconsin already has or can attract the skilled workforce needed to staff such a facility. Because Wisconsin's agricultural roots run deep, many researchers and scientists here are closely connected to the land through cultural and familial ties. The state also is home to architectural, engineering, and construction firms that are among the nation's best in designing and building secure, tech-based facilities.
  
  Most important, Wisconsin has a long tradition of hosting national-level research facilities or facilities linked to national defense. In the Madison area alone, the former Badger Army Ammunition Plant, the forest products and wildlife labs (site of extensive testing for avian flu), the new National Stem Cell Bank, and most recently, the Institute for Influenza Viral Research are all prime examples.
  
  Fierce fight
  
  The political competition for this facility will be fierce once the list of 14 is shaved to a relative handful. Other states understand the importance of landing federal research centers, especially those that fit with existing research and commercial strengths. There will be local concerns, primarily about safety, but the record is clear: This center would be among the safest in the world, and it's a match with Wisconsin's farming tradition.
  
  Few, if any, states are better situated than Wisconsin to serve as the site for the National Bio and Agro Defense Facility. It is the right fit with the state's agricultural and research traditions, it would benefit Wisconsin farmers, and it will help the nation and the world. If Wisconsin makes this short list, let's not miss the opportunity.

• 11/17/2006:  YOLO BYPASS: Checks of migratory birds show no avian flu in U.S., San Franicisco Chronicle
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Sabin Russell, Chronicle Medical Writer
  
  Friday, November 17, 2006
  
  A multimillion dollar national effort to screen North American migratory birds for potentially deadly strains of avian influenza has so far come up empty -- and if the United States is lucky, things will stay that way.
  
  In California, thousands of pintail and mallard ducks have been trapped, banded and subjected to the indignity of a medical swabbing of their most private parts in search of the H5N1 strain of bird flu.
  
  So far, nothing but negatives.
  
  The bird screening program is an unusual partnership that has recruited help from wildlife biologists in a spectrum of state and federal agencies ranging from the California Department of Fish and Game to the U.S. Geological Survey. At the urging of the Bush administration, Congress appropriated $29 million for the avian flu surveillance program this year.
  
  In California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state Legislature added $1 million to the $700,000 from the federal program to screen birds in the state.
  
  On Thursday, representatives from four government agencies demonstrated the screening technique in front of a gaggle of reporters and television cameras in the Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area, a 16,000-acre reserve straddling Interstate 80 between Sacramento and Davis.
  
  "The earlier we can find any disease, the earlier we can respond to protect poultry and human health,' said Brad Bortner, a migratory bird expert for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
  
  The target is the strain of bird flu that has killed 153 people, mostly in Southeast Asia, since 2003. Nearly all of those victims lived in close contact with chickens, which are the primary target of the H5N1 strain. Since 2003, millions of chickens and ducks have either been killed outright by the virus or have been destroyed in an effort to contain the disease.
  
  It remains a difficult bug for humans to catch, but scientists fear that with a few genetic changes, it could mutate into a form that spreads easily among people, possibly triggering a pandemic as deadly as the 1918 Spanish flu -- believed to have killed at least 50 million around the globe.
  
  U.S. sentries against such an onslaught are wildlife biologists such as Jenny Hoskins, of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Russ Odell, an aide with the state Department of Fish and Game.
  
  Since this summer, they have swabbed the bottoms of hundreds of ducks, taking samples from the bird's cloaca -- the orifice that handles both reproduction and elimination of waste in birds.
  
  For Thursday's demonstration, the agencies trucked in to the Yolo site 18 pintail ducks that had been captured the previous evening at the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge, about an hour away north of Sacramento. Biologists used 60- by 40-foot "rocket nets" propelled by explosives to catch the birds -- a method commonly used to capture waterfowl before attaching bands to their legs.
  
  One bird at a time, Bortner wrangled each duck into a gentle lock to keep it still, while Odell twirled the fluffy polyester-tipped swab. One goopy-bottomed female seemed particularly unhappy to see them. "This one is giving us a lot of sampling material,' Bortner deadpanned.
  
  Odell slipped each swab into a preservative-filled test tube, which was bar-coded and duly recorded by Hoskins. The tubes are shipped to a lab at UC Davis, where they are tested for a component of the bird flu virus. Those that test positive are sent to a federal lab in Ames, Iowa, for further testing.
  
  No positives have been found, but in eight states outside California, a mild strain of H5N1 that has been present in the United States for decades and causes no illness, has been detected.
  
  For each pintail duck, the ordeal was over in about 30 seconds, and Bortner released each one into the water, from which they quickly flew off, a little ruffled but apparently unharmed.
  
  Pintails, said Bortner, are particularly sought in the surveillance program, because they are known to mingle in their northern Alaska nesting grounds with birds from Asia. "They've been known to fly here from Russia,' Odell added.
  
  Other waterfowl tested in the program include mallards, northern shovelers, wigeons, black brant and white-fronted geese.
  
  So far this year, 60,000 live wild birds have been sampled using this technique in the United States, said Paul Slota, a microbiologists for the U.S. Geological Survey. Another 20,000 "environmental samples" -- bird poop or pond water draws -- have also been analyzed.
  
  Dan Yparraguirre, waterfowl coordinator for the state Department of Fish and Game, said the state goal to test 3,600 wild birds is almost completed. Now that duck hunting season is under way, biologists hope to test an additional 3,600 hunter-killed birds at reporting stations.
  
  E-mail Sabin Russell at srussell@sfchronicle.com.

• 11/01/2006:  New Bird Flu Strain Spreads Fast, Is Resistant to Vaccine, National Geographic News
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Brian Handwerk
  
  November 1, 2006
  
  A newly discovered bird flu strain has emerged in China and has spread rapidly through poultry in Southeast Asia.
  
  Human infections by the new strain have also turned up in several locations, including both farms and urban centers, intensifying fears of a worldwide flu pandemic that could kill millions. (Related: "Bird Flu Will Reach U.S. and Canada This Fall, Experts Predict" March 14, 2006.)
  
  Magnifying those concerns is the vaccine-selective nature of the new strain, which means that existing animal vaccines are less effective on it than they are on previously known bird flu types.
  
  "This virus seemed to spread very fast over a big geographic region," said Yi Guan, director of the State Key Laboratory of Emerging Infectious Diseases at the University of Hong Kong in China.
  
  A team led by Guan discovered the new straindubbed "Fujian-like"while monitoring chickens, ducks, and geese in Chinese markets, including several in Fujian Province (map of China).
  
  "However, we don't have any evidence to show whether this virus is more dangerous or less dangerous than any other H5N1 bird flu viruses," Guan said.
  
  He and his colleagues report their findings in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
  
  Establishing Dominance
  
  To help prevent the spread of bird flu, China has instituted an extensive, compulsory vaccination program for chickens.
  
  But the effort has proven unable to contain the new strain, which has displaced other H5N1 variants to become the dominant strain in the southern China surveillance area, Guan says.
  
  The new virus accounted for 95 percent of the infected birds that Guan's team examined between April and June 2006.
  
  "This novel variant may have become dominant ... because it was not as easily affected as other strains by the avian vaccine used to prevent H5 infection," Guan said.
  
  "This means that H5 avian vaccines are not able to prevent infection by this virus as efficiently as they do with other types of H5N1."
  
  Scientists fear that the new strain may have arisen in response to over-reliance on the sole existing bird flu vaccine.
  
  "It is not surprising that H5N1 continues to evolve," said Hon Ip, a diagnostic virologist at the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wisconsin, who is not affiliated with the new research.
  
  "It is a virus that is looking for opportunities, and this is a good example of how, if there is a weakness, Mother Nature somehow is going to exploit it."
  
  Pandemic Possibilities?
  
  The appearance of the new strain in urban locations is particularly troubling to virologists, who fear that the vaccine-resistant virus could ignite a pandemic if it mutates to become easily transferred from human to human.
  
  "If you have a situation with large numbers of poultry that are poorly vaccinated, close human-to-poultry contact, and infected birds moving around the countryyou're just asking for additional viruses to evolve," Ip said.
  
  So far no evidence has been found to suggest that any strain of H5N1including the Fujian-like typecan be passed easily from human to human.
  
  But the University of Hong Kong's Guan fears the rapid spread of the strain may still pose a threat.
  
  "We think that this virus is likely to have already instigated a third wave of H5N1 infection in this region, as it is already widespread in southern China and has also been detected in other neighboring countries," he said.
  
  "However, as of yet, we do not have any evidence that it is causing widespread infection outside of our surveillance area."
  
  New Strategies
  
  Asian heath care officials may have to modify their anti-bird flu systems in order to prevent the new strain from sweeping through the region's poultry populations and posing potential problems for human health.
  
  "Current control measures are ineffective in dealing with the evolutionary changes that H5N1 undergoes," Guan said.
  
  "This study also suggests that reliance on a single vaccine against H5N1 over a number of years, which is currently practiced, is unlikely to adequately control this disease in poultry."
  
  USGS's Ip echoes Guan's belief that a vaccination program by itself is not a complete solution.
  
  "I think that in this particular case the authors make a convincing argument that the vaccine may not be the best match against the virus in circulation," he said.
  
  "You need to have a comprehensive program that monitors which flocks are infected and deals with them, stops the movement of infected animals, and provides timely access to information."

• 10/31/2006:  Country, city clash over prairie dog problem, Argus Leader, SD
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Ranchers propose poison, conservationists push vaccines
  
  By BEN SHOUSE
  
  bshouse@argusleader.com
  
  Prairie dogs might be the most divisive rodents in America.
  
  To tourists and city folk, they are cute enough to send back home on a postcard. To drought-stricken western South Dakota, they are pasture-wrecking vermin worthy only of poisoning.
  
  The conflict is intensifying, especially in the Conata Basin, south of Wall, a devastated piece of cattle country that also is home to a crucial colony of black-footed ferrets. Ferrets eat prairie dogs and often are called the country's most endangered mammal.
  
  To eliminate or protect
  
  A conservation group will hold a fundraiser in Denver on Wednesday to help South Dakota's ferrets. At the same time, ranching groups are pushing political leaders to change how the federal government manages ferrets and prairie dogs.
  
  Even government agencies can't agree. Some want to poison more prairie dogs, but others are using insecticides and even vaccine to protect them from a very different threat: plague.
  
  For most of the ongoing drought, the Conata Basin has looked like a wasteland, stripped bare of grass by prairie dogs.
  
  "The grass is being overgrazed by prairie dogs to the point that the grass is being killed, and will result in soil erosion - wind and water erosion - that should be intolerable to the rest of us, the citizens of South Dakota," said state Secretary of Agriculture Larry Gabriel in Pierre.
  
  Despite that, the area still is considered ideal for ferrets, a species more or less resurrected from extinction 25 years ago.
  
  "If we can't manage for places like that, then recovery of the species is hopeless, pure and simple," said Mike Lockhart, national ferret recovery director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Laramie, Wyo.
  
  Ban reconsidered
  
  The controversy has been rekindled by the announcement that the U.S. Forest Service will reconsider its ban on prairie dog poisoning. The plan was modified last year to allow poisoning next to private land if the owner complains about prairie dogs spilling over from federal ground.
  
  Gabriel said a change could help hundreds of ranchers who use federal land. The Forest Service plans to finalize a new plan by Oct. 1, 2007.
  
  On private land, Gabriel's department and the Game, Fish and Parks Department have funded poisoning on roughly 15,000 acres this year and last.
  
  "If it's just bare dirt, is serves no purpose for anything, and that's where we're at in a lot of places," said GF&P Secretary John Cooper.
  
  Meanwhile, two other agencies are working to save prairie dogs. Their main concern is sylvatic plague, caused by the same bacteria that caused the Black Death in 14th century Europe. The fish and wildlife service is dusting prairie dog burrows in the Conata Basin with pesticide to kill fleas, which carry plague. The plan is to dust up to 1,800 acres this year, down from about 7,000 last year, said Scott Larson of the agency's Pierre office.
  
  A viral cure
  
  The U.S. Geological Survey is developing an oral vaccine to make prairie dogs temporarily immune to plague, said Tonie Rocke, a disease researcher in Madison, Wis. Her team is trying to create a virus that could be added to food and would activate prairie dog immune systems against plague.
  
  The final players in this drama of ferrets and prairie dogs are groups such as Prairie Wildlife Research, run by Travis Livieri, a former Wall resident who is moving to Fort Collins, Colo. He plans to hold a fundraiser Wednesday in Denver for ferret research and monitoring.
  
  He has monitored ferret populations for several years - Conata Basin is stable at more than 200 - and tried to find a compromise with the roughly 15 area ranchers.
  
  That he was unsuccessful shows just how divisive the issue is in the local community. None of the ranchers accepted the grants Livieri was brokering in return for agreeing not to poison prairie dogs.
  
  Reach Ben Shouse at 331-2318.

• 10/27/2006:  U.S. expecting more low-pathogenic bird flu, REUTERS
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  6:55 p.m. October 26, 2006
  
  WASHINGTON The U.S. government said Thursday additional tests of ducks in Ohio showed the birds did not have a low-pathogenic strain of the H5N1 virus, but warned new cases of bird flu would be found in the coming months in the United States as more tests are conducted.
  
  Preliminary tests had detected a strain of the H5N1 virus in apparently healthy wild birds sampled Oct. 8 in Ottawa County, located on Lake Erie about 15 miles southeast of Toledo. Additional tests showed that no virus was present.
  
  It is common for low-pathogenic strains of avian flu to appear in the United States. This year alone, 12 samples in six states have shown to be positive in preliminary or confirmatory tests for low-pathogenic strains of bird flu.
  
  As the expanded surveillance of wild birds for highly pathogenic avian influenza increases in the coming months, USDA and DOI expect additional detection of the 'North American strain' of low pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Department of the Interior said in a joint statement.
  
  The departments are working with states to collect between 75,000 and 100,000 wild bird samples in addition to more than 50,000 environmental tests throughout the United States. A low-pathogenic strain of the flu, which produces less disease and mortality in birds than does a high-pathogenic version, poses no threat to humans.
  
  The government said in the future it will post possible low-pathogenic H5N1 detection on the Internet at wildlifedisease.nbii.gov/ai/LPAITable.pdf or www.usda.gov/birdflu.
  
  With tests involving a large number of sick or dead birds, or the possibility of a highly pathogenic virus, the two departments will issue a news release or hold a briefing.
  
  The latest H5N1 bird flu strain in Asia, Europe and Africa is known to have killed more than 150 people and forced hundreds of millions of birds to be destroyed.

• 10/20/2006:  Preparing to battle a crisis in the future, Baltimore Sun
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

  ---

  
  

  Health officials focus on ways to slow global spread of viruses such as avian flu
  
  By Frank D. Roylance
  
  sun reporter
  
  October 20, 2006
  
  Haunted by the knowledge that influenza killed 50 million people in 1918, scientists and public health officials continue to seek ways to head off the next great pandemic.
  
  They are focused mostly on the lethal avian influenza that's spreading among birds and some of their human caretakers from Asia to Europe and Africa.
  
  The virus is killing humans at a rate of one every four days - 73 this year - or twice last year's pace. And its spread increases the chance it will swap genes with a human flu virus, producing a hybrid that will be easily spread and deadly among people.
  
  So far, the human toll has been relatively small in a global context. The bird flu virus seems to have a difficult time jumping from birds to people.
  
  But scientists are on alert for signs of a genetic shift that could transform the bird disease into something capable of killing millions, disrupting daily life and commerce across the globe.
  
  Others are looking for the best way to construct a vaccine, or antiviral drugs, to prime our immune systems to grapple with the more dangerous virus that may evolve from the avian flu.
  
  And public health officials are working to devise the most effective ways to slow the spread of a pandemic, to hold mass vaccinations and keep essential services running despite absenteeism.
  
  It's an unprecedented mobilization against a virus that doesn't yet exist, officials note. And it's never been done for any influenza virus, despite the substantial death tolls from the annual flu - a complacency that has begun to dissolve.
  
  "The lack of adequate preparation on a yearly basis for a highly predictable seasonal flu is one of the reasons we are now in crisis mode with pandemic flu," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
  
  Known officially as avian influenza A (H5N1), the bird flu virus is not the same virus that carried illness and death around the planet in 1918 and 1919.
  
  But scientists have found similarities to the 1918 bug, which they have reconstructed from DNA extracted from human tissues saved since the First World War, and chipped from the dead in an arctic grave.
  
  They believe the 1918 virus evolved from an A-type bird flu virus that jumped to humans. Without any past exposure to anything like it, human populations had little or no ready immunity. Nearly everyone was exposed to what was known as "Spanish flu" and death rates reached 8 percent in some places.
  
  The H5N1 avian flu virus is also a Type A avian influenza. Its least-destructive (low pathogenic, or "low-path") form is common in the guts and saliva of wild birds, and easily spread, though rarely fatal to them.
  
  What has scientists worried is that a highly pathogenic ("high-path") strain of H5N1 has emerged. It can kill wild birds and burns through domestic flocks, killing 90 percent to 100 percent of the flocks in a day or two.
  
  That puts the virus in close proximity to people, who are falling ill and dying in increasing numbers. The World Health Organization said this week that 256 people in 10 countries are known to have been sickened by the H5N1 virus since 2003. Of those, 151 have died. That's a 59 percent mortality rate.
  
  Until now, most deaths occurred among people in close contact with sick birds. Among the cases announced this week was a 67-year-old woman who died in West Java, part of Indonesia. She fell ill after her household chickens began to die.
  
  Another was an 11-year-old boy from South Jakarta. He, too, had been fatally exposed to dead chickens in his neighborhood, the WHO said. Indonesia is the current hotspot, with more cases this year than any other nation.
  
  The H5N1 virus is still having a hard time spreading directly between people. But it can, and does.
  
  In June, WHO described a case in Indonesia where one person was infected during contact with infected poultry. He then spread the illness to six family members, and one of those six - a child - infected his own father.
  
  Researchers studying the virus' species-jumping capacity have already reported infections in domestic pigs - frequently a source of illness for humans - wild and domestic cats, dogs and a weasel-like animal in Germany.
  
  So far, the highly pathogenic H5H1 strain has not been found in the Americas. But surveillance continues of migratory bird populations that might bring it here.
  
  The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the federal departments of interior and agriculture said recently that they had found evidence of the H5 and N1 proteins in pintail ducks in Ohio, mallards in Pennsylvania and teals in Illinois. But they said these were likely from separate viruses, or the low-path strain of the H5N1 virus.
  
  "We have done close to 20,000 samples for wild birds in North America ... and none of those samples has been positive for the high-path Asian H5N1 form," said Hon Ip, director of the National Wildlife Health Center's diagnostic virology lab in Madison, Wisc.
  
  Although more samples await testing, he said, "for this summer and fall we can pretty much safely conclude it high-path H5N1 avian flu virus is not here."
  
  Acting on the assumption that the bird flu virus, or a human flu virus related to it, will eventually get here somehow, public health authorities and researchers continue to prepare.
  
  Government researchers and pharmaceutical companies have been developing and testing "pilot" versions of a vaccine for the three strains of the H5N1 virus detected in Asia since 1997. And some are being stockpiled on the chance that the pandemic virus, if it emerges, will be closely related.
  
  A study in the New England Journal of Medicine reported, however, that while one of those vaccines worked, it has problems. The dose required is too high, and it worked in only half the people tested, Fauci said.
  
  Subsequent studies have found that compounds called adjuvants, when added to the vaccine, boost the body's immune response - "encouraging data," Fauci said.
  
  Research at the University of Rochester, described this week at a meeting in Toronto, found that "priming" a patient with an H5N1 vaccine - even years ahead of time - will boost the immune response to vaccines given later for another H5N1 strain that evolves.
  
  Hundreds of millions of federal tax dollars have been invested in expanding the pharmaceutical companies' vaccine production capacity. They are also developing new manufacturing facilities based on faster new molecular technologies that would end the need to grow the viral antibodies in chicken eggs.
  
  Fauci said the H5N1 virus has not gotten any more deadly or more easily transmitted to people, even as it has changed its genetic makeup.
  
  To buy more time for people to avoid infection and achieve immunity, the CDC is commissioning $5.2 million in research into the effectiveness of more traditional public health measures.
  
  The CDC is asking the Institute of Medicine and others for advice and hard data on the best ways to slow the flu's spread.
  
  Under scrutiny are such measures as school closings, "voluntary isolation" of the sick and "protective sequestration" of isolated healthy groups. Even the use of face masks and personal hygiene strategies such as sneezing into your sleeve will be re-examined for their usefulness.
  
  The Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene recently formed a Pandemic Influenza Coordinating Committee to plan for the sociological consequences of a pandemic.
  
  Composed of federal, state and local health and safety officials, hospital, industry and faith groups, the PICC will develop plans for keeping vital services, such as police and fire, transportation, utilities and sanitation, functioning despite high absenteeism.
  
  The state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has held tabletop and field exercises with federal, state and local authorities to develop and troubleshoot pandemic planning.
  
  "There's been a very concentrated effort of exercises for the last 11 months," most recently in August, said Dr. Matthew Minson, director of the office of emergency preparedness at DHMH.
  
  How would they keep the public informed of developments and vaccination clinics? How would the vaccines be distributed? How would the spread of illness be tracked? How would hospital overflows be handled? How can civilian volunteers best be used to augment public officials?
  
  "This is kind of unprecedented ... to get ready for a disease that doesn't really exist yet," Minson said.
  
  At the local level, too, health and public safety officials continue to develop and refine plans.
  
  For example, the Howard County Health Department last weekend conducted what amounted to a pandemic drill, providing more than 2,100 flu vaccinations in six hours at a drive-through clinic in Columbia.
  
  Although the vaccine offered protection against only the annual flu strains expected this winter, the exercise helped expose kinks in the county's pandemic plans.
  
  One Howard resident branded it a "farce" after waiting in line for two hours and 40 minutes, burning a quarter-tank of gas. "If this had been an emergency situation - terrorist attack, bad weather ... flu epidemic - there would have been a riot," Joan Roderick wrote in an e-mail to The Sun.
  
  County health officer Dr. Penny Borenstein acknowledged problems with the design and command structure. And communicating with those in line could have gone better.
  
  "Human nature dictates that you keep people informed every step of the way as to what they can expect," she said. "We did not have enough staff in place to provide that information."
  
  Nevertheless, she said, "this is a mass clinic model we would potentially use," in part because the drive-through format isolates people from each other, providing a measure of infection control.
  
  "In a real emergency," she added, "we think people would be more patient waiting for a protective vaccination ... than if it were a normal, sunny Sunday and there was a football game on."
  
  Schedule of pandemic flu community roundtables at Maryland hospitals
  
  frank.roylance@baltsun.com

• 10/11/2006:  FWP investigates coot deaths on Georgetown Lake, The Associated Press
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

  ---

  
  

  ANACONDA The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks is investigating the deaths of several hundred coots at Georgetown Lake west of here.
  
  FWP officials say its too soon to say what killed the aquatic birds, but the deaths are similar to a 1997 kill that was blamed in part on parasites.
  
  The agency received a report of dead birds at the lake on Sept. 29, said Rose Jaffe, avian influenza surveillance project coordinator in Bozeman.
  
  Last week, Jaffe removed 266 coot carcasses from the lake. Another nine were out of reach, she said, and more have since accumulated along the shoreline.
  
  The dead birds Jaffe collected were sent to the National Wildlife Health Center Lab in Wisconsin for examination. The results are expected in about two weeks, she said.
  
  It appears that whatever malady caused the deaths may not have affected other birds, Jaffe said.
  
  The only species that I saw were American coots, she said.
  
  She added that theres no reason to believe the deaths are connected to the bird flu virus. Many wild shore birds and waterfowl tested so far bore no trace of the disease.
  
  Of 1,000 samples from all across Montana, theres no sign of the highly pathogenic strain of avian influenza, Jaffe said Tuesday.
  
  Its not the first mass death of American coots at Georgetown Lake, FWP information officer Vivaca Crowser said Tuesday. A large number of the dark, duck-like birds, which migrate through the area each year, turned up dead a decade ago.
  
  Back then, the deaths stumped biologists in two states; however, one FWP official theorized that the birds fell ill because of sphaeridiotrema globulus, a tiny intestinal fluke that is harbored in snail shells.
  
  After bottom-feeding coots eat the snails, the parasite feeds on their innards causing enteritis that kills the birds.

• 10/07/2006:  Wasting Deer: Deer Saliva and Blood Can Carry Prions, Science News Online (subscription necessary)
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

  ---

  
  

  Week of Oct. 7, 2006; Vol. 170, No. 15
  
  Susan Milius
  
  
  
  For the first time, researchers have shown that saliva alone can
  
  transmit a brain-destroying disease from one animal to another.
  
  
  
  Three oral doses of saliva from a deer sick with chronic wasting
  
  disease passed the infection to other deer kept in isolation suites
  
  indoors, reports Edward Hoover of Colorado State University in Fort
  
  Collins. The finding gives substance to worries that the disease
  
  spreads through such deer social habits as touching noses and licking
  
  to groom each other.
  
  
  
  The study also found that both an injection of blood from a sick
  
  animal and exposure to infected brain tissue transmitted the
  
  infection, Hoover and 16 colleagues report in the Oct. 6 Science.
  
  
  
  Fourteen states and two Canadian provinces have reported chronic
  
  wasting disease, which strikes mule deer, white-tailed deer, Rocky
  
  Mountain elk, and occasionally moose. The disease belongs to the
  
  cluster of deadly brain ailments, such as mad cow disease, that are
  
  spread by misshapen prion proteins (SN: 11/30/02, p. 346:
  
  http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20021130/bob9.asp). No case of
  
  human disease has been traced to game, but researchers haven't ruled
  
  out the possibility.
  
  
  
  Biologists have known that animals can catch the disease simply by
  
  occupying an area where sick animals once lived. Contaminated land
  
  has vexed researchers, who don't want to risk introducing chronic
  
  wasting disease into diseasefree regions but don't want tests
  
  confounded by dirty fields.
  
  
  
  For the new study, researchers at the University of Georgia in Athens
  
  supplied 14 white-tailed deer fawns. The state is free of chronic
  
  wasting disease. Researchers in Colorado kept the animals indoors
  
  during their 18-to-22-month lives and dosed them with material from
  
  sick mule deer.
  
  
  
  Although saliva, blood, and brain tissue transmitted the disease,
  
  three oral doses of mixed urine and feces didn't have an effect.
  
  However, Hoover cautions that the two animals that received that
  
  material carried gene variants known to render deer less susceptible
  
  to prion infections.
  
  
  
  Four cases of the human version of mad cow disease have been traced
  
  to blood transfusions, but Hoover notes that no study of another
  
  prion disease has shown transmission through saliva.
  
  
  
  The saliva result is "the exciting part of this study" for wildlife
  
  managers, comments wildlife-disease specialist Margo Pybus of
  
  Alberta's Fish and Wildlife Division in Edmonton. The dose in the
  
  study, 50 milliliters of contaminated saliva, is large enough to be
  
  "unlikely" in the real world, she says, but further research may
  
  define how small a dose of saliva can transmit the disease.
  
  
  
  The new study "lends tremendous credibility to regulations that
  
  restrict baiting and feeding of deer," says Bryan J. Richards, who
  
  leads the chronic wasting disease work at the National Wildlife
  
  Health Center in Madison, Wis. To fight the disease, states are now
  
  banning hunters' once-common practice of setting out deer feed. In
  
  theory, deer clustering around the windfall might increase unsafe
  
  social contacts. "A lot of states have been ridiculed because there
  
  was no proof" of danger from deer baiting, says Richards.
  
  
  
  If you have a comment on this article that you would like considered
  
  for publication in Science News, send it to editors@sciencenews.org.
  
  Please include your name and location.
  
  
  
  References:
  
  
  
  Mathiason, C.K.... and E.A. Hoover. 2006. Infectious prions in the
  
  saliva and blood of deer with chronic wasting disease. Science
  
  314(Oct. 6):133-136. Abstract available at
  
  http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/314/5796/133.
  
  
  
  Further Readings:
  
  
  
  Brownlee, C. 2006. Hunter beware: Infectious proteins found in deer
  
  muscle. Science News 169(Jan. 28):52. Available to subscribers at
  
  http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20060128/fob4.asp.
  
  
  
  Milius, S. 2002. Mad deer disease? Science News 162(Nov. 30):346-348.
  
  Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20021130/bob9.asp.
  
  
  
  Raloff, J. 2006. Prions' dirty little secret. Science News 169(Feb.
  
  11):93. Available to subscribers at
  
  http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20060211/note13.asp.
  
  
  
  For further information about chronic wasting disease, go to
  
  http://www.nwhc.usgs.gov/disease_information/
  
  chronic_wasting_disease/.
  
  
  
  Sources:
  
  
  
  Edward A. Hoover
  
  Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Pathology
  
  College of
  
  Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
  
  Colorado State University
  
  Fort Collins, CO 80523-1619
  
  
  
  Margo J. Pybus
  
  Alberta Fish and Wildlife Division
  
  6909 116th Street
  
  Edmonton, AB T6H 4P2
  
  Canada
  
  
  
  Bryan J. Richards
  
  U.S. Geological Survey
  
  National Wildlife Health Center
  
  Chronic Wasting Disease Project
  
  6006 Schroeder Road
  
  Madison, WI 53711
  
  
  
  http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20061007/fob6.asp
  
  
  
  From Science News, Vol. 170, No. 15, Oct. 7, 2006, p. 230.
  
  
  
  Copyright (c) 2006 Science Service. All rights reserved.
  
  
  
  ---------------------------------
  
  
  
  Interested in new developments in science and technology? Consider
  
  subscribing to Science News. Visit Science News Online at
  
  http://www.sciencenews.org/ for access to additional news articles and
  
  subscription information.

• 10/05/2006:  DNR Ahead Of The Game On Deer, Wisconsin Public Radio
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

  ---

  
  

  By Shamane Mills
  
  Thursday, October 5, 2006
  
  (UNDATED) Some hunters disagree with the states efforts to control chronic wasting disease, but a new study appears to support policies that limit contact among deer.
  
  Studies by Colorado researchers indicate that bodily fluids like blood and saliva carry a deadly protein that causes brain wasting in white tail deer. That method of transmission has long been suspected, and it helped shape how a lot of states responded to chronic wasting disease.
  
  Bryan Richards is with the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison. He says the study published in the journal Science supports current strategies. He says states like Wisconsin kind of went out on a limb, presuming the infectious contact was of the nose-to-nose variety, and so subsequently implemented far-reaching bans on baiting and feeding. He says now, a couple of years later, it turns out the Department of Natural Resources was right about that presumption.
  
  Efforts by the DNR to limit close contact among deer and reduce the herd dont sit well with some. An ongoing survey of hunters where the disease is prevalent showed many arent willing to kill more deer. Bob Holsman is a UW Stevens Point assistant professor of wildlife and oversaw the survey. He says the agency gives hunters the green light to shoot more deer, but thats at odds with years of being taught that to kill more than one is willing to eat is wasteful.
  
  Holsman says research supporting the DNRs policies are not likely to change hunter habits. He says proof the states strategies work might convince skeptics, and current strategies to control the disease rely on hunter cooperation.

• 09/22/2006:  Encourage the geese to move on, Newsday.com
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

  ---

  
  

  BY SUSAN RUSSELL
  
  Susan Russell is a former lobbyist for Friends of Animals Inc. and the Society for Animal Protective Legislation.
  
  September 22, 2006
  
  New federal rules make it easier to eliminate Canada geese at Long Island's parks, golf courses, farms and airports, either by killing them or destroying their eggs and nests. But these are drastic measures, and we should bear in mind that the geese are here in such great numbers because of human actions.
  
  What is luring geese to Long Island? Lawns near water. As explosive development destroys our region's natural vegetation, native long grasses, wildflowers, shrubs, trees and vegetated banks have fallen to miles of mowed lawn - and little else. Mowed lawns near water and the open vistas they create play havoc with the Canada geese's migratory and nesting instincts, since protective parents seek clear, line-of-sight vistas that allow them to identify predators.
  
  The local park/pond/playground combo, the golf course, the office complex, the home association's manicured pond - are all like neon-lit vacancy signs for nesting geese. In biological terms, these open areas are degraded landscapes; they are not indigenous to the Northeast. They mimic Canadian conditions where geese traditionally nest. So even though many geese still migrate, more of them are settling here. Absent landscape changes, that will continue.
  
  Experience in Michigan shows that even if the Canada geese population is reduced to extremely low levels, the birds will still come back in a short time to nest in cities and towns.
  
  Another contributing factor is that "waterfowl production areas" at national wildlife refuges, which replenish water fowl lost to hunting by creating optimal breeding, nesting and resting conditions, are adding to the number of Canada geese in the populated Northeast. Ironically, these programs are run by the two federal agencies that advocated for the new rule that makes it easier to destroy Canada geese: the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The Fish and Wildlife Service operates the waterfowl breeding program on refuges, and the Agriculture Department oversees several programs that encourage farmers to raise waterfowl. "Farmers benefit," the agency says, as "reapers of waterfowl harvest, and by receipt of hunting fees for use of their land."
  
  Another problem is that geese raised on farms from Maryland to New Jersey to Illinois are escaping refuges, only to arrive at parks or golf courses where they are not wanted - and where they are often killed as pests.
  
  Natural landscaping is the most effective and humane long-run solution. The Canadian government, for example, advises that airports - which in the United States are given the most leeway for killing the geese and destroying nests - use an ecological approach: "Geese, like other waterfowl, are attracted to habitats that meet their basic needs ... Habitat modification is the best overall approach to long-term bird control." Riverkeepers point to revegetating our shorelines as the most effective, cost-efficient and sustainable way to encourage geese to resume their migratory habits.
  
  Habitat modification guides available from the Animal Alliance of Canada (the Canadian government participated) provide suggestions for restoring landscapes. Geese are discouraged when vistas are blocked by strategic placement of shrubs, grasses, wildflower meadows, gates, fences and natural barriers.
  
  It's also important to remember that the geese pose virtually no health threat to humans. In 1999, the National Wildlife Health Center, which is part of the U.S. Geological Survey, studied 12 sites in Massachusetts, New Jersey and Virginia to determine if organisms that may cause human disease are present in geese feces. The federal researchers reported that risk to humans was "minimal."
  
  On the other hand, besides encouraging the geese to migrate, restoring more of the natural landscape can reduce our dependence on pesticides, improve soil, air and water quality and make Long Island a more naturally beautiful place to live.

• 09/20/2006:  Rare migrational birds electrocuted, Newsday
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

  ---

  
  

  September 20, 2006, 10:39 AM EDT
  
  BALLSTON, N.Y. -- Eight rare birds were killed Friday after flying into power lines in upstate New York.
  
  The Hudsonian Godwits were likely migrating from breeding grounds in the Hudson Bay tundra of Canada to South America when they flew into the high-power lines in Saratoga County, said state Department of Environmental Conservation wildlife pathologist Ward Stone.
  
  Seven of the birds were already dead when DEC employees arrived to collect them. The eighth bird was treated but later died of its injuries. The birds were among a flock of 40 spotted flying near a cluster of small lakes.
  
  Stone said that in his 37 years as a pathologist, he'd never seen the rare shorebirds before. Only about 50,000 Hudsonian Godwits are believed left in the world. They are found in only five different breeding areas in North America, including the southern and western coasts of Alaska and two sites along the Hudson Bay in Ontario and Manitoba. They migrate to Argentina during the northern winter.
  
  The birds are usually about 13 inches long, and are characterized by a long, slender, upturned bill used to probe for insects in mud. They have a white rump and dark tail, with black and white wings.
  
  The dead birds tested negative for avian influenza and West Nile disease, said Stone, who sent tissues to the National Wildlife Health Center for more testing. Officials there had also never seen the species before, he said. One of the dead birds will be preserved for the New York State Museum's bird collection.

• 09/03/2006:  'Eradication zones' prove ineffective, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

  ---

  
  

  
  
  By Bob Frye
  
  TRIBUNE-REVIEW OUTDOORS EDITOR
  
  Sunday, September 3, 2006
  
  Hunters believe their wildlife management agency has betrayed them. It's promoting the killing of too many deer, especially does. It's bent on ruining the state's deer hunting traditions.
  
  Sound like Pennsylvania? Try Wisconsin.
  
  When officials with that state's Department of Natural Resources officials found chronic wasting disease in their wild deer herd in 2002, they embarked on an aggressive strategy. The plan was to have hunters lower deer densities in so-called "eradication zones" from 35 to about five deer per square mile. The hope was that, if deer numbers were knocked back for a while, the disease would essentially wither away.
  
  There's been one problem. Hunters haven't been able or willing to do the job.
  
  After spending $30 million, offering dramatically longer seasons, and mandating programs that required hunters to shoot does in order to "earn" a buck tag, Wisconsin has just about as many, if not more, deer in its eradication zone now than it did before, according to surveys done this past winter.
  
  "All we can say right now is that we don't seem to have made that much progress over the last few years," said Alan Crossley, CWD project leader for the Wisconsin DNR.
  
  The problem, according to Bob Holsman, an assistant professor of wildlife at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, is that hunters seemingly can't or won't shoot as many deer as it would take to meet the state's goals.
  
  Holsman surveyed hunters in Wisconsin over the course of the last year to see why that is. What he found is that many of them are more interested in seeing lots of deer than in being herd "managers." They don't want to shoot more deer than they can personally use in a season, especially if that's going to mean seeing fewer deer in the future, he said.
  
  At the same time, most aren't convinced that anyone can wipe out CWD. The potentially catastrophic risks of the disease seem too long-term to be of concern, too.
  
  "It's weird. It's almost as if hunters are more accepting of the disease than the (Wisconsin DNR) is," Holsman said.
  
  Wisconsin's experience could have implications here in Pennsylvania. Chronic wasting disease has not shown up here yet, but the state is very much at risk for getting it eventually, said Walt Cottrell, wildlife veterinarian for the Pennsylvania Game Commission.
  
  The state has a response plan to deal with CWD. Step one upon discovery of the disease in wild deer would be to determine how widespread and prevalent it is. Step two would be to establish a "suppression zone" and try to lower deer numbers enough to stop its spread.
  
  As the situation in Wisconsin suggests, however, there are no guarantees that will work, at least if you're counting on hunters alone, Cottrell said.
  
  "The only conclusion you can draw from all of the human dimension research that's been done is Wisconsin is that it doesn't appear the hunting public can be used as the only tool to bring deer densities down to the point where suppression is effective," Cottrell said.
  
  It's likely that the commission would have to rely on sharpshooters, too, he said.
  
  That might not work either, said Bryan Richards, CWD project leader for the USGS National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis. But states need to try something.
  
  "There's no indication anywhere that this disease has gotten as bad as it's going to get," Richards said.
  
  Bob Frye can be reached at bfrye@tribweb.com or (724) 838-5148.

• 08/30/2006:  Modifying the landscape can entice Canada geese to move on, Asbury Park Press
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

  ---

  
  

  Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 08/30/06
  
  BY SUSAN RUSSELL
  
  In response to the Aug. 25 article "Canada geese blamed for swimming bans at Shore lakes." In nature, no creature, especially man, exists in a vacuum. Results will follow cause.
  
  Canada geese respond to injurious human landscaping practices and government and private waterfowl restocking programs. The leading federal researchers agree: The birds pose no human health threat.
  
  The facts beg one question: When our actions, appetites or whims have consequences for other species, how should we respond?
  
  Landscaping. Simple landscapes mowed turf grass near water, open vistas play havoc with the Canada geese's migratory and nesting instincts. Protective parents seek clear, line-of-sight vistas that allow for ready identification of predators.
  
  The local park/pond/playground combo and the home association's manicured pond are neon vacancy signs for nesting geese. The ecological hitch: These structurally simple landscapes are not indigenous to the Northeast. Scientists say that nesting geese are an ecological symptom, not the disease. Denuded of native vegetation and wildlife, poorly landscaped parks are the biological equivalent of an indoor swimming pool.
  
  Experts advise that natural landscaping is the answer. "Geese, like other waterfowl, are attracted to habitats that meet their basic needs," notes Transport Canada. "Habitat modification is the best overall approach to long-term bird control."
  
  "Communities that no longer enjoy the company of geese need to withdraw their invitation," writes the Delaware Riverkeeper. "Anger, stone throwing, scare tactics, use of dogs and egg addling are neither the right nor the most effective response. The most effective, sustainable and cost beneficial way to force geese to move on, to continue their migration, is to revegetate our stream banks and shorelines."
  
  Ecological restoration can reduce pesticide dependence, improve immediate soil, air and water quality, promote a desired natural aesthetic, and restore habitat for humans and wildlife.
  
  Diagrammed habitat modification guides provide managers with practical principles for landscape restoration. Limited restoration improves and beautifies landscapes for many species, including humans. Modification for geese means blocking vistas by strategic placement of shrubs, grasses, wildflowers, gates, fences, natural barriers and replanting banks.
  
  Health. In 1999, the National Wildlife Health Center studied 12 sites in Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Virginia to determine if organisms that may cause human disease are present in goose feces. The federal researchers reported:
  
  Low frequency of positive cultures indicate that risk to humans of disease through contact with Canada geese feces appeared to be minimal at the four sites in Massachusetts, New Jersey and Virginia during the summer and early fall of 1999.
  
  In May 2005, Kathryn Converse, lead author of the study, told The Greenwich Time that health claims are unfounded: "My feeling is if they want to remove the geese, they should be upfront, honest with why they don't want them there. I personally have never seen an article through a medical journal or the Centers for Disease Control that linked an episode of human health to Canada geese."
  
  The New Jersey Department of Health wrote, "A number of beach closings, including several in New Jersey, have been attributed to this cause (high fecal coliform counts attributed to Canada geese). However, research on this subject (including some surveillance conducted in New Jersey) has usually found very low levels of pathogenic bacteria such as Salmonella sp. in the feces of waterfowl not exposed to human sewage effluent."
  
  Goose farming. Conflicts between ongoing federal breeding programs to support shooting and suburban sprawl need to be addressed. Public or private "waterfowl production areas" at wildlife refuges and shooting preserves are a wellspring for greater numbers of geese seen locally and statewide.
  
  The upshot, as demonstrated from Maryland to New Jersey to Illinois, is that farmed geese, raised as livestock, leave refuges, only to arrive at parks, farms or golf courses where they are not wanted. And where they are often killed as pests.
  
  If appropriate landscape restoration is essential, education fostering respect and appreciation for native wildlife is equally so. Both begin to reconcile society's stated ecological concerns with our actions, particularly in our own back yard. Most people already live peaceably with Canada geese.
  
  A true ecological ethic transcends farming wildlife for commercial gunning, and means more than the self-interest of purchasing green cleaning products. This is especially true on the heels of deer and goose management debacles, for which deer and geese pay the highest price.
  
  Facts, not ignorance, should contribute to a wider understanding and a fully informed response to wildlife buffeted by both management and sprawl.
  
  Susan Russell, Little Silver, was a lobbyist for New Jersey's laws banning steel-jaw traps and the importation of wild, exotic birds for the pet trade.

• 08/30/2006:  K-State Scientists Watching Avian Flu Developments, Cattle Network.com
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

  ---

  
  

  MANHATTAN, Kan. Amid high gas prices, kids returning to school and terrorist threats, avian flu may not be foremost on the minds of most Americans, but Kansas State University scientists are keeping a watchful eye on developments of the virus.
  
  While birds and in some cases humans have contracted the disease in Asia, Africa and Europe, no birds or humans have tested positive for the high-pathogenic form of avian influenza H5N1 in North America to date, said Kansas State University Research and Extension veterinarian Larry Hollis.
  
  Many scientists who are following this believe its likely that the higher pathogenic strain could arrive in North America and the High Plains late this summer or fall, Hollis said.
  
  They expect the virus will arrive in migrating birds from countries where untold numbers of birds have died naturally or have been destroyed because of the virus.
  
  The U.S. Department of Agriculture has been testing birds near the Arctic Circle this summer, with no positive nesting or migrating birds detected. As the southern migration began, the USDA in cooperation with state agencies announced in mid-August that it it has expanded its surveillance program of wild birds into the lower 48 states.
  
  Two mute swans in Michigan this summer were found to have a lower-pathogenic form of the H5 and N1 viruses that previously have existed in the United States. This form has not been associated with any recent bird deaths or human health problems.
  
  Avian influenza in general is not new to birds or the poultry industry, Hollis said. The U.S. government and commercial poultry industry have had controls in place for years to make sure that birds infected with any influenza strain do not reach consumers.
  
  Its also important to keep in mind that the current strain of avian flu (H5N1) that people are concerned with is transmitted primarily between bird species, Hollis said.
  
  Since 2003, however, the World Health Organization has reported 241 cases of humans infected by the H5N1 virus worldwide. Of those infected, 141 have died, according to the U.S. government Web site devoted to the subject (http://www.avianflu.gov/). So far, most human infections have resulted from direct contact with infected birds.
  
  Scientists are concerned that if the H5N1 virus develops the ability to transfer easily between humans, it could spread quickly around the world, potentially causing a human influenza pandemic.
  
  Because wild bird migratory patterns suggest that avian flu will reach the United States and the Great Plains this fall, anyone with chickens, ducks or other backyard birds should familiarize themselves with the symptoms of avian flu and be prepared to contact their veterinarian or Kansas Animal Health Department personnel, Hollis said. That also holds true for larger scale poultry producers.
  
  In addition to the http://www.avianflu.gov/ Web site, information about avian flu and its possible effect on birds and humans is available at county and district K-State Research and Extension offices and on such Web sites as the National Wildlife Health Centers at http://www.nwhc.usgs.gov/disease_information/avian_influenza , the Kansas Department of Health and Environments at http://www.kdheks.gov/flu/pandemic_influenza.htm and K-State Research and Extensions at http://www.avianflu.ksu.edu .

• 08/29/2006:  Biologists Test for Bird Flu in Alaska, Associated Press
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  By H. JOSEF HEBERT
  
  The Associated Press
  
  Tuesday, August 29, 2006; 6:42 PM
  
  BARROW, Alaska -- Hundreds of miles above the Arctic Circle, biologists working in the frosty marshes of Alaska's North Slope are keeping a lookout for migratory birds that might bring a deadly avian flu strain to the United States.
  
  Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, visiting a bird nesting site outside Barrow, reported Tuesday that 13,000 bird samples have been tested. While some less virulent forms of the flu were found, there has been no sign of the deadly H5N1 strain, linked to the death of at least 141 people, mostly in Asia.
  
  "I think it's going very well," Kempthorne told The Associated Press after he helped a volunteer biologist gather a test sample from a young Dunin shorebird at a site on Beaufort Sea, near the northernmost point in the United States.
  
  The fowl offspring's parents likely flew here from Japan or Korea, Audrey Taylor, the volunteer, told Kempthorne.
  
  Deborah Rocque, the bird flu testing coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Alaska, said the program is concentrating on testing on the North Slope and the Yukon Delta. Both are areas where tens of thousands of migratory birds nest in the summer after arriving from Asia.
  
  "Some go straight back to Asia and some go right down the Pacific Flyway," Rocque said.
  
  Kempthorne, making his first visit to Alaska's North Slope, was to take a helicopter tour later Tuesday over Lake Teshekpuk, an environmentally sensitive region where the department is putting oil leases up for sale despite protests from conservationists.
  
  He said he has no plans to postpone the lease sale, scheduled for late September and that he believes the restrictions on drilling will protect wildlife, including caribou and nesting birds.
  
  "It is a national petroleum reserve. That's what the reserve is," Kempthorne said of the vast area west of the Prudhoe Bay oil fields. The area was set aside in 1923 for its energy resource, but there has been no production to date.
  
  Amid the lagoons and wetlands that dot the miles of Alaska tundra, hundreds of thousands of wild birds _ geese, swans, mallards and loons _ have been nesting on the North Slope, preparing for their annual flight south in the coming weeks.
  
  Biologists wonder whether some of the globe-trotting fowl might carry the deadly bird flu virus that was discovered nearly a decade ago in Asia and since has hopped continents, surfacing in Africa, Europe and the Middle East. More than 180 people have been infected, and at least 141 have died from the virus, and 200 million birds, mostly poultry, have been destroyed to contain the disease.
  
  The Fish and Wildlife Service and the Agriculture Department have been testing bird samples since April, concentrating on Alaska where the first sign of the highly pathogenic form of the bird flu virus might surface.
  
  Interior officials said Tuesday that of the 13,000 samples taken so far, 113 birds tested positive "to some form of influenza" that poses no threat to humans. But no evidence of the more potent H5N1 strain has been found. Biologists expected coming across low-level flu samples since there are 144 subtypes of bird flu, most of which are not harmful to humans.
  
  The Alaska studies have targeted 26 species because their migratory patterns are most likely to meet the H5N1 strain before arriving in Alaska.
  
  Wherever the disease has spread to humans, it has been through people's direct contact with the birds, mostly in Asia involving poultry. While no transfer of the bird flu among humans has been documented, scientists fear it eventually could mutate and spread from person to person, causing a flu pandemic.
  
  The $29 million bird flu monitoring program hopes to test between 50,000 and 75,000 birds, said Dale Hall, head of the Fish and Wildlife Service. Earlier this month, the government announced that testing would be expanded to cover the entire nation.
  
  Biologists test tissue samples or feces of both live birds, who are tagged and then released, and of dead birds brought in by hunters.
  
  The test samples are sent to a laboratory in Madison, Wis., and those showing an h5 strain are sent to the Agriculture Department lab in Ames, Iowa, to determine if it might have the highly dangerous form. Nine samples containing the H5 strain have been sent to Ames, but none was found to have the H5N1 virus, Rocque said.

• 08/27/2006:  Avian Flu Detection Information On Wild Birds Now Available, Medical News Today
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  The public can now view a Web site showing current information about wild bird sampling for early detection of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in the United States: http://wildlifedisease.nbii.gov/ai/. Scientists are now using the newly developed database and Web application called HEDDS (HPAI Early Detection Data System) to share information on sample collection sites, bird species sampled, and test results.
  
  The database is available to agencies, organizations, and policymakers involved in avian influenza monitoring and response. Scientists will use the data to assess risk and refine monitoring strategies should HPAI be detected in the United States. Public access is more limited, but shows the states where samples have been collected and includes numbers of samples collected from each state.
  
  HEDDS is a product of the federal government's NBII Wildlife Disease Information Node (WDIN) housed at the USGS National Wildlife Health Center. With financial support from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Geological Survey, and U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, and participation by State wildlife agencies, universities and nongovernmental organizations, the HEDDS Web site provides a current picture of where sampling has taken place and the results of testing. "HEDDS provides a critical comprehensive view of national sampling efforts at a time when the demand for this type of information is increasing, along with the growing interest in HPAI surveillance efforts in wild birds," said WDIN Project Leader Joshua Dein.
  
  Between April 1 and August 18, 2006, 9,590 samples from wild birds tested for avian influenza have been entered into HEDDS. Scientists have tested over 10,000 wild birds so far. No HPAI H5N1 has been detected to date. The Eurasian strain of H5N1 avian influenza virus has caused 141 human deaths elsewhere in the world, as well as the death of millions of domestic and wild birds. Low-pathogenicity strains of avian influenza are commonly found in waterfowl and shorebirds; such strains do not cause significant disease in wild birds or in people.
  
  Many federal, tribal, and state agencies are involved in the U.S. Government's national surveillance plan for the potential introduction of HPAI into the United States from wild birds. Within the federal government, the Department of the Interior (DOI) has the main responsibility for wild migratory birds and thus, the primary responsibility for HPAI in wild birds should these birds be found to be carriers of this disease.
  
  Since the release of the wild bird surveillance plan in March 2006, DOI and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have worked collaboratively with the four North American Migratory Bird Flyway Councils (Pacific, Central, Mississippi, and Atlantic) and many states to develop local and regional wild bird surveillance plans. As part of the surveillance and early detection effort, HEDDS will show sample numbers in each state where testing occurs. Most current testing is in Alaska where many of the wild bird species targeted for surveillance nest.
  
  Sampling has begun in many of the lower 48 states and will continue as birds begin migrating south from their northern nesting grounds. Data from three of the wild bird surveillance plan's five strategies for early detection of HPAI are now viewable on HEDDS: sample numbers from (1) live wild birds tested, (2) subsistence hunter-killed birds, and (3) investigations of sick and dead wild birds. The other two strategies are: (4) surveillance of domestic birds as sentinel species; and (5) environmental sampling of water and wild bird droppings.
  
  ###
  
  The National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) http://www.nbii.gov/ is a broad, collaborative program to provide increased access to data and information on the nation's biological resources. The NBII links diverse, high-quality biological databases, information products, and analytical tools maintained by NBII partners and other contributors in government agencies, academic institutions, non-government organizations, and private industry. A fact sheet with more detailed information about HEDDS is available at http://wildlifedisease.nbii.gov/ai/HEDDS_FactSheet.pdf.
  
  Contact: Gail Moede Rogall
  
  United States Geological Survey

• 08/26/2006:  Biologists monitor Oregon's sage grouse population for West Nile, KGW.com - Oregon AP Wire
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  benjs / Associated Press
  
  Wildlife officials have pinpointed the first known cases of West Nile Virus in Oregon's sage grouse, a population that has been under consideration for the threatened and endangered species list.
  
  The investigation began in early August, when a landowner near Burns Junction reported dead birds in a field, said Christian Hagen, sage grouse coordinator with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.
  
  U.S. Geological Survey biologists with the National Wildlife Health Center got to the property a few days later, and set up a systematic survey to look for dead birds, he said. They found three fresh carcasses that tested positive for the disease as well as more than 60 decomposed birds.
  
  Sage grouse are chicken-like birds that can grow to be 30 inches long and have pointed tails, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. They live in areas dominated by sagebrush, and in Oregon are mostly found in the southeast part of the state.
  
  When the virus infects birds it gets into their nervous system, said Colin Gillin, the state wildlife veterinarian with the department. The virus then causes encephalitis and meningitis, or inflammation of the nervous system and the brain, he said.
  
  Sage grouse seem to have a very high mortality rate when exposed to West Nile, with about 90 percent of infected birds dying from it and symptoms showing up within five to seven days, Gillin said.
  
  The virus first showed up in Oregon in 2004, he said, and has since been found in crows, ravens and scrub-jays as well as humans and horses.
  
  Since 2004, biologists have been tracking sage grouse in the Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge in Southern Oregon, Hagen said. They have taken about 200 blood samples, all of which were negative for the West Nile virus or antibodies to the virus, he said.
  
  The Fish and Wildlife Department is considering different options for the sage grouse two-weekend hunting season this year, which is scheduled for September. One option could include asking hunters to send in a blood sample from birds they killed that would be tested for the virus.
  
  Oregon's sage grouse population is "in pretty good shape" overall, Hagen said. This spring, the population was at approximately 35,000, he said, which was an approximately 5 percent decrease from the year before, when the population was at the highest it has been in a decade or so.
  
  In 2005, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined that sage grouse didn't need protection under the Endangered Species Act, but the director of the agency said that there was a need to promote the conservation of the birds and their habitat.
  
  Throughout the West, sage grouse have lost about half of their habitat over the last century or so, Hagen said, but in Oregon the habitat area has dropped by about one-third.
  
  Still, the population in Oregon has been stable since 1981, he said, and has shown an increasing trend since the mid-1990s.
  
  ___
  
  Information from: The Bulletin, http://www.bendbulletin.com

• 08/25/2006:  New web tool tracks H5N1 testing of US wild birds, CIDRAP News
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

  ---

  
  

  The US government announced yesterday the launch of a Web site that allows the public to view current information about testing of wild birds for H5N1 avian influenza.
  
  The site, available at http://wildlifedisease.nbii.gov/ai/, is part of a database and Web application housed at the US Geological Survey (USGS) National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis., according to a press release yesterday from the USGS. The Web application, called HEDDS (Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Early Detection Data System), allows scientists to share information on sample collection sites, bird species sampled, and test results.
  
  "HEDDS provides a critical comprehensive view of national sampling efforts at a time when the demand for this type of information is increasing, along with the growing interest in HPAI surveillance efforts in wild birds," said project leader Joshua Dein, VMD, MS, of the USGS Wildlife Health Center.
  
  The national wild-bird surveillance plan, released in March 2006, is part of US efforts to prepare for a potential flu pandemic. The plan includes five strategies for early detection of highly pathogenic avian influenza. Sample numbers from three of these will be available on HEDDS: live wild birds, subsistence hunter-killed birds, and investigations of sick and dead wild birds. The other two strategies involve domestic bird testing and environmental sampling of water and wild-bird droppings.
  
  Agencies, organizations, and policymakers involved in avian flu monitoring and response can access the database. Scientists can use the data to assess risk and refine monitoring strategies if H5N1 avian flu is detected in the United States. Public access is more limited but includes a map showing the number of samples collected in each state.
  
  The 2006 surveillance year runs from April 1, 2006, to March 31, 2007. So far this year, 9,590 wild-bird samples have been entered into HEDDS. No cases of H5N1 have been detected. Most of the samples are from Alaska because it is the first US stopover for birds from Asia and other continents where the H5N1 virus is present. Federal officials announced on Aug 9 that surveillance efforts had expanded to the lower 48 states, Hawaii, and other Pacific islands.
  
  A map on the new USGS site shows that 9,327 birds from Alaska have been tested so far this year, with only a few from most other states. Last year officials tested just 721 birds from Alaska and none from most other states, another map shows.
  
  The goal of the surveillance program for 2006 is to collect 75,000 to 100,000 samples from wild birds and 50,000 environmental samples, officials have said.
  
  HEDDS was produced by the National Biological Information Infrastructure Wildlife Disease Information Node, part of the USGS National Wildlife Center. Several agencies are financially supporting the system, including the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the USGS, and the US Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Participants include state wildlife agencies, universities, and nongovernmental organizations.
  
  See also:
  
  Aug 24 USGS press release on Web site tracking H5N1 testing of wild birds
  
  http://wildlifedisease.nbii.gov/ai/index.jsp
  
  Aug 9 CIDRAP News story "US's wild bird H5N1 monitoring expands beyond Alaska"

• 08/24/2006:  Bird flu detection information on wild birds now available online, News-Medical.Net - Disease/Infection News
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

  ---

  
  

  The public can now view a Web site showing current information about wild bird sampling for early detection of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in the United States.
  
  Scientists are now using the newly developed database and Web application called HEDDS (HPAI Early Detection Data System) to share information on sample collection sites, bird species sampled, and test results.
  
  The database is available to agencies, organizations, and policymakers involved in avian influenza monitoring and response. Scientists will use the data to assess risk and refine monitoring strategies should HPAI be detected in the United States. Public access is more limited, but shows the states where samples have been collected and includes numbers of samples collected from each state.
  
  HEDDS is a product of the federal government?s NBII Wildlife Disease Information Node (WDIN) housed at the USGS National Wildlife Health Center. With financial support from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Geological Survey, and U.S. Department of Agriculture?s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, and participation by State wildlife agencies, universities and nongovernmental organizations, the HEDDS Web site provides a current picture of where sampling has taken place and the results of testing. "HEDDS provides a critical comprehensive view of national sampling efforts at a time when the demand for this type of information is increasing, along with the growing interest in HPAI surveillance efforts in wild birds," said WDIN Project Leader Joshua Dein.
  
  Between April 1 and August 18, 2006, 9,590 samples from wild birds tested for avian influenza have been entered into HEDDS. Scientists have tested over 10,000 wild birds so far. No HPAI H5N1 has been detected to date. The Eurasian strain of H5N1 avian influenza virus has caused 141 human deaths elsewhere in the world, as well as the death of millions of domestic and wild birds. Low-pathogenicity strains of avian influenza are commonly found in waterfowl and shorebirds; such strains do not cause significant disease in wild birds or in people.
  
  Many federal, tribal, and state agencies are involved in the U.S. Government?s national surveillance plan for the potential introduction of HPAI into the United States from wild birds. Within the federal government, the Department of the Interior (DOI) has the main responsibility for wild migratory birds and thus, the primary responsibility for HPAI in wild birds should these birds be found to be carriers of this disease.
  
  Since the release of the wild bird surveillance plan in March 2006, DOI and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have worked collaboratively with the four North American Migratory Bird Flyway Councils (Pacific, Central, Mississippi, and Atlantic) and many states to develop local and regional wild bird surveillance plans. As part of the surveillance and early detection effort, HEDDS will show sample numbers in each state where testing occurs. Most current testing is in Alaska where many of the wild bird species targeted for surveillance nest.
  
  Sampling has begun in many of the lower 48 states and will continue as birds begin migrating south from their northern nesting grounds. Data from three of the wild bird surveillance plan?s five strategies for early detection of HPAI are now viewable on HEDDS: sample numbers from (1) live wild birds tested, (2) subsistence hunter-killed birds, and (3) investigations of sick and dead wild birds. The other two strategies are: (4) surveillance of domestic birds as sentinel species; and (5) environmental sampling of water and wild bird droppings.
  
  The National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) is a broad, collaborative program to provide increased access to data and information on the nation?s biological resources. The NBII links diverse, high-quality biological databases, information products, and analytical tools maintained by NBII partners and other contributors in government agencies, academic institutions, non-government organizations, and private industry. A fact sheet with more detailed information about HEDDS is available at http://wildlifedisease.nbii.gov/ai/HEDDS_FactSheet.pdf
  
  http://wildlifedisease.nbii.gov/ai/

• 08/24/2006:  State shorebirds tested for avian flu virus, WBAY-TV Green Bay-Fox Cities-Northeast Wisconsin News
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  MADISON, Wis. The state Department of Natural Resources is sampling shorebirds around Wisconsin for a deadly avian flu virus.
  
  A similar testing project involving birds from Alaska is underway at the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison.
  
  The center has tested nearly ten-thousand samples from live birds in Alaska since late May, with new shipments arriving every week.
  
  Neither testing project has detected the virus that's devastated the bird population in Asia and Europe.
  
  State biologists are testing sandpipers, plovers and other shorebirds at five sites in Wisconsin. D-N-R wildlife health specialist Julie Langenberg says the sampling will continue for several weeks.
  
  Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

• 08/23/2006:  State Birds Tested For Flu: Shorebirds From Wisconsin Are Being Sampled For The Deadly Virus, Wisconsin State Journal
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  DAVID WAHLBERG dwahlberg@madison.com 608-252-6125
  
  More Wisconsin efforts to look for bird flu are taking flight.
  
  As testing of samples from birds in Alaska nears its peak at the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, the state Department of Natural Resources has started sampling shorebirds around Wisconsin for the deadly H5N1 avian influenza virus.
  
  Neither project has detected the virus, which has devastated flocks in Asia and Europe. The virus has also killed 141 of the 240 people known to be infected since late 2003, mostly in Southeast Asia, leading researchers to fear it could trigger a global pandemic of human flu.
  
  Similar flu viruses are showing up in birds in the United States, a report from Michigan confirmed last week. Two wild swans on the shore of Lake Erie were found to have a low-grade version of H5N1 -- not a cause for alarm but a reason to remain vigilant, scientists say.
  
  "We want to keep watching for any indications that it is turning into a serious problem," said Hon Ip, who oversees the diagnostic virology lab at the National Wildlife Health Center off Schroeder Road.
  
  Low-grade H5N1 has been reported nine times before in North America, Ip said.
  
  In Wisconsin, state biologists started sampling sandpipers, plovers and other shorebirds at five sites late last month, said Julie Langenberg, veterinary wildlife health specialist with the state Department of Natural Resources.
  
  The samples are being tested at the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory on Mineral Point Road.
  
  The shorebirds are migrating south from Canada, Langenberg said. Some may have mixed with birds in Alaska that could have carried the problematic strain of H5N1 from China or Russia last spring, she said.
  
  The sampling, which will continue for several weeks, is part of a four-pronged effort to test 2,000 birds in Wisconsin this year, Langenberg said.
  
  Workers are also testing birds found dead throughout the state. They're taking samples from ducks banded for population studies that determine fall hunting quotas. And they'll ask hunters for samples from ducks and geese killed in large wetlands and along Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River.
  
  The project, funded by a $100,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, will likely find mild forms of flu in some birds, Langenberg said.
  
  But "we're not likely to be the first state to expose highly pathogenic H5N1," she said.
  
  That distinction is likely to go to Alaska or a state along the West Coast, according to Ip and his colleagues at the National Wildlife Health Center.
  
  Since late May, the center has tested nearly 10,000 samples from live birds in Alaska, with new shipments arriving every week.
  
  Samples also have recently started coming from Washington, Hawaii and other states. As birds migrate south this fall, the sampling will follow them, Ip said.
  
  About 1 percent to 2 percent of the birds tested have had some kind of flu or other virus, he said. Some test results have been serious enough to be sent to a USDA lab in Ames, Iowa, to rule out deadly H5N1, but none have been found to carry that ominous genetic label.
  
  "There doesn't seem to be a significant level of influenza in the live migratory birds at this time," Ip said. "If wild birds are exposed, it doesn't seem like they carry it a long distance."
  
  The center anticipates testing 20,000 more samples by December.
  
  Birds dying around the country from other suspected causes are also being tested at the center for H5N1, said Christopher Brand, chief of field and lab research.
  
  Such testing has been done on shorebirds from Utah with botulism, grouse from Idaho with West Nile virus and cormorants from Pilot Island in Wisconsin's Door County thought to have a paramyxovirus, related to viruses in humans that can cause mumps and measles.
  
  "Even if we know they probably died from something else, we're testing for avian influenza so it can't creep in on us," Brand said.
  
  Meanwhile, the center's Hawaii field station is keeping close track of human cases of bird flu in Indonesia.
  
  Some of the recent cases and deaths haven't been far from Guam and other U.S. territories. That means such an island could end up being the first official U.S. entity to harbor deadly H5N1.
  
  "That's dangerously close," Brand said.

• 08/23/2006:  Virus in bird creates dangerous illusion: Nature - A house finch appears to have two heads, but experts say that avian pox has caused it to have growth, The Oregonian
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  RICHARD L. HILL
  
  Brian Vattiat did a double-take when an odd-looking bird landed at a feeder in his father's backyard in Oregon City.
  
  From all appearances, the bird had two heads. Vattiat grabbed a camera and snapped photos as the bird pecked at the seeds.
  
  "I'm not a bird expert, but it definitely was strange," said Vattiat, 29, who was visiting late last month from Boston. "It looked like it only had one eye, with one head having feathers and the other side was smooth." The bird lingered briefly before it flew off.
  
  A new entry for "Ripley's Believe It or Not?"
  
  No, just a very sick bird, say several Oregon bird experts who saw the photos this week. They identified the bird as a young female house finch. It appeared to have a second head with a beak, but likely had an oddly shaped growth caused by a disease, they said.
  
  The diagnosis: a common bird ailment called avian pox.
  
  "Avian pox causes large lesions around the face and legs," said Bob Sallinger, a bird expert and urban conservation director for the Audubon Society of Portland. "Although the growth appears to have the outline of a skull, I think it is far more likely that it is a large growth that has become infected and ruptured."
  
  Sallinger said the Audubon's wildlife care facility sees several cases of avian pox each year. The disease is common in house finches, but it has been found in a wide variety of birds, including mourning doves, goldfinches, robins, starlings, crows and several game birds and songbirds. It has been diagnosed in pet canaries and parrots, and also in chickens and turkeys.
  
  Two veteran ornithologists, Stewart Janes at Southern Oregon University and Michael Murphy of Portland State University, agreed that the bird did not have two heads.
  
  "Wow, what a bizarre bird," said Janes, a biology professor, when he saw the photos. "But it looks like a growth from a disease. It probably won't live very long."
  
  Avian pox is caused by several strains of the pox virus and affects domestic and wild birds. It causes wartlike growths to appear around unfeathered skin such as the beak, eyes, lower legs and feet.
  
  The virus is spread through direct contact with infected birds, contact with contaminated perches and bird feeders, and water and food that has been contaminated by sick birds. There is no evidence of risk to humans from avian pox.
  
  The U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center said bird lovers can help curb avian pox and other diseases by regularly cleaning and disinfecting bird feeders. The center recommends using one part liquid household bleach in nine parts of tepid water -- a 10 percent solution -- to disinfect feeders.
  
  Sometimes stronger measures are advised, Sallinger said. "We typically recommend taking down feeders for several weeks if folks are seeing pox in species using their feeders in order to reduce transmission."
  
  Richard L. Hill: 503-221-8238; richardhill@news.oregonian.com

• 08/22/2006:  Sage grouse infected with West Nile: Dead birds found in Malheur County, News Channel 21
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  By KTVZ.com news sources
  
  SALEM - Three sage grouse found dead in Malheur County have been confirmed to be infected with West Nile Virus, the first diagnosis of the disease in sage grouse in Oregon, officials said Tuesday.
  
  The dead sage grouse were reported by a private landowner near Burns Junction and investigated by ODFW and U.S. Geological Survey biologists, who found three fresh sage grouse mortalities, more than 60 decomposed sage grouse and one sick northern harrier. The three sage grouse samples and the northern harrier were tested at the U.S. Geological S urve y's National Wildlife Health Center in Madison , Wis. and confirmed positive for the disease.
  
  A team of biologists from ODFW and USGS are now monitoring the area for additional mortalities and collecting blood samples from live sage grouse to test for the presence of WNV antibodies. The sage grouse mortality appears to be localized to an area near Burns Junction at this time.
  
  Since 2003, West Nile Virus has been detected in sage grouse in Wyoming , Colorado , Utah , Nevada , California and Idaho . The disease is usually fatal to sage grouse, resulting in death within six days of infection.
  
  Overall, Oregon 's sage grouse population remains healthy at about 35,000 birds. Most sage grouse are found in the southeast portion of the state, particularly Lake , Harney and Malheur counties.
  
  ODFW is requesting the assistance of the public, particularly landowners and pronghorn antelope hunters, in monitoring the disease and asks that dead sage grouse be reported or turned in to an ODFW office. Dead birds can be handled using gloves and an inverted plastic sack; the bird should then be placed in another plastic bag and the bag tied. Birds that cannot be promptly delivered to an ODFW office should be frozen to preserve for testing.

• 08/16/2006:  Something Is Killing The Ducks In Raleigh's Pullen Park, Raleigh Chronicle
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  From Staff and Wire Reports
  
  Wednesday, August 16, 2006
  
  RALEIGH -- After several ducks died at Raleigh's popular Pullen Park, the city says it launched an investigation and autopsies on the ducks. The preliminary results seem to show that the ducks died from botulism, but the park service is still investigating. The park is located between Western Boulevard and Hillsborough Street.
  
  There is probably no danger to humans from the situation, but park officials have closed the park's lake just to be safe including the paddle boat rentals for the lake.
  
  On August 8th, the City of Raleigh Parks and Recreation Department says it discovered ducks becoming were becoming ill in Lake Howell located in Pullen Park.
  
  Over the next three days a total of eleven ducks died, says the city and an investigation into the cause of death was launched.
  
  A total of three ducks (two dead and one live) were sent to the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Rollins Laboratory to undergo testing in order to explain what was killing the waterfowl, says the city.
  
  According to those preliminary tests, the results suggest the possibility that the ducks may have contracted botulism.
  
  "Botulism outbreaks occur generally from July through September," says a statement from the National Wildlife Health Center. "Decomposing vegetation combined with warm temperatures can provide ideal conditions for the botulism bacteria to activate and produce toxin.
  
  "Birds contract the toxin by either ingesting it directly or from eating invertebrates containing the toxin. People, dogs, and cats are generally thought to be resistant."
  
  A serum sample obtained from one of the affected ducks is being sent to another laboratory for confirmation. A final report is expected within three weeks. The water quality and health of the wildlife will continue to be monitored and access to the water will remain closed to the public, says the city. :::

• 08/13/2006:  Group cries foul over beach issue, The Republican
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  By TED LaBORDE
  
  tlaborde@repub.com
  
  SOUTHWICK - The Coalition to Prevent the Destruction of Canada Geese is crying foul over recent statements here indicating geese are to blame for closing the town beach because of high bacteria levels in the water last month.
  
  "It is not unusual to blame geese for problems like this," said Sharon P. Pawlak, the coalition's Northeast coordinator. "But, geese are blamed unfairly, and the public is being misled," she said.
  
  The town beach officially opened for the season July 20 but was closed less than a week later by Southwick Health Director Thomas J. Fitzgerald after water samples showed high levels of E. Coli bacteria.
  
  Fitzgerald, when asked for a theory on the cause of the high levels, said he believed it was caused by geese and other water fowl.
  
  He had noted more than a dozen geese and other waterfowl and birds on the beach while taking samples of the water prior to July 20.
  
  But, Pawlak said "without DNA testing it is unfair to blame geese. The bacteria could have been caused by anything."
  
  As a result the coalition is looking for Fitzgerald to retract his statement.
  
  Fitzgerald said last week he stands by his opinion. "Everyone it entitled to their opinion," he said.
  
  Pawlak, of Medford, N.J., said she has written to Fitzgerald requesting documentation of the cause of pollution at the beach. And, although she will not be there, a representative for the coalition will attend Thursday's Board of Health meeting to press the issue.
  
  William B. Davidson, of Chicopee, will detail the coalition's complaint to health board members at Thursday's meeting.
  
  "Mr. Fitzgerald has no base, no fact that geese are responsible," Davidson said. "The health director has a duty to the public to be specific."
  
  Richard T. Grannells, chairman of Southwick's Lake Management Committee, agreed with Fitzgerald and has repeatedly blamed geese for problems at Congamond Lakes, where the Town Beach is located.
  
  In 2002, voters at the annual May Town Meeting approved a bylaw that prohibits feeding of geese and ducks which includes a $50 fine for violation.
  
  That bylaw was adopted as part of the town's ongoing efforts to the lakes area free of Eurasian milfoil weed and other weed growth, Grannells said.
  
  Grannells has compiled an extensive file on Canada geese, based on state and federal studies that reflect several concerns about water quality when geese reside in the area.
  
  One reference Grannells referred to is a report by the National Wildlife Health Center that states: "Escherichia coli is a member of the fecal coliform group and is considered a normal inhabitant of intestinal track of all mammals and others, including Canada geese."

• 08/11/2006:  US's wild bird H5N1 monitoring expands beyond Alaska, Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Lisa Schnirring * Contributing Writer
  
  Aug 10, 2006 (CIDRAP News) US agriculture and interior secretaries announced yesterday that their departments are expanding wild bird monitoring for H5N1 avian influenza beyond Alaska in partnerships with the lower 48 states, Hawaii, and other Pacific islands.
  
  "Because we cannot control wild birds, our best protection is an early warning system, and this move to test thousands more wild birds throughout the country will help us to quickly identify, respond to, and control the virus if it arrives in the United States," said US Department of Agriculture (USDA) secretary Mike Johanns in a USDADepartment of Interior (DOI) press release yesterday.
  
  Scientists are not certain what role migratory birds play in transmitting the H5N1 virus.
  
  DOI secretary Dirk Kempthorne said joint federal and state testing programs will be important this fall when birds now nesting in Alaska and Canada begin migrating south through the continental United States.
  
  President Bush allocated $29 million in his 2006 fiscal year avian influenza supplemental package to cover the cost of implementing the wild bird monitoring component of the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza. Of the $17 million the UDSA received, $4 million has gone to states to expand wild bird monitoring. The remainder funds USDA sampling efforts, purchase of sampling kits, and analysis of bird and environmental samples.
  
  Of the $12 million that went to the DOI, about $2.4 million has gone to state agencies and other agencies for collecting wild bird samples. The rest of the DOI's allocation will fund DOI's sampling and analysis activities and a data management system for state-federal wild bird sampling efforts.
  
  Surveillance status in Alaska
  
  A surveillance program between the DOI and the State of Alaska has been under way since the summer of 2005. United States monitoring efforts began in Alaska because it is the first US stopover for birds from Asia and other continents where the H5N1 virus is present.
  
  In April, samples from Alaska began arriving for testing at the US Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center (NWHC) in Madison, Wis., center biologist Paul Slota told CIDRAP News. "We've screened about 7,000 samples from Alaska. We're on target with the number of samples we needed, so we're off to a good start. Next, we'll be working on samples from the lower 48 states," he said.
  
  Besides screening, the extra resources provided by the federal-state partnership has allowed the NWHC to do more mortality investigations than they could have done otherwise, he said. Screening has identified a fair number of influenza viruses, but none were H5N1, Slota said. Samples positive for H5 influenza are sent to the USDA's National Veterinary Services Laboratory (NVSL) in Ames, Iowa, to determine if they are H5N1. "The lab-to-lab relationship is going very well," he said.
  
  Wild bird monitoring goals
  
  A wild bird monitoring plan drawn up by several groups including the USDA, DOI, International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, National Association of Public Health Veterinarians, and the State of Alaska, is part of the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza, according to a March press release from the USDA, DOI, and the Department of Health and Human Services.
  
  The monitoring plan outlines five strategies for early detection of the H5N1 virus in wild migratory birds:
  
  * Investigation of disease outbreaks in wild birds
  
  * Expanded monitoring of live wild birds
  
  * Monitoring of hunter-killed birds
  
  * Use of sentinel animals, such as backyard poultry flocks
  
  * Environmental sampling of water and bird feces
  
  The goal of the USDA-DOI wild bird surveillance plan is to collect 75,000 to 100,000 samples from birds and 50,000 environmental samples. Since 1998 the USDA and the State of Alaska have tested more than 12,000 birds in Alaska, and since 2000 the USDA and the University of Georgia have tested almost 4,000 birds in the Atlantic flyway.
  
  Sampling locations in each state will depend on weather and habitat conditions during bird migration periods, the USDA-DOI press release noted. State and interagency groups will pinpoint sampling locations as migration occurs; likely locations include areas where large groups of birds congregate, such as public lands, private lands with property owner approval, and local areas such as ponds and city parks.
  
  According to an article on the testing plan from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW), 11,000 samples from live birds will be screened by the NWHC. The rest will be tested at labs certified by the USDA. Samples that test positive will be sent to the NVSL to determine if H5N1 is present.
  
  Western states launch testing
  
  Oregon and Washington are two of the states in the Pacific flyway, which is the focus of the next round of wild migratory bird screening.
  
  State and federal wildlife biologists will be testing wild birds in Oregon this summer and fall, said a Jun 19 press release from the ODFW. Wildlife authorities will collect samples from several species that are most likely to have been in contact with birds from Asia this summer in the Arctic. Oregon's detection plan will involve collecting about 4,000 samples from migratory shorebirds and waterfowl including pintails, mallards, green-winged teals, geese, and tundra swans.
  
  Live bird sampling began on Sauvie Island, in northwest Oregon near the Columbia River, in late June and will continue through September in six other wildlife management areas. Hunter-harvested birds will be sampled at check stations during hunting season, which runs from September through December. Fecal samples will be collected from June through January from such waterfowl gathering areas as wetlands, urban parks, and golf courses.
  
  In Washington, wildlife biologists began testing 2,500 wild birds in July, focusing on those most likely to have interacted with Asian migratory birds this summer, according to a Jun 13 press release from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW). The first areas tested were northern Puget Sound and coastal estuaries. Waterfowl testing will focus on pintails and mallards and when possible will include wigeons, green-winged teals, shovelers, and sea ducks. Shorebird testing will target Western sandpipers and dunlin, and when possible will include red knots and ruddy turnstones.
  
  The WDFW estimates that about 1 million geese, 12 million ducks, and 150,000 swans pass through the Pacific flyway each year, beginning in August, on their return from the Arctic. In addition, hundreds of thousands of autumn-migrating shorebirds arrive in Washington between July and October.
  
  See also:
  
  Aug 9 USDA-DOI press release expanding wild migratory bird testing beyond Alaska
  
  Mar 20 USDA-DOI press release on screening for H5N1 in migratory birds
  
  Article on avian flu from Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Web site
  
  http://www.dfw.state.or.us/avian-flu/
  
  Jun 19 ODFW press release on bird testing efforts for avian flu
  
  http://www.dfw.state.or.us/news/2006/june/022.asp
  
  Jun 13 WDFW press release on avian influenza surveillance plan
  
  http://www.wdfw.wa.gov/do/newreal/release.php?id=jun1306b
  
  
  
  Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy
  
  Academic Health Center -- University of Minnesota
  
  Copyright 2006 Regents of the University of Minnesota

• 08/09/2006:  Bird-flu testing migrates to California, USA Today
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Updated 8/9/2006 11:37 PM ET
  
  By John Ritter, USA TODAY
  
  NEWARK, Calif. The nervous little western sandpiper has seen a lot in its short life. Born in the Alaskan wilderness just weeks ago, it flew more than 2,000 miles, probably non-stop and without its parents, to the food-rich salt ponds here next to San Francisco Bay.
  
  Now the white-breasted juvenile, weighing less than an ounce, is getting a gentle work-over from biologists who are part of a vast network trying to learn if a deadly bird-flu virus plaguing Asia has arrived in the USA.
  
  The sandpiper, caught this week when it flew into a net slung across the mud on the pond's bank, is inspected, banded, measured and swabbed in its throat and rear end. A few feathers are pinched off and put in a plastic bag. The swab samples will be flash-frozen in vials, stored at minus-70 degrees and shipped with others to a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) lab in Madison, Wis.
  
  Tens of thousands of samples are arriving at Madison and labs in 36 states to be tested for the H5N1 virus, which has killed 138 people in nine Asian countries along with untold numbers of poultry since 2003. So far, none of the U.S. samples has tested positive.
  
  Shorebirds, species that feed and roost along beaches, estuaries, ponds and lakes, are the first arrivals in the contiguous 48 states from breeding grounds in Alaska, where they mingled this spring with birds from Asia and could have acquired the H5N1 virus. This fall, ducks, geese and other waterfowl, which migrate later, will get the same attention.
  
  "The bay is hugely important to shorebirds," says Nils Warnock, co-director of the wetlands program for PRBO Conservation Science, a non-profit research group working with geological survey biologists. Up to half the world's 4 million western sandpipers, to name just one species, stop here sometime during the year, Warnock says.
  
  Daily counts in the spring have found as many as 1 million sandpipers here at a time, he says.
  
  'Beautiful habitat for shorebirds'
  
  Thousands of acres of artificial ponds built more than a century ago to harvest salt line the bay. A few ponds are still producing salt, many are being restored to marshes, and some will be retained because of their value to shorebirds. Birds retreat to the ponds to feed when the tide comes in and covers mud flats along the bay shores.
  
  "People fly over these salt ponds and think, my God, it's terrible, but it's beautiful habitat for shorebirds big, wide-open, lots of food like brine flies and brine shrimp," Warnock says.
  
  August brought the first shorebirds here along the Pacific Flyway and three other continental flyways, or corridors, that define migration routes to and from breeding grounds in Alaska and sometimes Siberia. Federal and state teams are also sampling in the Central, Mississippi and Atlantic flyways.
  
  U.S. scientists plan to sample 100,000 wild birds by year's end. The team here, with a quota of 1,000-1,200 shorebirds, has logged 106 so far. One day this week, with light winds that didn't rustle nets enough for the birds to see them well, the team gathered 48 samples.
  
  They came from two of three "targeted" species, western sandpiper and long-billed dowitcher. Dunlins, the third target, don't arrive until October. Short-billed dowitchers, which hang out with their long-billed cousins, and semipalmated plovers also flew into the net and were sampled.
  
  "Given that the dowitchers' life histories are so similar, we're sampling both in our early-detection program," USGS lead biologist Sam Iverson says.
  
  The Pacific Flyway isn't confined to the coast. Birds fly from the Arctic and winter in the agricultural Central Valley, along the western Great Basin on the east side of the Sierra Nevada, even in Idaho, Utah and Arizona. San Diego Bay is another important shorebird habitat. Birds range south into Baja, Mexico, and sometimes as far as Chile. Sampling is also underway in coastal Oregon and Washington, particularly Puget Sound.
  
  Because so many wild birds come to California, the state's $2.5 billion-a-year poultry industry is closely monitoring the sampling. "We're pretty confident that it's going to continue to be just a bird disease, not a people disease," says Bill Mattos of the California Poultry Federation. "But our bio-security measures are pretty strong right now."
  
  Extensive sampling of birds that flew south from Europe to Africa last fall, then back to Europe this spring yielded no positive results, despite the disease being confirmed in Africa. So far, the same pattern holds in North America.
  
  Not captives for long
  
  "It adds to the mystery of just how much wild birds are involved in the spread of this disease," says Christopher Brand, chief at the Madison lab. "We suspect it's present in live wild birds, but we can't confirm it in samples."
  
  Since an infected wild bird "sheds," or overcomes, the virus in a few days, it's possible that infected Asian birds were clear of H5N1 by the time they reached Alaskan breeding grounds.
  
  The risk to humans from an infected wild bird is thought to be slight, though biologists, wearing gloves and masks, take no chances. Human deaths from bird flu so far have been of people slaughtering or in close contact with infected poultry. Scientists believe the virus would have to mutate before human-to-human transmission is possible.
  
  As for the sampled birds, their five to 10 minutes as captives leaves them no worse for the wear. They suffer short-term stress, and the biggest concern is when a bird lands low in a net, drops into the water and drowns.
  
  "They lose a little bit of weight immediately after sampling, then they're good to go," Warnock says.

• 07/27/2006:  ON BORDER PATROL, NATURE
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  The United States has embarked on a huge effort to try to track the H5N1 avian flu virus in birds migrating into the country. But is surveillance more urgently needed elsewhere? Erika Check reports.
  
  On a Sunday afternoon in June, graduate student Brad Comstock is standing on the flat, soggy tundra at the edge of the Bering Sea. He surveys the network of shallow ponds stretching out in front of him, and the vast delta reaching to the horizon beyond. Nestled down along the shores of the ponds are dozens of large, migratory sea ducks called eiders. Each bird is settled on a down-lined nest holding eggs that are just days away from hatching.The air is filled with the sound of eiders honking to each other over the constant, whistling wind.
  
  This is eider heaven, Comstock says.
  
  But he is about to stir up trouble in paradise.
  
  Carrying a fishing net and a backpack full of test-tubes and cotton swabs, he creeps towards one of the nests. At the last moment, he hurls the net towards a mother eider. She jumps to evade him, but too late; her wings flap angrily as the net ensnares her.
  
  Comstock rushes in, extracts the offended bird and turns her upside down. He runs a cotton swab across her cloaca to take a faeces sample, then drops the swab in a test-tube. The sample will be held briefly at a nearby camp, then shipped to the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wisconsin, where technicians will test it for the H5N1 avian influenza virus.
  
  The 7.7 million hectares of the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska may seem like heaven to eiders. But to the US government, it is the frontline in the battle to protect the country from the deadly bird flu virus.
  
  Comstock is part of a massive effort to track the possible entry of H5N1 into the United States. Since 2003, the virus, a more lethal strain than the flu viruses that normally infect birds, has rampaged through the rest of the world. More than 200 million poultry have died of H5N1 or have been culled to prevent its spread since 2004; 132 people have died after catching the virus from close relatives or directly from birds. So far, the virus hasnt learned how to jump efficiently from person to person. But public-health officials fear that if it does, a pandemic could follow, killing millions of people.
  
  The US government is worried about wild birds because the country is linked directly to Asia where H5N1 first appeared throughtwo overlapping migratory bird flyways (see map). Every year, birds such as pintails, eiders,
  
  ducks, godwits and geese cross from Asia over the Bering Sea into Alaska. These birds mingle with other migrating groups at breeding and wintering grounds in Russia and western Alaska. No one knows which of them might be carrying H5N1, or whether the virus might leap from such a carrier into people or into the $29-billion poultry industry of the United States.
  
  This year, the US departments of agriculture and the interior will lead a $29 million effort to test wild birds forH5N1 and other avian flu viruses in Alaska and other parts of the United States. Were at the nexus of bird migration from the Canadian Arctic to Russia and southeast Asia, says Rober Leedy, chief of the US Fish and Wildlife Services office of migratory bird management in Anchorage, Alaska. If H5N1 is going to be transferred in wild birds, the most likely avenue is Alaska."
  
  Crossing continents
  
  But some scientists have reservations about the testing programme. Many flu experts think poultry smuggling or imports, rather than migrating birds, are far more likely to bring in the virus. And others point out that its still not clear how or whether wild birds contribute to H5N1 outbreaks in domestic poultry. Given these uncertainties, some question the decision to spend millions of dollars hunting for flu in Alaska, when the H5N1 virus is already racing across the rest of the globe. More information is always better, so you cant complain about that, says William Karesh, director of the Wildlife Conservation Societys Field Veterinary Program based in New York City.
  
  But its much more important to go where the disease is in the developing countries, to see how this thing is spreading.
  
  Until last year, no one thought that migratory birds played any serious role in the spread of H5N1. But in July 2005, a team of virologists reported that some 6,000 migratory birds had died of an H5N1 outbreak at the Qinghai Lake
  
  nature reserve in China1. Many of the dead birds were bar-headed geese, which fly from China to India and Myanmar every year. Since that report, the H5N1 strain has been found in dead migratory birds in Asia, Russia, Europe,
  
  Africa and the Middle East. Four people even died from bird flu after collecting feathers from infected wild swans in Azerbaijan2. So what role do migratory birds play in spreading H5N1around the world?
  
  Genetic studies may help to answer this question. This May, Ian Brown of the United Kingdoms Veterinary Laboratories Agency in Weybridge revealed that H5N1 viruses taken from dead wild birds in Europe are very similar to H5N1 viruses found in Mongolia, Siberia and Qinghai Lake. Scientists have also reported that healthy birds in China were carrying the H5N1 strain just before their autumn migration last year3. That suggests the birds could have
  
  caused the outbreak of the virus in Europe last autumn, by carrying it to the continent from east Asia.
  
  Other studies have implied that wild birds shuttled the virus between Europe and Africa, where H5N1 first showed up in February. A team of researchers recently suggested that migrating birds may have transmitted H5N1 to
  
  Nigeria, the first African country to report the virus4. The scientists sequenced genes from bird flu viruses found in chickens on poultry farms.
  
  They discovered that many of the viruses, which seemed to cluster into three genetic groups, were similar to those found on other continents, including one strain that has been found only in wild birds in Europe. Whats more, the virus outbreaks in poultry were found along major bird migration corridors.
  
  But none of these studies can conclusively show that migratory birds transmit the virus. In all cases, the wild birds themselves could have caught H5N1 from poultry or from some bridge group, such as crows, jays or grackles. Officials agree that answering questions about the role of wild birds will require a lot more field work in live, migrating birds. And thats why James
  
  Sedinger and his team of young biologists, including Comstock, are spending their summer swabbing birds rears on the Yukon Delta.
  
  Sedinger, a wildlife biologist at the University of Nevada at Reno, has been studying migratory birds in Alaska since 1977. His field camp sits at the edge of the tidal Tutakoke River, near where it runs into the Bering Sea. The camp rattles with the noise of birds at all hours in summer, when the sun sets for three hours every night, and if you dont watch your step youre likely to stumble into a mother bird sitting on a nest tucked into the grass.
  
  This is breeding central, not just for migrating eiders, but also for black brants chunky sea geese that fly from Alaska to points south for the winter. Over decades of work, Sedinger has snapped identifying bands on thousands
  
  of brants at Tutakoke. Some of the birds have been found to spend the winter in China, Japan and Korea. The US governments plan to head off bird flu focuses on about 29 such species that spend time in Alaska and travel to
  
  Asia. About 15,000 birds will be tested in the state. Most will be trapped live by biologists. But the Department of Interior will also test birds shot by sport and subsistence hunters and if and when they happen dead ones found among mass bird die-offs.
  
  Out for the count
  
  So far, 3,772 samples from Alaska have been tested, and none has turned up positive. But thats not surprising. Most of the samples taken from live wild birds around the world are clear of H5N1, says Ward Hagemeijer of Wetlands
  
  International, a group that coordinates volunteer surveys of migratory birds. Last winter, Wetlands International tested almost 6,000 wild birds for H5N1 along migration paths in Africa, Europe and Asia. And scientists funded by the European Union have tested a total of 45,000 wild birds in Europe since last autumn. So far, none has turned up positive for H5N1, even though dead wild birds in all of these places have been found to be carrying the virus. Migrating birds are known to carry avian influenza strains other than H5N1. But, says Hagemeijer, Finding H5N1 in healthy wild birds is amazingly difficult.
  
  That perplexes wildlife-health specialists.
  
  Many of the dead or dying migratory birds found to be carrying H5N1 have been found near poultry farms, so its not clear whether the wild birds
  
  infected the poultry or vice versa. And nobody knows how long the birds survive with H5N1, whether they are able to transmit the virus to other species and, if so, for how long they are contagious.
  
  Hagemeijer cautions that even the most incriminating data pointing to the role of wild birds in transmitting H5N1 the genetic study of H5N1 in Nigeria leave some gaps. Nigeria doesnt conduct rigorous safety checks
  
  on imported poultry. So its possible that shipments of infected birds seeded the outbreak, a point the original research team concedes. The finding that one of the Nigerian strains matches a strain found only in wild European birds also isnt convincing evidence that migratory birds were the cause of the outbreak, says Hagemeijer. This is because many more H5N1 strains have been studied from wild birds than from poultry. "If youre looking at relations between strains, youre far more likely to find a close relative in the wild bird database than in the database for poultry, because more of them have been sequenced, he says.
  
  Needle in a haystack
  
  Hagemeijer adds that wild birds probably play a role, but we still havent found the smoking gun. Other animal-health officials agree. The real question is whether wild birds can serve as a permanent reservoir for the virus, rather than simply transport it from place to place.
  
  That is a worrying possibility because whenever the virus has a chance to mix in large groups of animals, as in the huge poultry farms of Asia, it might mutate so that it becomes lethal to people "There are slight differences between the strains we find in wild birds, which suggests something is happening, says Scott Newman, a veterinary health specialist with the Wildlife Conservation Society who works at the headquarters of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, in Rome. But its hard to tell whether its happening in wild birds or in poultry.
  
  Given all these unknowns, some are skeptical about the United States investing so much money hunting for H5N1 in live birds. Newman points out that H5N1 has swept from Asia towards Europe, and not the other way around. Perhaps, he suggests, officials should be more concerned about migration from Europe, through Greenland to the US east coast, where limited testing is ongoing. Even the biologists doing the work say its unlikely that they will intercept the virus. Were looking for a needle in a haystack, Sedinger says.
  
  Others are frustrated that the United States is spending so much on testing birds within its own borders while the disease continues to spread elsewhere. We should be doing more overseas, Karesh says. Id like to see the
  
  United States do more outreach.
  
  The Food and Agriculture Organization is already working with groups such as Wetlands International, the Pasteur Institute, the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to test birds worldwide. This January, the United States pledged to spend $334 million in international aid for countries battling influenza. And last month, the US Agency for International Development
  
  agreed to provide $5 million to an effort called the Global Avian Influenza Network for Surveillance. Headed by the Wildlife Conservation Society, this will test birds for H5N1 in remote and poor places, such as Mongolia, that dont have their own surveillance system in place. This is the only good way to get a better handle on the dynamics of the virus in wild birds, Karesh says
  
  Meanwhile, biologists who normally struggle for grants to study the basic biology of migrating birds are frustrated by the huge amounts of cash flowing for bird-flu studies. The field camp at Tutakoke, for instance, wouldnt even have been funded this summer without the bird-flu surveillance money.
  
  Sedinger and other bird biologists say the paucity of long-term studies on migratory birds makes it difficult to understand the spread of H5N1. It wasnt until 1995, for example, that scientists discovered that spectacled eiders spend their winters floating in holes in pack ice in the Bering Sea5.
  
  So while biologists are thankful for the birdflu surveillance money, they also wonder whether officials will take the logical next step and invest more in monitoring studies as well.
  
  Still, biologists are happy for any chance to learn more about migratory birds especially if it means spending long days chasing after ducks and geese on wind-blown tundra. And even if they dont track down the virus in Alaska, Sedinger, Comstock and the rest of the Tutakoke team will learn more about how viruses circulate in and between species an important area of research given that at least two human flu pandemics in the past century began as bird viruses. Were going to get our hands on some birds we wouldnt normally get to study, says Leedy. Thats going to lead to some good work.
  
  Erika Check covers the biomedical sciences for
  
  Nature.
  
  1. Chen, H. et al. Nature 436, 191192 (2005).
  
  2. Eurosurveillance www.eurosurveillance.org/em/v11n05/
  
  1105-222.asp (2006).
  
  3. Chen, H. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 103, 28452850
  
  (2006).
  
  4. Ducatez, M. F. et al. Nature 442, 37 (2006).
  
  5. Petersen, M. R., Larned, W. W. & Douglas, D. C. Auk 116,
  
  10091020 (1999).

• 07/15/2006:  State will test birds for avian flu: U.S. effort aimed at early detection, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

  ---

  
  

  By KAWANZA NEWSON
  
  knewson@journalsentinel.com
  
  Posted: July 14, 2006
  
  Many birds heading south along the Mississippi Flyway this fall may have their flights delayed as they undergo screening for a deadly flu strain.
  
  Wildlife experts will stop hundreds of waterfowl and shorebirds traveling along Lake Superior, Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River to collect fecal samples for detection of the H5N1 virus. In addition, they'll set up check stations for testing of hunter-killed birds and swab carcasses for the virus that has been infecting bird populations around the world.
  
  "We're not doing this because we're really worried this will happen here," said Sarah Shapiro Hurley, deputy administrator of the state Department of Natural Resources' land division. "This is just a part of a national program so that we'll know what's going on with the bird population and be aware of whatever viruses might be circulating."
  
  "Clearly, Alaska and other states have a higher probability of having a wild bird with a highly pathogenic virus move across their area," she said. "There is a very low risk of finding a highly pathogenic bird in Wisconsin."
  
  In March, officials representing three federal agencies announced plans to significantly increase testing of wild birds to allow rapid detection of avian flu if it reaches the United States.
  
  That plan called for collection of about 100,000 samples from live and dead wild birds this year, along with 50,000 samples of water or feces from waterfowl habitats across the U.S. Officials also recommended investigation of any disease outbreaks in wild birds and spot checks of birds killed by hunters, as well as those being sold in live bird markets and being raised by farmers.
  
  Many of the samples will be tested in Madison, which is home to the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center.
  
  The H5N1 strain has infected a large number of domestic birds in Asia and about 230 people, including 131 who have died since 2003. Most human cases have been linked to contact with sick birds, though the World Health Organization and others have warned that the virus could mutate into a form that spreads easily among humans, possibly triggering a global pandemic.
  
  Research led by University of Wisconsin-Madison flu expert Yoshihiro Kawaoka has shown that it will be extremely difficult to transmit the H5N1 virus between humans because the virus binds only to cells buried deep in the recesses of the human lower respiratory tract. The virus doesn't stick in the upper respiratory tract, where human flus are carried.
  
  Kawaoka will head a $9 million, 20,000-square-foot Institute for Influenza Viral Research being built in existing space at the University Research Park on the far west side of Madison, making the city a national hub for genetic research studies on influenza viruses.
  
  In addition, the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene was selected by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to become the first state laboratory to test whether flu strains will respond to commonly used anti-viral drugs.
  
  State to test 2,000 samples
  
  As part of the increased migratory bird surveillance, Wisconsin will test at least 2,000 samples from live and dead birds throughout the state.
  
  The DNR received a $100,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and is using that money to hire two people who will lead the teams traveling along the shorelines of Lake Michigan and Lake Superior, as well as to buy equipment needed for testing bird samples, said Kent Van Horn, the migratory game bird ecologist who was involved in development of both the Wisconsin plan and the Mississippi Flyway regional plan.
  
  Van Horn said there are six to 10 anticipated monitoring sites throughout the state and that mallard, pintail and green-winged teal ducks will be among the species targeted for testing in Wisconsin.
  
  However, those plans may change, he said.
  
  "The weather and animals will determine where you go and when," he said. "You make these really nice plans, and then the ducks end up somewhere different."
  
  U.S. wildlife experts have been monitoring wild migratory birds since the virus emerged in Asia in 1997. They have tested more than 12,000 birds in Alaska since 1998 and almost 4,000 traveling across the Atlantic since 2000.
  
  Officials have been focusing on Alaska because it is a central hub for bird migration, said Paul Slota, a biologist with the Geological Survey who will be overseeing the testing of samples at the agency's wildlife health center in Madison.
  
  The assumption is that an infected bird would migrate from Asia and come into contact with birds in Alaska, potentially infecting millions. During fall migration, the Alaskan bird could enter the U.S. mainland and likely spread the virus first along the Pacific Flyway. The Pacific Flyway includes Alaska, Arizona, California, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington and those portions of Colorado, Montana, New Mexico and Wyoming that are west of the Continental Divide.
  
  Officials have recommended priority testing for birds found in these areas, followed by those obtained along the Central Flyway, Mississippi Flyway and then the Atlantic Flyway, Slota said.
  
  However, it's understood that birds may travel other pathways to reach their destinations, he said.
  
  Flu detection process
  
  Julie Langenberg, a wildlife veterinarian for the DNR, said screening for influenza takes about three days, but additional testing will be conducted if a flu virus is detected.
  
  If that occurs, the sample is kicked into a national reporting loop, where federal officials would learn the sample subtype and then alert Wisconsin officials of the results, she said.
  
  However, it's important to remember that detection of influenza viruses in birds is not uncommon, said Chris Franson, a research wildlife biologist with the wildlife health center in Madison.
  
  The agency has tested more than 4,500 samples in 2006, said Hon Ip, a disease investigations virologist with the Geological Survey.
  
  The samples have come mainly from Alaska but include a variety of other birds from across the country and from as far away as the Pacific islands, he said.
  
  However, to date, no birds have tested positive for H5N1, Ip said.
  
  The birds congregate in late summer and early fall, making it easy to spread the virus between them.
  
  Many birds will show no signs of illness, and common influenza viruses detected in hunter-killed birds can be eliminated with proper washing and cooking, Van Horn said.
  
  From the July 15, 2006 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

• 07/06/2006:  Bird Flu Slipped Into Nigeria Along 3 Distinct Routes, Scientists Say, Los Angeles Times
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

  ---

  
  

  Africa's first outbreak matches strains from Egypt, Russia and Mongolia -- showing how difficult it could be to contain the virus.
  
  By Jia-Rui Chong, Times Staff Writer
  
  July 6, 2006
  
  An outbreak of bird flu in Nigeria this year stemmed not from a single source of the virus, but rather three distinct strains that entered the country at different times, according to a new study.
  
  Researchers, who published their findings today in the journal Nature, found the different strains most closely resembled those identified in Egypt, Russia and Mongolia.
  
  Some experts said the findings suggested the Nigerian outbreak the first in Africa was caused by migratory birds carrying the H5N1 bird flu virus and the illegal sales of infected poultry.
  
  "This reinforces that not only is there a natural distribution of the H5N1 virus through migratory birds, there's another intercontinental human distribution system via trade," said Dr. William Schaffner, an infection control doctor at Vanderbilt University who was not connected with the research.
  
  Other scientists were less certain trade played a role. The authors of the study wrote that the routes the virus followed coincided with the flight paths of migratory birds. But they added that the sale of poultry could not be excluded as a cause.
  
  Regardless of the route, scientists agreed the virus followed a more varied path into the country, thus presenting more problems in containing it.
  
  "The fact that you have multiple introductions is a warning to all of us," said Hon Ip, a virologist at the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center, who was not connected with the research. "Mother Nature is way more complicated than you might initially assume."
  
  The Nigerian outbreak began in February with the detection of the virus at a large farm that raised chickens, geese and ostriches. Africa and Europe are the latest areas to be infected with the virus, which was first detected in China in 1997.
  
  Bird flu rarely infects humans, but scientists fear that a mutation could eventually make it easily transmissible, leading to the possibility of a pandemic. So far, 131 people, primarily in Southeast Asia, have died from the virus, according to the World Health Organization.
  
  The genetic analysis of the Nigerian viruses was led by the Institute of Immunology at Luxembourg's National Public Health Laboratory. The team of researchers analyzed 18 swabs from chickens at two farms in Lagos state in southwest Nigeria and compared them to previously sequenced strains from northern Nigeria, said team member Dr. Claude P. Muller of the Institute of Immunology.
  
  The analysis found that one Lagos strain was genetically similar to a virus found in a chicken in Egypt. The other Lagos strain was most similar to a sample from a swan and duck in Russia. The northern sample was related to a virus found in swans and geese in Mongolia.
  
  "If there are multiple introductions, that means there are several risks in the way the virus can get into Nigeria," said Juan Lubroth, senior officer for the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization's infectious diseases group.
  
  Lubroth said governments will have to rethink their importation restrictions, inspection methods and hygiene regulations.
  
  "If you let up and think everything is quiet, everything is good and you've done a good job, there is no doubt in my mind, the virus will ooze out of Nigeria," he said.
  
  The genetic analysis showed that the Nigerian strains had significantly mutated compared to strains found at the outbreak's epicenter in Southeast Asia.
  
  "You can see how this thing can continue to rather rapidly change its genetic make-up," said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.
  
  "From the standpoint of the unknown human pandemic, it's troubling," said Osterholm, who was not connected with the research. "This virus is not sitting still, both genetically and how it's being moved around."

• 06/29/2006:  New deer hunt rule in sights: another effort to cut herd in CWD zones, The Capital Times
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  By Anita Weier
  
  June 28, 2006
  
  Deer increased last year in the core chronic wasting disease area in south-central Wisconsin, despite the state DNR's efforts to thin the herd to contain the disease.
  
  So the Department of Natural Resources plans to try a new strategy.
  
  In a new rule considered by a state Senate committee Tuesday, the agency proposed a shorter gun deer hunting season in the CWD zones, as well as allowing hunters to shoot as many deer as they like, of either gender, instead of having to "earn a buck" by shooting a doe.
  
  Hunters wanted a shorter season and simpler rules, and the DNR is consequently "trying to re-create the excitement" that a shorter season brings, explained Alan Crossley, CWD project manager for the DNR.
  
  "And people didn't like earn-a-buck. We were reluctant, but we will give it a try this year," Crossley told the Natural Resources Committee. "You can shoot as many deer as you want in the herd reduction and disease eradication zones."
  
  But Phil Muehrcke of Madison raised the specter of "sanctioned thrill killing." People could shoot 50 deer if they wanted to, he said during the hearing, where testimony was taken but no vote occurred.
  
  Since the fatal brain wasting disease was discovered in the wild white-tailed deer population in 2002, the state has spent close to $30 million to fight CWD, but there has been no significant herd reduction and the disease has spread throughout most of southern Wisconsin, he pointed out.
  
  "There is absolutely no evidence that CWD can be eradicated in the wild deer herd. No other state is attempting such ambitious and costly folly," Muehrcke said.
  
  "Once people realize living with CWD is the best we can reasonably hope for, they will face up to the truth and muddle through. More importantly, the enormous misdirection of state resources and the destructive social fallout from current CWD policy could end."
  
  Emphasis should shift to education, rapid test reporting, research, statewide monitoring, private land access incentives, and ways such as food pantry donations to encourage hunters to harvest more deer, Muehrcke suggested.
  
  But Tom Hauge, director of the DNR's Bureau of Wildlife Management, stressed that "without intervention, CWD will spread throughout Wisconsin and the percentage of deer infected with CWD will substantially increase."
  
  The percentage of infected deer in the core area in south-central Wisconsin has held steady at 5 to 6 percent, Crossley said. While the prevalence of the disease in states such as Colorado has increased, it has not gotten worse in Wisconsin, he added.
  
  Though the deer population in the CWD zone that developed in western Dane County declined from 2002 through 2004, "last year our helicopter survey showed we lost some ground," Hauge noted.
  
  Though the estimated deer population declined from 50 per square mile to 15 per square mile in the southeastern Wisconsin eradication zone in Rock and Walworth counties this year, it increased in the Dane-Iowa county area from 30 to 34 per square mile, Crossley said.
  
  Greg Kazmierski, president of the Southeast Wisconsin Bowhunters Chapter, also criticized current DNR methods. Deer population has remained steady in the south-central eradication zone and grown in the herd reduction zone, he said, while disease prevalence has remained the same.
  
  "Hunter numbers in CWD units have declined by 38 percent and landowners have closed access," he added.
  
  Anthony Grabski of the Iowa County Conservation Congress suggested that the DNR further simplify the hunting seasons and eliminate use of sharpshooters with the exception of using them to remove visibly sick or injured deer.
  
  But Bryan Richards, CWD project leader for the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center, noted that the Wisconsin DNR is "a widely respected leader amongst the states in the fields of wildlife and wildlife disease management." It is likely that CWD would spread without active management, he said, and the DNR's strategy of significant population reduction of the deer herd is "the best currently available tool with the potential to successfully manage CWD in Wisconsin."
  
  The Senate committee is expected to act on the proposed rule next week, and Chairman Sen. Neal Kedzie, R-Elkhorn, said the panel may ask the Natural Resources Board to revise it in some way.
  
  THIS FALL
  
  Proposed hunting seasons in CWD zones this fall and winter:
  
  Sept. 16-Jan. 7: Disease eradication zones and herd reduction zone archery season.
  
  Oct. 7-8: Disease eradication zones and herd reduction zone youth hunt.
  
  Oct. 14-22: Disease eradication zones early gun season.
  
  Oct. 19-22: Herd reduction zone early gun season.
  
  Nov. 28-Dec. 10: Disease eradication zones and herd reduction zone late gun season.

• 06/29/2006:  New rule to attempt to cut herd in CWD zones, Associated Press via Duluth News Tribune
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

  ---

  
  

  MADISON, Wis. - The Department of Natural Resources wants to have a shorter gun deer hunting season in chronic wasting disease zones and allow hunters to shoot as many deer as they like there.
  
  It's after deer increased last year in the core chronic wasting disease area in south-central Wisconsin.
  
  Under a new rule being considered by a state Senate committee, hunters would no longer have to "earn a buck" by shooting a doe.
  
  The rationale behind the new rules is that hunters want a shorter season with simpler rules, and the DNR is "trying to re-create the excitement" that a shorter season brings, said Alan Crossley, CWD project manager for the DNR.
  
  "People didn't like earn-a-buck," Crossley told the Natural Resources Committee, which is expected to act on the proposed rule next week. "You can shoot as many deer as you want in the herd reduction and disease eradication zones."
  
  Since the fatal brain wasting disease was discovered in the wild white-tailed deer population in 2002, the state has spent close to $30 million to fight the disease, but there has been no significant herd reduction, Phil Muehrcke testified before the committee.
  
  "There is absolutely no evidence that CWD can be eradicated in the wild deer herd," said Muehrcke, of Madison. "No other state is attempting such ambitious and costly folly."
  
  But Bryan Richards, CWD project leader for the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center, said the state DNR's current strategy of significantly reducing the deer herd is "the best currently available tool with the potential to successfully manage CWD in Wisconsin."
  
  ON THE NET
  
  Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources: http://dnr.wi.gov

• 06/28/2006:  Marion Co. bird positive for West Nile, The Baxter Bulletin Online
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  JOANNE BRATTON
  
  Bulletin Staff Writer
  
  YELLVILLE A third bird found in Marion County tested positive for West Nile Virus this month, increasing the state's total infected birds to 11.
  
  Earlier this month, two crows found in Marion County near the Boone County line tested positive for WNV, said Marion County Sanitarian Adam Dennis.
  
  
  
  As of Tuesday, Dennis had not been alerted to the third bird that had tested positive for the virus, he said. WNV testing results are updated by the U.S. Geological Survey every Tuesday, a national organization that receives data from state health departments and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
  
  No birds in Baxter County have tested positive, according to USGS.
  
  Since the Arkansas State Health Department began testing birds in April, 11 infected birds have been found in Boone, Faulkner, Franklin, Madison, Marion, Pope, Pulaski and Sebastian counties, according to USGS. Nationally, 112 birds have tested positive for WNV.
  
  Wild birds typically found to host WNV include crow, raven, starling, blue jay, magpie, blackbird and hawk, according to the National Wildlife Health Center.
  
  A Culex mosquito can become infected with WNV when it feeds on an infected bird. Less than 1 percent of people bitten by an infected mosquito will develop a severe illness, and people older than 50 are more at risk, according to the CDC.
  
  People who find dead crows can take them to the local health unit, which sends the birds to the state health department in Little Rock to be tested.
  
  Although local health units have pellets to kill mosquito larvae, most prevention can be done by residents, Dennis said.
  
  "The main problem is usually there in the yard," he said.
  
  Residents should empty any standing water in their yards, including clogged gutters, unchanged birdbaths and old tires.
  
  People also may wear insect repellent containing DEET and wear long-sleeved clothing when outside, especially during dawn and dusk.
  
  jobratton@baxterbulletin.com

• 06/21/2006:  Tomatoes to protect against the plague, CheckBiotech
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Tuesday, June 20, 2006
  
  By Daniela Kenzelmann, Checkbiotech
  
  Researchers at the Center for Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology at the Biodesign Institute in Arizona are dedicated to fighting infectious diseases through innovative and effective vaccine development. Guy A. Cardineaus group reported in the journal Vaccine how a plague vaccine produced by tomato plants can be used to elicit an immune response in orally immunized mice.
  
  Although the plague, also called the Black Death, has lost most of the fear it caused in medieval times, it is still endemic in Southeast Asia, Southwest USA and some parts of Africa. The most life threatening form of the disease is pneumonic plague, which can either develop from a fast-developing bubonic plague, or arise by direct infection of the lungs. It is highly contagious because it can spread rapidly from person to person by air, thereby killing a healthy person within three or four days. For these reasons, the worry has arisen that Y. pestis, the etiologic agent of the plague, might be used as a biological weapon.
  
  Should a bio-attack with pneumonic plague occur, currently there is no safe and efficient plague vaccine available. Production of vaccines consisting of whole, killed bacteria was stopped due to inefficiency against pneumonic plague and high incidence of side effects, and new vaccines are still in development. Strategies for improved plague vaccines are based on using subunit vaccines. This means that specifically only two proteins from Y.pestis known to provoke a strong immune response are used; these are the so-called F1 and V antigens.
  
  Thus the goal of Dr. Alvarez and her colleagues is to produce the perfect vaccine against the plague easy to administer, safe, efficient and inexpensive in particular against the pneumonic form. Currently, they have developed a transgenic tomato plant, which is capable of producing a F1-V fusion antigen in amounts up to 10% of the total plant proteins. These F1-V tomatoes are then the raw material for vaccine production and are freeze dried for long term storage. This system can easily be scaled up if there is a high demand, for example to protect people from biowarfare. In addition, they proved that the edible vaccine provokes an immune response which consists of the production of specific antibodies against the F1-V antigen if the transgenic tomatoes are fed to mice.
  
  The researchers speculate that the vaccine is effective, because being that the tomatoes are freeze-dried, the antigen is protected from degradation in the stomach by the plant cell wall. This allows the antigen to reach the lymphoid tissue in the gut where it elicits the immune response. Edible vaccines are a very convenient way to deliver a vaccine, because they eliminate the need for costly purification of the antigen and formulation of pills for efficient oral delivery.
  
  Of course, the final goal of our plague-vaccine project is to develop an exclusively oral tomato vaccine, using only tomatoes from second generation plants, which contain a higher concentration of the F1-V antigen, says M. Lucrecia Alvarez.
  
  The next step would obviously be to expose mice to pathogenic bacteria to test whether the elevated levels of antibodies correspond to increased resistance to Y. pestis bacteria. This work is already underway at the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wisconsin. In the preliminary results, mice were injected subcutaneously with bacterially derived F1-V, and boosted with transgenic tomato were protected against exposure to Y. pestis.
  
  At the moment, six human trials have been carried out using plant derived vaccines for different diseases, and as Dr. Alvarez speculates, The plague vaccine produced in tomatoes might be ready for clinical trials on humans in less than two years, but of course, it all depends on the results of our future animal trials.
  
  In addition, we also plan to use the F1-V tomatoes to vaccinate animals as well, since they act as reservoirs of plague in regions where the disease is endemic. For that reason, we initiated collaboration with the laboratory of Dr. Rocke at the Wildlife Health Center.
  
  With these results, the Cardineau lab is already a step closer to the goal of producing an easy to deliver and economic plague vaccine.
  
  Daniela Kenzelmann is a Science Journalist for Checkbiotech and is writing her PhD at the Friedrich Miescher Institute in Basel, Switzerland. Contact her at daniela.kenzelmann@fmi.ch
  
  Alvarez ML et al. Plant-made subunit vaccine against pneumonic and bubonic plague is orally immunogenic in mice. Vaccine, 2006 Mar 24;24(14):2477-90
  
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=16442673&query_hl=2&itool=pubmed_docsum
  
  Contact:
  
  Maria Lucrecia Alvarez, Ph.D.
  
  Center for Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology
  
  Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University
  
  1001 South MacAllister Ave.
  
  Tempe, AZ 85287-5401
  
  lucrecia.alvarez@asu.edu
  
  (480) 727-4430
  
  http://plant-madevaccines.blogspot.com/
  
  
  
  Links:
  
  Source: CheckBiotech
  
  Related articles:
  
  DNA LandMarks and BASF announces launch of a Tomato SNP Marker Development Consortium (26 Apr 2006)
  
  VBI to develop Tomato Metabolite Database (07 Apr 2006)
  
  GM tomatoes may be key to bird flu fight (17 Mar 2006)
  
  GM tomatoes make therapeutic molecules (03 Feb 2006)

• 06/19/2006:  Diamonds in the data: Federal agencies increasingly use data mining to extract valuable info buried in large databases, FCW.com
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  BY Aliya Sternstein
  
  Published on June 19, 2006
  
  At this moment, public health officials are poring over terabytes of health care data to detect the first signs of a possible pandemic flu outbreak, bioterrorism attack or other contagion. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began a biosurveillance program in 2003, but advances in information exchange standards and concerns about pandemic flu have accelerated its national implementation.
  
  The federal initiative, called BioSense, analyzes existing health care records, such as diagnoses, laboratory test results, physician visits and hospitalizations. The results help public health officials discover where an event is occurring and decide when to intervene with vaccines or quarantines. The CDC works with regional hospital systems to create secure connections between their health care databases and the federal database. The data does not contain patient names, medical numbers or personal identifiers, CDC officials said.
  
  Like the CDC, Medicaid agencies, NASA and many other government agencies have begun to employ software to look for meaningful patterns in large volumes of data. Their searches have various purposes, such as pinpointing criminal activity, improving customer service and detecting fraud, waste and abuse. Some call this activity data surveillance, others call it data mining, and still others prefer the term data analysis. Whatever such searches are called, they usually require federal agencies to strike a balance between observing behaviors and violating privacy.
  
  CDC officials say their project should not be labeled data mining. Lynn Steele, director of the Emergency Preparedness and Response Division at CDCs National Center for Public Health Informatics, said the group focuses on acquiring specific clinical and health care data. We wouldnt call it data mining because its not looking for data abstractly, Steele said. We are looking at clinical and health care data that have been proven useful for public health purposes.
  
  Linda Koontz, information management issues director at the Government Accountability Office, said she is not familiar enough with the CDCs initiative to say whether it is data mining. But Koontz said some agencies she interviewed about programs that mine data refuse to identity their programs as such.
  
  Different people sometimes mean different things by the term data mining, she said. There isnt one definition that everyone agrees with. A lot of people feel aversion to using the word data mining because they think that casts a negative pall over what they are doing.
  
  Koontz said some of her discussions with agency officials turned into semantic arguments over the term. Even though it looked exactly like data mining to us, they would call it some kind of analysis, she said.
  
  GAO defines data mining as the application of database technology and techniques to uncover hidden patterns and subtle relationships in data and infer rules that allow for the prediction of future results. Koontz said she doesnt understand why data mining has a negative connotation. Analysis is not evil, she said.
  
  Koontz added, however, that agencies should comply with the E-Government Act, which requires agencies to conduct privacy impact assessments of proposed data-mining efforts. Agency chief privacy officers should lead those assessments, she said.
  
  Federal officials and others expect greater benefits from data mining as mining algorithms become more sophisticated. However, because an increasing number of federal agencies are mining personal data, some lawmakers and watchdog groups are concerned about whether proper mechanisms are in place to safeguard personal information. They are calling for greater compliance with privacy regulations.
  
  GAO recently received a request from Rep. David Obey (D-Wisc.) and Rep. Martin Sabo (D-Minn.) to review privacy protections for a Homeland Security Department data-mining program aimed at better understanding terrorism. Koontz said GAO just began its review of that program, which is known as Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight, and Semantic Enhancement, or ADVISE.
  
  In May, Koontz testified before the House Judiciary Committees Commercial and Administrative Law Subcommittee that agencies failed to comply with data-mining privacy protocols as recently as August 2005. Increased use by federal agencies of data mining the analysis of large amounts of data to uncover hidden patterns and relationships has been accompanied by uncertainty regarding privacy requirements and oversight of such systems, Koontz said.
  
  GAO, for example, found that agencies employing data mining took many steps to protect privacy, such as issuing public notices. None, however, followed all privacy protections, such as including in public notices the intended uses of personal information.
  
  Before the BioSense project was expanded nationwide, the program already had proven its value. Data gathered from national laboratories and Department of Veterans Affairs and Defense Department health care facilities helped identify and treat seasonal flu and gastrointestinal disease outbreaks, Steele said.
  
  Meningitis can also be contained with assistance from BioSense. The project allows local public health officials to look for cases of meningitis and rapidly identify people who might have been exposed to someone infected with meningococcal bacteria, Steele said. Then public health officials can respond quickly to stop the infection.
  
  While the CDC monitors data for signs of bird flu, the Interior Department uses a similar technique to examine data from animals, which are often the sentinels for disease in humans. Acting on guidance from President Bushs National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza, Interiors National Wildlife Health Center collects and analyzes data from live birds to help detect the presence of the avian influenza virus in U.S. migratory birds.
  
  Monitoring animals is more difficult than monitoring people because much less data is available on wildlife, and that data lacks standardization. Its really hard to mine data that doesnt exist, said F. Joshua Dein, a principal investigator at the National Wildlife Health Center. No legislative mandate exists to collect national wildlife disease data because it does not have the same high profile as human health data or domestic animal data, he said.
  
  Interiors program, known as the National Biological Information Infrastructure Wildlife Disease Information Node, is designed to develop tools that will allow states to collect their own data and create an infrastructure for sharing that data in a standardized format, said Dein, who leads the program.
  
  Following the first detection of highly pathogenic bird flu, natural resource agencies will have the opportunity to study how the disease spreads in the wild, Dein said. Deadly animal illnesses can mutate into deadly human illnesses and then spread throughout the human population.
  
  The objective of Interiors program is to link the animal findings with health care data on domestic animals and people. Most of the animal data obtained so far has come from Alaska, where there are migratory paths to and from Asia. With funding from the federal government this summer and fall, additional states will be collecting data. All information will be stored in a SQL Server database and will be available for review and analysis using HTML/JavaScript Web applications and ESRI geographic information system software.
  
  Wildlife data is public and does not include personal information. Many other federal data-mining efforts do not involve personal information. For example, NASA looks for patterns and relationships in huge volumes of earth science data collected by satellites and sensors. The findings are used to better understand climate.
  
  The government first employed data mining for fraud detection in a manner similar to the private sectors analysis of credit card fraud.
  
  But some data-mining programs are more controversial. The possibility that the federal government is using supercomputers to sift through tens of millions of phone records came to light this spring after USA Today reported that the National Security Agency had collected records from AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth.
  
  Lawmakers have begun to question the security of personal information used in data mining as more federal agencies turn to the technology for help.
  
  Two years ago, Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii), ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committees Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce and the District of Columbia Subcommittee, asked GAO to identify the purposes of data-mining activities within the federal government. More than 60 percent of the 199 efforts identified used personal information.
  
  Akaka said data-mining tools can be helpful in organizing and connecting information to eliminate waste, stop criminal activity and improve public service. He said, however, that GAOs August 2005 follow-up report, which found that agencies are failing to meet necessary privacy and security requirements, represents a troubling trend, given the number of data-mining activities in the federal government that use personal information.
  
  Akaka also expressed concern that federal privacy laws and senior privacy officials may not be sufficiently regulating data-mining activities. He said he is unsure whether those individuals have had proper training on privacy matters, whether they have adequate expertise of privacy laws and whether they have sufficient authority to ensure compliance with privacy laws. Its also unclear what protections federal privacy laws actually provide and how the federal government can assure the accuracy of the information used from the private sector, he said.
  
  In May, Akaka moved to strengthen the role of the Homeland Security Departments chief privacy officer by introducing the Privacy Officer With Enhanced Rights Act of 2006. He has called on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to hold hearings on the 32-year-old Privacy Act. With the growth of data-mining activities and agency failures to follow privacy practices, Akaka said he might also look at broadening the bill to cover other agencies.
  
  Several congressional committees are also considering legislation that would mandate privacy protections for private-sector data because the federal government relies on this data for many data-mining activities.
  
  Public confidence of the governments use of these activities is undermined because of unregulated and sometimes inaccurate information from the private sector, combined with agencies failure to follow key privacy and security laws, Akaka said. The fact that the Privacy Act has numerous exemptions for intelligence and law enforcement purposes...raises key questions as to what privacy rules govern in those circumstances.
  
  Some privacy advocates say any promises made by federal agencies about protecting personal information cannot be trusted because agencies have little experience with safeguarding personal information used in data-mining projects.
  
  Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, cited the Transportation Security Administrations passenger screening system, Secure Flight, which violated the privacy of potentially millions of people. Last July, a GAO audit found that a TSA contractor, acting on behalf of the agency, collected more than 100 million commercial data records containing personal information, such as names, birthdates and telephone numbers, without informing the public.
  
  We are in a very difficult area, technologically, as well as policywise, Tien said. It is really important to emphasize that we dont know the answers.
  
  He added that Congress should enact legislation and appropriate funding to enable program managers and agency privacy officials to hire more staff for enforcement.
  
  Debate over the use of personal information will likely grow, as federal and state governments discover more applications for data mining.
  
  Guy Amisano, president and chief executive officer of data analytics company Salient, said the companys government clients have had much success managing the Medicaid program with data mining. For almost a year, several counties in New York state have been tracking Medicaid recipient and provider payments to identify potential waste, fraud and abuse.
  
  With Salients software, county officials can spot anomalies in Medicaid recipients behavior. By pegging outliers, program administrators figure out the causes of discrepancies and make improvements to reduce costs or improve services. Amisano is working on a statewide Medicaid system that is expected to save New York $5 billion to $12 billion a year.
  
  Amisano said it is people, not technology, who are mostly to blame when personal information leaks. He said secure systems are looking at aggregated data or data cleansed of personal identifiers. Individuals are often identified by a random number, instead of a name, so the user has access only to the individuals behavior instead of the individuals personal information.
  
  Data security should not deter federal agencies from taking advantage of data mining, Amisano said, adding that technology is more than sufficient to guarantee individual privacy rights.
  
  Crime forecasting could be the next big thing
  
  Law enforcement is likely to be the next government organization to use data mining, experts say. Data-mining technology can find patterns that link criminal incidents to factors such as weather, sporting events and paydays. The patterns reveal that, when those same factors appear in the future, the probability of another crime occurring will be high. Police can use such knowledge to make decisions about deploying forces.
  
  Workforce planning is another direction in which the use of data mining is heading. As baby boomers leave government service, federal officials want to determine what actions they can take to retain critical skills or experience levels.
  
  Data mining is an ideal tool for helping agencies retain the expertise of their employees. For example, the technology might be able to calculate the likelihood of retirements or resignations based on employee age, most recent promotion and whether the employee was assigned to his or her preferred agency.
  
  Data mining becomes a USDA management tool
  
  One of the earlier adopters of data mining in the government was the Risk Management Agency (RMA) in the Agriculture Departments Federal Crop Insurance Program. The agency built a data warehouse to analyze policyholder records for compliance with the insurance programs rules. Congress mandated the data-mining effort in 2000.
  
  RMAs first data-mining project produced $48 million in savings compared with what was paid to the same group of policyholders during the previous year. In the past five years, the Federal Crop Insurance Program has achieved $460 million in cost avoidance. The agency has spent about $20 million on data-mining efforts.
  
  RMA scrutinizes self-reported policyholder filings to focus on losses that the USDA and policyholders cannot explain. For example, the computer might match drought filings against soil and weather data and all data for those policyholders to determine if the local office staff or the policyholder incorrectly filled out a form.
  
  Program officials say the effort does not solely look for criminal activity, but it gives USDA officials a starting point from which to figure out what is creating the losses. Garland Westmoreland, director of the RMAs strategic data acquisition and analysis unit, said personal contact with policyholders reduces erroneous payments. When we do work with the individuals, the result of having someone from the local office work with them seems to have a huge effect on mitigating losses.
  
  No single factor causes claim problems, Westmoreland said. Negligence, fraud, miscommunication and simple errors can cause miscalculations. Data mining simply allows USDA officials to save time in repairing the problem, he said. We have over a million policies. We try determining which of the policies need the most attention.
  
  He added that only individuals who have undergone background checks can access the data. RMAs chief information officer is responsible for ensuring privacy provisions are followed throughout all phases of the program. RMA does not have sufficient resources to pay the salary of a chief privacy official, an RMA spokeswoman said.

• 06/16/2006:  Alaska is front line vs. avian virus, USA Today
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Updated 6/16/2006 8:36 AM ET
  
  By Martin Kasindorf, USA TODAY
  
  BARROW, Alaska Within sight of an Arctic radar station built for Cold War warnings of air attacks from Soviet Siberia, government scientists are stalking birds that could be carrying a new menace from Asia: the H5N1 avian influenza virus.
  
  Tundra swans, lesser snow geese, spectacled eiders, long-billed dowitchers, bar-tailed godwits, northern pintails, ruddy turnstones: They all come to America. Wildlife biologists don't know which of these birds, if any, will be the first to carry the killer virus from the Eastern Hemisphere over the North Pole and down the flyways to the Lower 48.
  
  Barrow, on the icy shore of the Arctic Ocean, is the USA's northernmost settlement. Two flyways for wild birds on their spring migration from Asia cross above the predominantly Inupiat Eskimo city of 4,800 people. As the birds nest on the marshy tundra under the midnight sun, 25 biologists are checking them for the first signs that H5N1 has reached the Americas.
  
  PHOTO GALLERY: Stalking Alaska
  
  "So far, no positives," says Hon Ip, a virologist at the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis., which has analyzed 1,000 bird samples shipped by scientists in Alaska since April.
  
  "I hope we don't find it," says Corey Rossi, a U.S. Agriculture Department wildlife biologist based in Alaska. "But we're going to look as hard as we can. The public can take some reassurance in that."
  
  The Alaskan early-warning project is on the front line of a $29 million federal program to test thousands of birds in 50 states this year to guard against a possible pandemic. "It's a good thing they're here, hopefully protecting the rest of the North American continent," says Bekah Barr, 20, a hotel employee in Barrow.
  
  Biologists here find that in addition to anal swabs for sampling bird feces, they'll need plenty of patience to get the job done.
  
  In snow flurries at Barrow's municipal landfill one afternoon, Rossi sets out bait for sea gulls. It's chunks of the pink whale blubber Eskimos call muktuk, a local delicacy. If the seabirds roost on the bait, Rossi's team will fire cannons to deploy a net that traps them for testing. But the birds aren't gulled; they don't nibble until the scientists have left for the day.
  
  There's another disappointment later that day at a nearby pond. Sandpipers, phalaropes and dunlins, small shorebirds that winter near Chinese and Vietnamese chicken farms devastated by the flu, walk toward Rossi's gossamer-thin "mist" net. A wind ripples the net, making it visible to the birds. They flutter away.
  
  "Some days you spend a lot of energy, and you get an empty sack," Rossi says. "But you just gotta keep pressing on."
  
  Undeterred, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists go off by helicopter the next day to search for nests on the Alaskan North Slope tundra south of here. They tote shotguns in case bears attack.
  
  "Swabbing butts is not my usual thing, but it's a national emergency," biologist Rick Lanctot says.
  
  Deadly history
  
  Public health officials have been bird-watchers since an outbreak of the H5N1 strain in poultry in Hong Kong in 1997 was blamed for 18 influenza cases in people. Six people died. An outbreak in Southeast Asia in 2003 has spread to more than 50 countries in Asia, Europe and Africa. It has caused the deaths of 200 million birds and at least 129 people, says Juan Lubroth, a veterinary scientist with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome.
  
  If the virus turns up in the USA, the first threat would be to the $43 billion-a-year poultry industry. A greater fear is that a pandemic could break out if the virus were to mutate into a form that is easier to transmit from person to person. In 1918, a bird flu that jumped into humans caused the "Spanish flu" pandemic. It killed 20 million to 50 million people worldwide, including more than 500,000 in the USA.
  
  Until last year, Lubroth says, scientists doubted that wild birds could carry or transmit lethal avian flu viruses such as H5N1. The only precedent was in 1961, when H5N1 killed terns in South Africa.
  
  Then in the spring of 2005, 6,200 birds bar-headed geese, cormorants, gulls and shelducks were found dead at Qinghai Lake in west-central China. The HN51 viruses that killed them spread from the lake through swans and other migratory waterfowl across Asia and into Europe, according to a study by Hualan Chen of China's Harbin Veterinary Research Institute.
  
  Chen called it "worrisome" that the viruses were in "a form associated with ... adaptation to humans."
  
  At an FAO conference in Rome last month, researchers concluded that migrating birds are one way the virus could spread and called for further investigation. Another way is through the export of poultry and poultry products.
  
  "Wild birds can introduce the virus, but it's through the human activities of commerce, production and marketing of poultry that the disease spreads," Lubroth says.
  
  The World Health Organization (WHO) says most human fatalities have resulted from handling sick birds on poultry farms or in backyard flocks. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game says that "if it arrives in North America, Asian H5N1 is more likely to be transported through virus-contaminated articles or illegally imported birds or bird products" than through migratory birds.
  
  The WHO cites a half-dozen "very likely" cases of limited human-to-human transmission of bird flu that resulted in death. A single case of suspected human-to-human transmission began with wild birds, Caroline Brown, a WHO communicable-diseases researcher, told the Rome conference.
  
  In Azerbaijan last February, she reported, there was a die-off of 1,952 swans from Siberia. Members of a family that depended on hunting for its income plucked feathers from dying swans. Seven people caught bird flu from viruses "closely related" to the Qinghai Lake strain, Brown said. Four died. A study by the WHO and U.S. Navy scientists said it was unlikely that all seven people contracted the virus directly from the swans.
  
  Hard job of finding answers
  
  The Alaska virus search is literally a wild goose chase. And it could turn out to be, well, a wild goose chase.
  
  The government gathered 12,000 bird samples in Alaska between 1998 and 2005. No trace of H5N1 virus was found. Canada tested nearly 5,000 birds last year and found no H5N1.
  
  Though the die-offs in Europe and Asia show that wild birds can carry the killer virus long distances, scientists don't know which species are infectious carriers of the virus, Lubroth says.
  
  Henry Niman, a Pittsburgh biochemist who is researching bird-flu vaccines, says Russian scientists last year found H5N1 in the carcasses of 25 wild bird species. "This indicated that the virus isn't going to have a major barrier between waterfowl," Niman says. "But which species is bringing a lot of it over, by which flyway, is not totally nailed down yet. That's a key question."
  
  Terry McElwain, director of the Washington Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory in Pullman, Wash., says he's not convinced that the virus will spread "through the mixing of the populations of birds in the Pacific Flyway." If this can happen, flocks now in Alaska are "a likely population to be targeting."
  
  Bird testing by the U.S. and Canadian governments will be more extensive this year. U.S. scientists plan to sample 75,000 to 100,000 birds, including 19,000 in Alaska. Also, some poultry flocks will be monitored, and scientists will watch for suspicious die-offs of wild birds, the Agriculture Department says.
  
  Rossi and other biologists in Alaska are reporting success in capturing 29 targeted species of live waterfowl, shorebirds and land birds that are swabbed and released.
  
  Biologists are also taking samples from the intestinal tracts of dead game birds that hunters bring in. And the biologists are collecting bird droppings in wetlands.
  
  Samples go to labs in the Lower 48. If a swab tests positive for exposure to H5N1, the finding will be announced by Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns or Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, says Gail Keirn, a spokeswoman for the Agriculture Department.
  
  Next, a second lab will seek to confirm the result. Scientists will converge on the site where the affected bird was found. Poultry breeders will be warned to keep flocks from wild birds, Keirn says.
  
  "Should the H5N1 virus appear in the U.S., it does not mean the start of a pandemic," the Department of Health and Human Services says.
  
  A WHO study says wild birds pose a lower risk of spreading a pandemic than poultry. The virus carried by wild birds "will have less opportunity" to mutate into a human-to-human threat because relatively few people hunters and ornithologists, mostly are exposed to wild birds, the organization says.
  
  Many Eskimos on Alaska's North Slope hunt wildfowl as well as whales, walruses, seals and polar bears as staples of their diet and traditional subsistence culture. The reception they give the scientists who are advising them of a potential threat isn't always warm.
  
  "Right now, bird flu doesn't scare me at all," says James Nukapigak, an Inupiat tribal elder. "We eat what God has provided us for thousands of years, and we're still living on it."
  
  Tommy Olemaun, executive director of the Native Village of Barrow, tribal government for the 51% of the city's population that is Eskimo, says just a handful of residents have taken government advice to wear rubber gloves when handling game birds.
  
  "We hunt these birds since time immemorial, and we know when one is sick," says Olemaun, who says he kills 40 geese a year to feed his family and make soup for community feasts.
  
  Olemaun criticizes the visiting biologists for failing to "communicate with our tradition, our own knowledge." Rather than ask natives about the best places to find birds, he says, "government men drop off the plane" and go to inappropriate testing places.
  
  Charles Brower, 55, retired wildlife director for the tribal government, agrees. He says the biologists erred by stalking shorebirds in a pond abutting the city's sewage-outfall lagoon.
  
  "It just makes me laugh to see them get all these birds from the most unsanitary area here," he says.
  
  Brian Person, a wildlife biologist for North Slope Borough the Alaska equivalent of a county government says Brower was right in saying the pond was potentially contaminated. "But that wouldn't affect tests for the bird flu virus," Person says. Besides, he says, "that's where the birds were."

• 06/16/2006:  Wild vs. lab rodent comparison supports hygiene hypothesis, EurekAlert.org
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  DURHAM, N.C. In a study comparing wild rodents with their laboratory counterparts, researchers at Duke University Medical Center have found evidence that may help to explain why people in industrialized societies that greatly stress hygiene have higher rates of allergy and autoimmune diseases than do people in less developed societies in which hygiene is harder to achieve or considered less critical.
  
  The prevailing hypothesis concerning the development of allergy and probably autoimmune disease is the "hygiene hypothesis," which states that people in "hygienic" societies have higher rates of allergy and perhaps autoimmune disease because they -- and hence their immune systems -- have not been as challenged during everyday life by the host of microbes commonly found in the environment.
  
  The study suggests that an overly hygienic environment could simultaneously increase the tendency to have allergic reactions and the tendency to acquire autoimmune disease, despite the fact that these two reactions represent two different types of immune responses.
  
  The researchers added that their experimental model, which compares specific immune system responses of wild rodents to laboratory rodents, could open up a new approach to studying human disease and allergies that complements traditional scientific studies.
  
  "Laboratory rodents live in a virtually germ- and parasite-free environment, and they receive extensive medical care -- conditions that are comparable to what humans living in Westernized, hygienic societies experience," said William Parker, Ph.D., an assistant professor of experimental surgery and senior member of the study team. "On the other hand, rodents living in the wild are exposed to a wide variety of microbes and parasites, much like humans living in societies without modern health care and where hygiene is harder to maintain."
  
  The researchers published their results early on-line in the Scandinavian Journal of Immunology. The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Duke University School of Medicine and the Fannie E. Rippel Foundation.
  
  Up to 50 million Americans are estimated to suffer from allergies, and another 8 million have some form of autoimmune disorder, which occurs when an overactive immune system attacks tissues in the body. Examples of autoimmune disorders include lupus, insulin-dependant diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and scleroderma.
  
  "The most commonly accepted explanation for this high incidence of allergy and perhaps autoimmune disease is the hygiene hypothesis," Parker said. But this hypothesis has not been thoroughly tested in animal studies, he said, and the few studies conducted have focused on specific pathogens or parasites.
  
  The Duke researchers decided to study the hypothesis by comparing the immune systems of wild house mice and common rats to laboratory mice and rats. The strength of this model, Parker said, is that it takes into account the totality of the animals living in their natural environment.
  
  Specifically, the team focused the animals' production of various antibodies, known as immunoglobulins, either associated with autoimmune disease or associated with allergy. When an animal encounters a foreign invader, or antigen, its immune system kicks into action by producing antibodies that bind to the invader and destroy it.
  
  Of the many classes of immunoglobulins (Ig), the IgG type is often involved in autoimmune disease, while the IgE type is likely a key defender against parasites and has been implicated in allergic reactions in humans, Parker said.
  
  For their experiments, the researchers trapped wild rats in rural and urban settings in North Carolina and trapped wild mice in Wisconsin. They then measured the levels of antibodies in the blood of the wild rodents and compared the levels to those observed in mice and rats housed in Duke animal facilities.
  
  All of the wild rodents had higher levels of IgG and IgE, with the IgE showing the most pronounced difference, Parker said. Additionally, the wild rodents had higher levels of a particular type of IgG called polyreactive, autoreactive IgG, which is associated with autoimmune disease in hygienic humans and rodents. However, the increased levels of these antibodies did not presumably cause untoward reactions in the wild rodents, Parker said.
  
  That wild rodents had higher levels of IgE was not unexpected, he added, since wild rodents would likely have encountered parasites that activated the production of antibodies as protection. However, the production of polyreactive, autoreactive IgG by the wild rodents was unexpected: Polyreactive, autoreactive antibodies are always found to be a type of IgM, a different type of antibody than IgG, although all previous studies have focused on hygienic populations.
  
  "These results appear to demonstrate that the environment has profound effects on the production of IgE and autoreactive IgG," Parker said. "While the production of these two antibody types lead to autoimmune disease and allergy, respectively, in the laboratory animals, their production seemed to represent a nonpathogenic, protective response to the environment by the wild rodents.
  
  "We would expect that the targets of the autoreactive IgG and IgE in the 'hygienic' laboratory rodents would be substantially different from the targets of the same antibodies in the wild animals," he said.
  
  In the wild animals, the autoreactive IgG likely bind to environmental antigens and therefore do not have deleterious effects, Parker said.
  
  "However, autoreactive IgG in hygienic animals can bind avidly to the body's own cells, which can lead to autoimmune disease," he said. "In a parallel fashion, the IgE in the wild animals is protective because the antibodies bind to parasite antigens, while the same antibodies in laboratory animals would bind to abundant but harmless environmental antigens, leading to allergies to those antigens."
  
  "These results are consistent with the idea that animals without access to modern medicine have high levels of autoimmune-like and allergic-like immune responses that represent appropriate responses to unknown factors in their environment," he said.
  
  Although this study suggests that the environment plays an important role in how the immune systems in animals develop, genetics is likely to be involved as well, Parker said. He now is planning additional studies to help decipher the full role of genetics.
  
  Also, his group is planning further studies of the hygiene hypothesis, using the new rodent model to examine other factors that may be contributing to the higher rates of allergy and autoimmune diseases of humans in industrialized societies, such as lack of exercise, increased mental stress and the consumption of processed food.
  
  Duke members of the research team included Aditya Devalapalli, Aaron Lesher, Karl Shieh, Jonathan Solow, Mary Lou Everett and Arpana Edala. Other team members included Parker Whitt and Nolan Newton of the N.C. Department of Environmental and Natural Resources; and Renee Long of the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center, in Madison, Wisc.

• 06/15/2006:  Maine tests wild birds for avian flu, Bangor Daily News
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  By Kevin Miller
  
  Maine wildlife biologists have begun testing migratory birds for avian influenza as part of a national program to detect the deadly virus as soon as it arrives on U.S. soil.
  
  Meanwhile, state officials are once again asking residents to report dead birds for possible testing for West Nile Virus, Eastern Equine Encephalitis and, eventually, bird flu.
  
  There are still no known cases in North America of the H5N1 avian influenza strain that has devastated poultry flocks in Southeast Asia and killed several dozen people worldwide. But scientists say it is only a matter of time before H5N1 makes it to the U.S., possibly on the wings of migrating birds.
  
  To date, most of Maine's bird flu monitoring has focused on the state's sizeable commercial poultry flocks. But during the past week, biologists began testing wild Arctic terns, common eiders and black guillemots.
  
  Canada geese and several other types of waterfowl will also be tested, said Michael Schummer, a wildlife biologist and game bird specialist with the state Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.
  
  The birds will be captured, swabbed and released unharmed. The swabs will then be sent to laboratories for testing for any of the dozens of types of bird flu typically found in wild populations.
  
  "When we send these to the lab, we will likely get some positives for avian influenza, but it probably will not be H5N1," Schummer said.
  
  Scientists are concerned the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus could eventually mutate into a form transmissible from person to person, creating the potential for a human flu pandemic.
  
  The species being tested in Maine were targeted for their migratory routes or because they often associate with other migratory birds.
  
  The Arctic tern's migration route, for example, takes it off the coasts of Africa and Europe - areas where H5N1 has been detected - before returning to Canada and northern New England to breed. Some populations of Canada geese, on the other hand, live in Maine year-round but often "collaborate" with many other migrating bird species, Schummer said.
  
  This year is the first time that Maine's migratory bird species will be extensively tested for bird flu.
  
  Biologists will also be testing game birds taken by hunters this fall.
  
  "We do expect to be doing this into the near future," Schummer said.
  
  Christopher Brand, chief of research at the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis., said all four major migratory bird "flyways" in the U.S. are being monitored for signs of bird flu. Alaska, which many scientists believe is the most likely entryway for infected migratory birds, has been testing since 1998.
  
  Brand, whose office does testing for the U.S. Department of the Interior and some state agencies, said 75,000 to 100,000 tests of bird, water and environmental samples will be conducted in 2006.
  
  "What we are trying to do is detect it early," Brand said.
  
  Maine has also re-opened its "Dead Bird Reporting Line" through which residents can alert authorities to birds that died from unexplained reasons.
  
  The hot line (888-697-5846) was launched in 2000 to help the state track the spread of the West Nile virus. Last year, it helped detect Eastern equine encephalitis, a potentially deadly virus that like West Nile can be transmitted from birds to humans through mosquitoes, in a dozen Maine birds.
  
  The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention announced Wednesday that dead birds reported through the hot line may eventually be tested for avian flu.
  
  Meanwhile, monitoring of Maine's commercial poultry flocks will continue.
  
  Dr. Don Hoenig, the state veterinarian, said Maine is operating a program for owners of smaller, backyard poultry flocks in which dead birds can be sent for testing at no cost to the resident.
  
  The fact that six people called last week asking about dead birds in their backyard flocks told Hoenig that people are aware of the threat.
  
  "Everybody is reading about it. They are concerned about it, and they want to talk to somebody about it," Hoenig said.
  
  Fast Facts box:
  
  Is the H5N1 bird flu virus in Maine?
  
  There are no known cases of H5N1 in the U.S. But scientists believe migratory birds could carry it to Maine and other states from infected areas.
  
  What should I do if I find a dead bird?
  
  Call the Maine CDC's hotline at 1-888-697-5846 to report birds that died from unknown causes. The hotline staff or voice mail prompts will direct callers. Some birds may be collected (at no cost to the caller) for further testing.
  
  Can humans catch bird flu?
  
  Sometimes. The human victims of H5N1 so far have lived with, cared for or had other close contact with infected birds. The more dangerous situation is if H5N1 mutated into a form transmissible among humans. That mutation has not happened.
  
  If bird flu reaches the U.S. and begins spreading among humans, how can I avoid catching it?
  
  Health officials say basic hygiene steps - frequent hand washing, covering coughs or sneezes, staying home when ill - can help prevent transmission of any flu. They also recommend creating a home emergency kit with basic supplies, such as food, water and fever-reducing medications.
  
  Is it safe to eat poultry products?
  
  Yes, as long as they are prepared properly. Cooking poultry and egg products to at least 165 degrees should kill the bird flu virus. Simply refrigerating or freezing infected meat will not kill the virus. No poultry products infected with the H5N1 virus have been found in the U.S., however.
  
  For more information, go online to:
  
  www.pandemicflu.gov
  
  www.mainepublichealth.gov
  
  www.maineflu.gov
  
  Sources: University of Maine Cooperative Extension, Maine CDC

• 06/15/2006:  Bald eagle found in Amherst recovering, Buffalo News
  
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  DEC believes predator has avian botulism
  
  By BARBARA O'BRIEN
  
  News Staff Reporter
  
  6/15/2006
  
  
  
  The young bald eagle found in Amherst over the weekend is on the mend.
  
  "He's great. He's much improved," Joel Thomas, wildlife administrator for the Erie County SPCA, said Wednesday.
  
  The eagle was found in distress Saturday afternoon by two boys in a wooded area near Hopkins and Klein roads. He showed signs of neurological impairment, was not able to walk and was underweight.
  
  Thomas said he has discussed the eagle's case with the endangered species unit from the state Department of Environmental Conservation, and it is believed the eagle is suffering from avian botulism.
  
  "I had suspected some sort of biological concentration," he said. "It turns out he was in a DEC hot spot for botulism."
  
  Botulism is caused by clostridium botulinum, a bacteria that occurs naturally and is concentrated in sediment in certain wetlands, Thomas said. The bacteria produces a nerve toxin which causes paralysis, according to the National Wildlife Health Center of the U.S. Geological Survey.
  
  The treatment for avian botulism is fluids and supportive care, which is what the eagle has received, Thomas said.
  
  "Because he's recovering so rapidly and so well, that backs it up," Thomas said of the cause of the illness.
  
  He's still waiting for results of tests for West Nile virus and mercury poisoning.
  
  Thomas said it appears that the macro-predator, the eagle, was feeding on a number of animals that had the toxin in their bodies. Each animal by itself may not have appeared sick, but eating enough of them concentrated the bacteria in the eagle, causing it to become ill, he surmises.
  
  "That's the likely scenario," he said.
  
  The eagle, a male believed to be about 2 years old, has started eating solid food: rodent meat with the undigestible parts removed, Thomas said.
  
  "He's eating small meals. We're going to move him outside today," Thomas said Wednesday.
  
  Still, he is not ready for release.
  
  "We need to evaluate him for flight," Thomas said. "This bird has to be able to fly at very high altitudes. This bird needs to be 110 percent."
  
  e-mail: bobrien@buffnews.com

• 06/14/2006:  Anchorage lab certified to test for bird flu; Alaska law gives state new power to quarantine animals, PlanetSave.com
  
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  Written by ANNE SUTTON
  
  Wednesday, 14 June 2006
  
  JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) _ A state lab in Anchorage is ready to join a U.S. federal effort to detect early on whether a deadly bird flu virus has reached the North American continent.
  
  The Department of Environmental Conservation Environmental Health Laboratory was certified last week to test for avian influenza in what will be thousands of fecal and intestinal track samples collected from wild and domestic birds around the state this year.
  
  The National Animal Health Laboratory Network certified the lab Tuesday, making it one of 47 state-funded labs around the country that will conduct the bird flu surveillance testing.
  
  In announcing the certification, Gov. Frank Murkowski also signed into law a measure that gives the state veterinarian legal authority to isolate sick animals. Until now, the state has had to depend on the voluntary efforts of animal owners.
  
  State veterinarian Bob Gerlach said it was another important tool in efforts to strengthen the state's animal health safety net. Over 75 percent of emerging infectious human diseases come from animals.
  
  Gerlach expects as many as 200 samples a week will come to the lab over the summer. That will include samples taken by field crews with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
  
  The lab will test for H5 and H7 subtypes of the virus. Any positive results will be sent on to the National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Ames, Iowa, for a full analysis to see if it matches the highly pathogenic virus that has killed or led to the slaughter of millions of birds in Europe, Asia and Africa. At least 128 people also have died of the disease, apparently from contact with sick birds.
  
  So far, there have been no reported cases of the virus in North America.
  
  The Department of Interior's U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is also collecting samples. Those are being tested at the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wisconsin.
  
  Some 19,000 mostly live, wild and migratory birds in Alaska will be tested this year. That's out of 75,000 to 100,000 birds the U.S. government hopes to test nationwide this year.
  
  Gerlach said a couple handfuls of samples have already arrived at the lab. The samples until now were being sent, packed on ice, to a lab in Pullman, Washington, by overnight mail.
  
  He said the in-state lab will save both time and expense.

• 06/12/2006:  Bird flu samples test negative, so far, Associated Press
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  ANNE SUTTON
  
  Associated Press
  
  JUNEAU, Alaska - Several thousand samples from both live and subsistence-hunted birds in Alaska have so far tested negative for the avian flu virus, according to government officials.
  
  Scientists from federal, state and local governments are cooperating in a nationwide survey to see if wild migratory birds may have brought the disease to the North American continent. The plan is to sample between 75,000 and 100,000 wild birds around the country.
  
  Most of the sampling will be done in Alaska, considered a migratory crossroads for birds traveling between Asia and the Lower 48.
  
  Spokesman Bruce Woods said agencies under the Department of the Interior have collected samples from more than 4,000 birds in Alaska, mostly subsistence hunted fowl.
  
  Just under half of those samples have been tested at the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis., and none has shown any trace of the highly pathogenic virus.
  
  Spokeswoman Gail Keirn with the U.S. Department of Agriculture said the department has have collected almost 700 samples so far and all have tested negative for the virus. Those tests are being conducted at USDA certified veterinary labs around the country and the National Wildlife Research Center in Fort Collins, Colo.
  
  The goal is to sample 19,000 live and hunter-killed birds in Alaska this year and collect another 1,500 fecal samples from wetlands where large numbers of birds mingle.
  
  Scientists hope to test at least 200 samples each from 28 different species that are considered the most likely to be carriers of the virus and the most practical to sample.

• 06/08/2006:  WSU Hosts Annual Midwestern Conference of Parasitologists, Winona State University News
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Winona State University hosts the 58th Annual Midwestern Conference of Parasitologists (AMCOP) June 8-10.
  
  The conference opens Thursday, June 8, with a reception held at 6 p.m. at ZaZas Pub and Pizzeria, 529 Huff St. On Friday, June 9, all student papers and posters will be presented. Student oral presentations will be held 9 a.m.-12 noon in Stark Auditorium (103).
  
  At 1 p.m., Dr. Rebecca Cole, of the USGS National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis., presents "Recurring Waterbird Mortalities in Wisconsin Due to Trematodiasis" and Dr. Darwin Wittrock, of University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, presents "Studies on the Host-Parasite Relationships of Trematodes and Their Second Intermediate Hosts."
  
  Wittrock will also honor the memory and contributions of intended symposium speaker Daniel Sutherland, of University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, who recently passed away.
  
  The afternoon concludes with a silent auction of parasitological materials.
  
  A banquet will be held at 6 p.m. in the Purple Rooms, Kryzsko Commons. The banquet speaker is Dr. Matthew Bolek from University of Nebraska-Lincoln, who will present "Amphibian Parasites: The Cool, the Bad and the Ugly.
  
  The conference concludes Saturday, June 10, after a morning session featuring contributed faculty papers, the annual business meeting and the presentation of awards. Three student awards are given each year: Best Oral Presentation, Best Poster Presentation and Best Undergraduate Presentation.
  
  According to Dr. Kim Bates, WSU biology professor and AMCOP 2006 program officer, 35-60 people attend the conference each year. One-third of attendees are faculty, while the rest are undergraduate and graduate students. Joshua Gorman, a May 2006 WSU graduate, will attend this years conference.
  
  For more information, call Kim Bates at 457-5458 or email: kbates@winona.edu.
  
  - WSU -

• 05/31/2006:  On watch for signs of bird flu, Star Tribune
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Scientists in Madison, Wis., are leading the nation's sweeping H5N1 monitoring effort, which began last week with 1,000 samples.
  
  Sharon Schmickle, Star Tribune
  
  Last update: May 30, 2006 10:51 PM
  
  MADISON, WIS. - Whatever caused the delicate tern to die on a rooftop in Dallas, bird flu was one culprit pathologist Louis Sileo had to consider as he slit open the bird's feathered belly. He carefully removed lungs the size of jelly beans, a liver that wouldn't fill a tablespoon and a slender fish the tern had swallowed.
  
  In a massive dragnet organized this year to spot any North American appearance of the deadly bird-flu virus, Sileo and other scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center in Madison are among the lead detectives. Last week, they began screening wild birds and tissue samples from birds around the country, looking for the H5N1 virus, which has killed 127 people and prompted the destruction of millions of birds in Asia, Africa and Europe.
  
  The virus is certain to show up in North America, says the center's director, Leslie Dierauf, and wild birds are one way it could arrive.
  
  More than 15,000 samples
  
  Sileo tipped the tern tail up so a lab technician, using a Dacron swab, could collect a waste sample from the bird.
  
  More than 1,000 similar samples from birds in Alaska arrived last week at the Madison center for the nation's first large-scale measure of flu in migrating birds. Sileo was checking the tern because the center also examines carcasses of certain birds found around the country, especially if they represent large die-offs or species of special concern. The tern was from an endangered and closely watched species.
  
  In all, the center expects to screen more than 15,000 bird samples this year.
  
  A cluster of low-rise buildings at the end of a long wooded driveway on Madison's outskirts, the center has specialized for 30 years in solving the mysteries of wildlife die-offs. Other labs around the country are prepared to pitch in should the virus take hold.
  
  No one knows that wild birds would carry avian influenza to North America. Scientists from around the world are meeting this week at a United Nations conference in Rome to debate just how wild birds have helped disseminate the virus.
  
  The most intense outbreaks have been in poultry; U.S. officials are monitoring the nation's domestic flocks. Another major focus is the smuggling of exotic wildlife.
  
  But the graceful birds that define our changing seasons -- loons, swans, migrating geese -- are nature's reservoirs for the viruses that cause 144 types of bird flu. And H5N1 has taken a toll in their ranks, too. Geese, swans, gulls, ducks and cormorants have died of it in China, for example.
  
  Focus on Alaska
  
  Officials from four U.S. agencies have organized the immense task of screening North America's wild birds by focusing first on Alaska, a major hub for migrating birds. The Pacific flyway -- spanning Arctic Canada, the western United States, Mexico and South America -- ties directly into Alaska. A similar funnel fans across Asia with its narrow end pointing toward the Bering Strait, which separates Siberia and Alaska. Some migrating birds criss-cross the continents there. Others from both sides congregate there. As most Minnesotans know firsthand, flu bugs love the cold, and a virus can linger for weeks in the near-freezing northern waters where the birds mingle.
  
  Paul Slota, a branch chief at the Madison center, and several other scientists went to Alaska in April to help investigators from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other agencies sample birds. Near Anchorage, they trapped birds, measured and banded them, swabbed them for the virus and then let them go.
  
  Another batch of samples came from birds that native hunters had killed in the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge, a nesting ground for millions of ducks, geese and other water birds.
  
  In Madison, blue-gloved technicians working in a secure laboratory opened the boxes of samples last week, checked each sample against records from Alaska, then began extracting RNA that would signal the presence of telltale proteins.
  
  Scientists classify avian influenza viruses on the basis of proteins found on their surfaces. In the case of H5N1, the H stands for the protein hemagglutinin and the N for neuraminidase.
  
  Any sample the Madison lab found to contain key H proteins would be forwarded to a U.S. Agriculture Department lab in Ames, Iowa, to be tested for the N protein, said Hon Ip, a virologist at the Madison lab.
  
  Results from the initial round of tests won't be available for at least a week, and any confirmed finding would be announced in Washington, D.C., he said.
  
  Pandemic not a sure thing
  
  The arrival of H5N1 would not necessarily signal the advance of a pandemic.
  
  Since the beginning of 2003, there have been 224 cases of avian influenza in humans in 10 countries, and 127 of those died, the World Health Organization reported last week. Vietnam had the most, 93 cases, followed by Indonesia with 48 and Thailand with 22. Vietnam and Thailand have seen no human cases this year, raising hope that the impact can be curbed by aggressive sanitation and education campaigns.
  
  Further hope came from studies published in March in the journal Science suggesting it would be difficult for the infection to pass from human to human because the virus binds to types of cells that are buried in the lower respiratory tract. Most of the flu bugs people spread by coughing and sneezing take hold higher in the respiratory system.
  
  Still, the jitters came back last week with reports that members of a family in Indonesia appear to have spread the influenza to one another. Experts have long said one trigger for a pandemic would be sustained transmission of the virus from person to person rather than bird to person. But the World Health Organization said the one family incident did not add up to sustained transmission.
  
  Should the virus surface in North America's wild birds, it will be important not to panic, said Dierauf, the director of the Madison center. Outbreaks in Asia initially prompted people to shoot wild birds and destroy rare birds in zoos. That was a mistake, Dierauf said, and investigators eventually traced the outbreaks to domestic flocks. What people in North America should do for now, she said, is to not touch birds. Those who kill and eat wild birds should handle them cautiously and cook them thoroughly.
  
  Birds die naturally all the time, of course, and most fatalities wouldn't warrant an investigation, she said. Wildlife officials are watching for unusual events, such as large die-offs of 500 or more birds.
  
  The important thing to remember, she said, is "if you see a dead bird, don't pick it up yourself."
  
  Sharon Schmickle 612-673-4432

• 05/30/2006:  Athens research lab ready to fulfill bird flu mission, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  By M.A.J. McKENNA
  
  The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
  
  Published on: 05/30/06
  
  Athens Sometime in the near future no one can say exactly when a courier may bring a small, securely wrapped package to an anonymous hilltop complex south of the University of Georgia.
  
  The package will hold a tiny tube of hardened glass containing a drop of liquid. In the liquid, there will be a virus.
  
  The scientists who work at the complex will take the package into a laboratory with operating rules so strict that they must shower, change and wear respirators to move freely inside it. They will emerge with a report: The exact identity and source, down to the individual letters of genetic sequence, of the first Asian bird flu to be found in the United States.
  
  Much will hinge on that analysis: It is the last piece of information the government will require before announcing the Asian strain's long-feared arrival in this country.
  
  Avian flu H5N1, the Asian strain named for two proteins on the surface of the virus, is one of the most highly pathogenic viruses the world has seen, but it remains a pandemic in birds, not humans, responsible so far for the death or preventive slaughter of more than 200 million poultry. The virus has sickened at least 224 people in 10 countries, killing 127 of them mostly victims who had contact with infected poultry.
  
  Discovery of the disease within U.S. borders would trigger a storm of activity and emotion. But the scientists of the Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory feel ready for the spotlight.
  
  "We have spent my career, and this lab's career, preparing for this," said Dr. David Swayne, the lab's tall, affable director. "Though I do expect we will work late that night."
  
  Behind the scenes
  
  The Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory is world-famous if you happen to live in the world of veterinary pathologists, influenza virologists, and people who are very interested in chickens.
  
  To anyone else, it is a drab cluster of low-profile buildings perched above College Station Road, sheathed in 1960s stucco and wrapped in layers of locked chain-link fence.
  
  Entry is intriguingly difficult. Visitors get temporary IDs that transform within hours from all-access white to no-go magenta stripes. Staff, to be hired, must swear never to have private-life contact with birds: no racing pigeons, no parrots, no poultry in the backyard.
  
  The roadblocks protect what amounts to a secret weapon in the war on bird flu. SEPRL houses the avian equivalent of the "hot zone" labs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, high-security research suites where its scientists tease apart virulent viruses while wearing high-tech protective gear.
  
  The Athens lab was performing those tasks decades before the Asian strain of avian flu became a potentially devastating human threat. SEPRL is a unit of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and its chief mission is protecting the U.S. poultry industry against strains of avian influenza that have become "highly pathogenic" a rare mutation that transforms an innocuous infection into the chicken equivalent of Ebola.
  
  Because they work with lethal viruses, the 55 SEPRL staff members rarely leave the lab for field work. When they do, it is rarely glamorous: In birds, influenza is a gut disease.
  
  "I went up to Alaska a year ago to where the brant geese congregate," said Swayne, a veterinary pathologist whose soft-spoken demeanor belies an international scientific reputation. "We walked along the shore with spoons, scooping up poop."
  
  From beaks to beakers
  
  SEPRL is as unremarkable inside as outside. The floors are linoleum. The windows are swathed in UV-blocking purple film that gives the office walls an aquarium glow. Dress-up is Dockers and sport clogs; dress-down is scrubs.
  
  But a hum of concentration pervades the cinder-block hallways. SEPRL was busy enough before H5N1 flu began moving across the globe 30 months ago: One set of its scientists developed a poultry vaccine against H5 that has since sold millions of doses around the world, and another group developed a test that can identify highly pathogenic flu viruses in minutes.
  
  Its staff has looked for avian flu in more than 12,000 samples collected from migratory wild birds over seven years by researchers at University of Alaska, Ohio State University and University of Georgia.
  
  "If Asian avian flu comes to the United States, their historical information will be extremely valuable," said Dr. Leslie Dierauf, director of the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis., the first-look federal diagnostic lab for a new program testing 100,000 birds.
  
  And it has been pursuing the Asian H5N1 strain for almost a decade. When the virus first attacked humans in 1997, SEPRL helped identify it. And it contributed to the reassembly of the long-lost 1918 flu virus, killer of possibly 50 million people worldwide.
  
  "They're little-known ... but they're incredibly important," said Dr. David Stallknecht, a UGA associate professor of wildlife infectious diseases who has been sending them wild-bird samples since 1998.
  
  However pressed things were before, the pace has picked up now. A whiteboard in the office of Dr. Erica Spackman, a microbiologist who developed the rapid test with the lab's Dr. David Suarez, lists some of the meetings she will attend or send papers to this year: Washington, Des Moines, Saint Simon's, Minneapolis, Portland, England, Quebec.
  
  The stress on the scientists has grown with their workload and with the public's increasing disquiet over avian flu.
  
  "There's a lot of confusion between bird flu as an animal-health issue and pandemic flu as a human-health issue," said Spackman, who practices martial arts to stay calm. "When they hear 'avian influenza,' people start to panic ...though most of the time the virus is innocuous to humans."
  
  'See a problem ... solve it'
  
  The still center of the swirl that envelopes SEPRL these days is Swayne's corner office, a narrow paneled space that he shares with a dozen birds: a pecking-hens toy from Russia, cranes from Japan, tiny silver fighting cocks from Peru, and a gleaming blue and purple glass rooster that wife Anita bought for him in Venice.
  
  The birds are souvenirs from places that bird flu research has taken the 47-year-old scientist but they also suggest how far he has come from Yellville, Ark., where he grew up the son of an auto mechanic, raising animals after school.
  
  "On a farm, you see a problem, you solve it you take the tractor apart, you put it back together," he said. "That was what I saw in veterinary medicine. Eventually I figured out I wanted to do the science of veterinary medicine. I wanted to solve big problems."
  
  In H5N1, Swayne and his lab confront what could be one of the biggest health problems in history an epidemic that, even if it never kills another human, has already done vast damage to ecosystems and economies worldwide.
  
  They are prepared to be for birds what the CDC is to humans: the final authority for proving that avian flu has come home to roost. But despite their long acquaintance with the virus, they are not convinced they will see the Asian strain of H5N1 in the United States soon.
  
  Migratory birds might bring it, Swayne said in a chat in his office under a lithograph of Barred Rock chickens but the rate of infection in healthy birds is low, and so therefore is the possibility that one hemisphere's bird might pass the disease to another. Or an infected human might bring it but most victims so far have been developing-world villagers with little means to purchase an airline ticket.
  
  The biggest risk, he said, may be the least predictable: smuggled poultry, like the illegally sold chicks that brought the virus into Nigeria this spring, or smuggled exotic birds, like the infected eagles found two years ago in hand luggage in Brussels.
  
  "We have natural and artificial barriers that protect us," he said. "To get past those, the virus is going to have to change. And that is the thing none of us can predict."

• 05/26/2006:  Alaskan bird droppings arrive, Wisconsin State Journal
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  DAVID WAHLBERG dwahlberg@madison.com
  
  May 26, 2006
  
  The fecal samples from birds in Alaska came without fanfare, in two nondescript shipping boxes.
  
  But their arrival Thursday at the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison launched the biggest project in the 30- year-old center's history: surveillance for the H5N1 bird flu virus threatening the globe.
  
  The 758 samples, from king eiders, sandhill cranes and other waterfowl hunted by Alaskan natives near the Yukon River delta, were frozen in pinkish solution inside tiny vials.
  
  Robots will extract genetic material from the samples, pool the material into wells on lab plates, and heat and cool the collections until they glow if H5N1 is present.
  
  "We're ready to go to town," said Hon Ip, who oversees the diagnostic virology lab at the center off Schroeder Road on the city's West Side. "But you never know what Mother Nature is going to throw at us."
  
  With an infusion of nearly $3 million from President Bush's $3.8 billion bird flu readiness plan, the center is at the forefront of the country's lookout for the deadly virus.
  
  Globally, the disease has led to the death or slaughter of millions of birds, devastating many poultry farms. It has killed 124 of the 218 people known to be infected since late 2003.
  
  Scientists fear that the virus could kill millions of people worldwide if it becomes easily transmissible among people. A recent cluster of cases among family members in Indonesia, seven of whom died, has heightened concern.
  
  H5N1 has not appeared in the United States. But if it does, a likely entry route is Alaska, which biologists call "Grand Central Station" of bird migration. Waterfowl could carry the virus from Asia over the Bering Strait and infect birds that fly to California and inland states.
  
  Many experts say it is inevitable that the disease will eventually reach U.S. soil.
  
  "I don't say 'if' anymore," said Leslie Dierauf, director of the center. "I said 'when.' "
  
  The fecal swabs delivered by Fed Ex on Thursday are among nearly 20,000 samples expected at the center this year. While the first batch was from birds killed by hunters, most will come from live birds trapped by biologists this spring and fall.
  
  A related effort will involve the necropsies, or animal autopsies, routinely performed at the center each year on more than 1,000 birds that die suspiciously throughout the country.
  
  Pathologists will look closely for extra fluid in the birds' lungs or other signs of bird flu.
  
  "It's possible the virus will appear differently in different species," said Scott Wright, chief of disease investigations at the center.
  
  Ip and his colleagues will test the samples in two ways: with the robots, which produce results within a day; and by trying to grow the virus in eggs, which can take two weeks but is considered the "gold standard."
  
  If samples appear to contain H5N1, they will be sent for confirmation to the National Veterinary Services Lab in Ames, Iowa.
  
  Only then would federal officials announce that bird flu has arrived. Officials from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security and the Department of Interior are already planning how to carefully break the news, Ip said.
  
  "It's not going to be a trivial finding," he said.

• 05/25/2006:  FEATURE-Hunt is on in Alaska for deadly bird flu virus, Reuters
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Thu May 25, 2006 8:00 AM ET
  
  By Yereth Rosen
  
  ANCHORAGE, Alaska, May 25 (Reuters) - From the recently thawed tidal flats that edge Anchorage to the tundra of western Alaska, the hunt for deadly avian influenza virus is on.
  
  Biologists and rural hunters have begun testing wild birds to search for signs of the H5N1 virus that has infected birds in Asia, Africa and Europe and caused more than 120 deaths on those continents.
  
  But if the virus is invading North America through Alaska, there was no outward sign of it among the shorebirds pecking for food in the mud flats of Anchorage on a sunny, picture-postcard morning this week.
  
  With snow-capped Mount Susitna looming behind them, hungry birds dug into the water and mud for food before continuing their migration to Arctic breeding grounds, just as they do each spring.
  
  The few that have flown into the wide nets pitched in the mud appear hale, hearty and free from any infection, said the government biologists who have been watching them for the past week.
  
  "Everything we've caught has been very healthy and flying and looking like good shorebirds should," said Bob Gill, a U.S. Geological Survey biologist who is part of a team monitoring migrating birds in Anchorage.
  
  Alaska is considered North America's most likely entry point for the virus, and federal and state agencies have launched an aggressive testing program here.
  
  Samples from about 15,000 birds, both live migrants and hunted fowl, will be taken over the summer and fall and evaluated in laboratories for signs of the virus. Twenty-eight migrating species are targeted for testing because of their travels between bird-flu hotspots in Asia and Alaska.
  
  Government agencies have set up a hotline for citizens to report any unusual die-offs. State and federal agencies are maintaining Web pages with detailed information about migratory birds, influenza and possible relationships between the two.
  
  And there are numerous public advisories, in English and in Alaska Native languages, giving virus-avoiding precautions to hunters and anyone else who might encounter infected birds.
  
  "Our challenge is trying to get information out that's useful and pertinent and would mean something," said Lynda Giguere, a spokeswoman for the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation.
  
  COLD SPRING BRINGS SLOW START
  
  The field sampling of birds has started slowly because of a cold spring and a later-than-expected bird migration.
  
  By the end of the week, the first Alaska samples -- about 1,300 in all -- are expected to arrive at a federal laboratory in Wisconsin, said Catherine Puckett, a USGS spokeswoman.
  
  Most of the samples are being taken by subsistence hunters in 10 native villages in western Alaska's Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, she said.
  
  Only a few samples will be sent from the Cook Inlet tidal flats, where biologists were struggling to net two species of tiny shorebirds -- pectoral sandpipers and long-billed dowitchers. They are not hunted for food and the only practical way to test them is to have them fly into nets.
  
  It is a difficult way to capture birds that are using the area only as a feeding stop, said Lee Tibbetts, a USGS biologist.
  
  "They have no reason to be here, so if you scare them off once, they'll leave," she said. "These spring migrants are in a hurry."
  
  She and other biologists tried to "twinkle" the birds by gently shooing them into the nets but the birds responded by flying over or around the netting. On that day, not a single bird went into the nets.
  
  "They're too smart for us today," said Dan Ruthrauff, a USGS biologist who spent the morning on the shoreline waiting in vain for a bird to swab.
  
  When birds do fly into the nets, they are banded, weighed and measured in addition to having a swab of their anal cavity to detect the H5N1 virus.
  
  Biologists are sampling blood to better understand genetics, clipping feather samples for analysis that will help pinpoint wintering grounds and banding the birds' legs to help track their movements, Tibbetts said.
  
  Later in the summer, when various shorebirds are in their flightless, feather-shedding molt period, it will be easier to herd them into nets for testing.
  
  But for now, opportunities for sampling live birds -- like the birds' presence on the mud flats -- are fleeting.
  
  "Most birds in the spring, they're in a hurry to get to where they're going and do what they're going to do," Gill said.

• 05/25/2006:  Epidemic of Wildlife Diseases, The Roanoke Times
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  EPIDEMIC OF WILDLIFE DISEASES
  
  By Bill Cochran
  
  Whats behind the extraordinary number of diseases impacting wildlife: avian influenza, chronic wasting disease, avian botulism, whirling disease, West Nile fever, brucellosis?
  
  A new reference book, Disease Emergence and Resurgence: The Wildlife-Human Connection, addresses this subject. It is the work of the USGS National Wildlife Health Center.
  
  Get this: The cost is only $5 on www.usgs.gov. Or you can view it or download it free from http://www.nwhc.usgs.gov/publications/disease_emergence/index.jsp.
  
  Meanwhile, the Wildlife Center of Virginia, located in Waynesboro, is developing a national surveillance network to help detect diseases in wildlife that may be linked to bioterrorism. Announced Monday, the effort will be called Project Tripwire.
  
  The Center entered into a $166,000, six-month contract with the Institute for Defense and Homeland Security to work on a database designed to link about two-dozen of North Americas largest wildlife hospitals.

• 05/25/2006:  Interior: Swans Likely First to Get Bird Flu, Associated Press
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  By JOHN HEILPRIN
  
  Associated Press Writer
  
  WASHINGTON (AP) -- A deadly bird flu virus will likely slip into the United States through a pretty package: either majestic swans flying across the Bering Strait into Alaska or from smuggled exotic wildlife at one of the nation's ports.
  
  Its detection probably will depend on watching to see if hundreds of birds die at once, Interior Department officials said Wednesday in an interview with The Associated Press, adding it may not show up at all in 2006.
  
  "From my perspective, I would say swans are the starting point because we found the disease already, or Europe has found them, in swans," said H. Dale Hall, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
  
  The first 1,300 tissue samples taken in Alaska from migratory birds that could carry the H5N1 virus are due to arrive later this week at the U.S. Geological Survey laboratory in Madison, Wis. They come from a subsistence hunt by native Alaskans.
  
  Among migrating birds, officials believe the disease will probably be transmitted from an Asian species to a North American one from the Pacific Flyway when both begin arriving in Alaska for the summer to nest. The Pacific flyway - one of four bird highways in the sky over the United States - stretches from Alaska and western Canada through the Western states to Mexico.
  
  "Birds coming up that would fly in that flyway are the ones that would probably most likely mingle with the Australasian birds that have come up and may be carrying" H5N1, Hall said. "We're working as if it could show up this year."
  
  The Madison lab between now and next January will test 10,000 to 20,000 tissue samples for the 'H' type of protein hemagglutinin. Testing for the 'N' type of protein neuraminidase will be done by the Agriculture Department in Ames, Iowa. Nationally, 70,000 samples are expected to be tested.
  
  Only after both phases of testing will Bush administration officials announce whether the highly pathogenic H5N1 has arrived in the United States. The virus has spread from Asia to Africa and Europe, killing at least 124 people.
  
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  If an H5N1 strain shows, officials will then have to determine whether it is a highly pathogenic variety capable of causing a large kill of at least 500 or more birds.
  
  Typically, three to 12 die-offs of more than 500 birds occur each year. There have been two this year already, from bird cholera at Klamath Basin in Oregon and California and parasites in the Mississippi River between Wisconsin and Illinois, said H. Dale Hall, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
  
  Hall added, however, that global trade in pets, illegal wildlife and animal parts could prove to be the more likely route for the deadly virus reaching the United States.
  
  "I am more concerned about the illegal smuggling and the bringing-in illegally of birds into this country," he said. "And the reason is an endangered species, or even birds people are not supposed to have because they're from another country bring very high dollars in."
  
  Hall and Patrick Leahy, director of the U.S. Geological Survey, which is conducting the initial round of tests for presence of the virus, said their concerns about the virus will ease sometime between October and December if it hasn't shown up.
  
  "We may dodge the bullet this year, but the sampling will continue," Leahy said, explaining the entire effort would begin anew next spring.
  
  Leahy said a variation of influenza in birds, H5N2, was found last year in two of 100 birds sampled in North Dakota.
  
  The first samples of the two ducks came back positive for the deadly bird flu strain, but more analysis found they were infected with one of a number of duck viruses and "there was nothing to be concerned about," said Ted Gutzke, project leader at North Dakota's J. Clark Salyer National Wildlife Refuge.
  
  It isn't clear yet which birds will be show symptoms of the disease or just be a carrier like a Typhoid Mary, Leahy said. "A lot of the USGS activities is looking at how the virus behaves in different wildlife species," he said.
  
  Meanwhile, the White House was closely monitoring a family cluster of bird flu cases likely transmitted from human to human in Indonesia. Seven of eight family members died, but there wasn't reason yet to fear a pandemic, said the World Health Organization in Geneva.
  
  "They're still trying to investigate the possibilities it's human-to-human contact, whether this is the sort of contact that might lead to a pandemic," said Tony Snow, President Bush's press secretary.
  
  Hall said the Fish and Wildlife Service hopes to collect tissue samples or feces from 27 species of migratory waterfowl and shorebirds that could have contracted virus - directly or indirectly - from ducks in China or other sources. It also is collecting water samples from where birds defecate.
  
  No one knows whether the virus will reach the United States or develop into a strain of deadly flu that can be transmitted easily by humans. Until that happens, Interior officials say they won't become alarmed.
  
  "Our reaction until there's evidence that it has recombined or has mutated would be to treat it as we do other wildlife diseases - make sure people know it's there," Hall said. "We have bird die-offs every year."
  
  In the meantime, Hall advised anyone who comes across a dead bird not to handle it. Game birds should be cooked thoroughly and hunters should keep sanitation in mind in handling, cleaning and deboning them, he said.
  
  ---

• 05/25/2006:  Bird flu research in Madison, WKOW TV (Channel 27)
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

  ---

  
  

  Researchers here in Madison could be dealing with the avian flu in their lab. Scientists here are testing bird samples from Alaska.
  
  The lab is run by the U.S. Geological Survey and played a critical role during the West Nile outbreak seven years ago. Now, they're studying the bird flu -- and the very first of a series of samples arrived in Madison this morning.
  
  The small vials that arrived in Madison today are helping researchers in a very big way. It is the first shipment from the USGA's 2006 surveillance program. The vials contain samples from migrating birds in Alaska. Scientists are looking for signs of the H5N1 virus: the bird flu; it would be a first on U.S. soil.
  
  Dr. Hon Ip is leading the study here in Madison. Using high tech instruments, his scientists will study thousands of samples, looking for some sort of avian flu. The Madison facility is leading the way as a safety net, to catch the bird flu in the U.S. before it's too late.
  
  "What we're looking for is that carrier of H5N1...(the) first arrival in North America," Dr. Ip said.
  
  "The critical thing with any disease is if you discover it soon enough, you can accomplish tasks to control it or rid yourself of it. Eradicate it," said Leslie Dierauf, director of the Madison center.
  
  If scientists do find a possible avian flu sample, it will be sent to the National Veterinary Services Lab in Iowa for confirmation. Dr. Ip says he's confident his team of scientists will make a significant find in the months ahead. Whether that finding is the one their looking for -- and dreading -- is anyone's guess.
  
  "Whether we will detect the highly pathogenic H5N1 -- that's what no one knows at the moment," said Dr. Ip. "And that's why we have this program in place."
  
  The Madison lab is one of about 40 across the nation testing bird samples. Madison scientists will test about 15,000 different samples -- all coming from Alaska.
  
  In addition to the samples being tested, scientists here in Madison are also responsible for testing dead birds that turn up -- to determine if a virus, like the avian flu or West Nile, was the cause of their death.
  
  For more information on the original 27 News report, and follow-up stories, click on 'Read the news archives' or the '27 News Vault'.

• 05/24/2006:  Animal Diseases As Warnings, Washington Post
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

  ---

  
  

  Wider Tracking of Wildlife Illnesses Aimed at Detecting Bio-Attacks
  
  By D'Vera Cohn
  
  Washington Post Staff Writer
  
  Wednesday, May 24, 2006; B03
  
  A growing number of scientists and government agencies are engaged in projects to track outbreaks of animal disease that could give a warning of a bioterrorism attack, modeled on the proverbial canary that coal miners carried to alert them to poisons in the air.
  
  They include officials at the Wildlife Center of Virginia in Waynesboro, who announced this week that they received an Air Force grant to design a national bioterrorism surveillance network that would link data from two dozen North American wildlife hospitals. The center's president, Ed Clark, said it would be "the bird dog out in front trying to get a whiff of what's going on."
  
  A simple example, he said, would be that ducks dying at a reservoir could signal an attempt to poison the water supply.
  
  Other efforts include a new surveillance program to collect daily information from commercial pet hospitals, the recent establishment of a federal "wildlife disease data warehouse" to swap information and the work of the Canary Database at Yale University, which has assembled thousands of scientific articles on links between wildlife and human health.
  
  The projects have two purposes: to create a comprehensive network that will chart wildlife disease outbreaks and to identify threats to people or wildlife populations from them.
  
  Behind them is a recognition that many potential bioweapons are animal diseases. Among them are avian influenza, plague, anthrax, tularemia and cholera. Most emerging infectious diseases, such as avian influenza, SARS and monkeypox, have a wildlife link. Although some diseases are tracked individually, there is no monitoring effort focused broadly on wildlife outbreaks.
  
  The possibility of an avian flu pandemic is fueling a sense of urgency in these efforts. Some scientists say they learned a hard lesson from the mosquito-borne West Nile virus outbreak that began in 1999, which might have been identified more quickly if wildlife researchers and human health researchers had been working with greater cooperation.
  
  "Not every animal disease indicates a human health risk, but some do more than we are always aware of," said Peter Rabinowitz, an associate professor at the Yale University School of Medicine, the main author of a recent journal article concluding that wildlife, livestock or pets could play a key role in signaling an anthrax or plague attack. "Human health professionals don't get a lot of training in this, and we are having to play catch-up."
  
  At the Wildlife Center of Virginia, Clark plans to model his network, called Project Tripwire, after the human-disease monitoring of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The center's $166,000 funding came through Virginia's Center for Innovative Technology.
  
  "There is a tremendous vulnerability in this country to emerging wildlife disease," Clark said. Bio-terrorism is "the scenario of worst-case anticipation," he said, but the network also could serve the broader purpose of sounding alerts about new illnesses that could endanger wildlife populations.
  
  Purdue University scientists and officials of the nation's largest veterinary chain -- Banfield, the Pet Hospital -- announced this month that they were collaborating on a program capable of detecting emerging animal infections that could be transmitted to people. The National Companion Animal Surveillance Program, which would employ daily data from the veterinary clinics, is funded with $1.2 million from the CDC.
  
  Larry Glickman, a professor of epidemiology and environmental medicine at Purdue, said in a statement that routine testing of pet cats and birds could provide a warning about the presence of avian influenza, which both can carry.
  
  At the same time, Interior Department scientists are ramping up the Web-based wildlife disease data warehouse to collect and publish information on outbreaks for a variety of clients, including public health authorities, state game agencies and the public. They will begin testing the network this summer with data from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. But there are major shortcomings, among them a lack of money and the fact that participation by state wildlife agencies is voluntary.
  
  "We don't have the infrastructure or the funding, or in some ways the legal mandate, to do this because the rules for reporting human disease and domestic animal disease are fairly well defined but for wildlife disease are not," said F. Joshua Dein, principal investigator with the Interior Department's National Wildlife Health Center.
  
  The state wildlife agencies in Maryland and Virginia plan to participate in the national network, officials in both states said. In those states, biologists and veterinarians mainly target their efforts to check deer for a neurological condition called chronic wasting disease and monitor waterfowl for avian influenza.
  
  Jonathan Sleeman, wildlife veterinarian with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, said the focus on wildlife disease and bioterrorism is part of a broader recognition that wildlife disease is more dangerous than previously thought.
  
  "There's an increasing body of evidence there are wildlife diseases that are a threat to wildlife itself," he said. "There's more contact and a globalized world where wildlife are moving a lot more than they used to. There's an increased opportunity for disease exchange."

• 05/23/2006:  Bird flu, Bird flu detectives at work here
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

  ---

  
  

  Lab will test for virus in samples from Alaska
  
  By Marilynn Marchione
  
  Associated Press
  
  May 23, 2006
  
  An unconventional border patrol here is watching for a dangerous migrant that may be trying to enter the country thousands of miles away.
  
  On Wednesday, agents at a Madison lab will start searching their first detainees - wild birds from Alaska that may be harboring bird flu.
  
  "The whole point is early detection," said Scott Wright, one of the U.S. Geological Survey scientists involved in the effort.
  
  "When West Nile virus started, nobody knew what was going on," and the germ started killing people before scientists realized it had been killing birds, he said. With bird flu, "we have the advantage of being able to sit down and plan things out" to try to find it and prevent an epidemic, Wright said.
  
  Tests will signal within a day whether the deadly H5N1 flu is present.
  
  No one knows whether the virus that has ravaged poultry in Asia and spread to Africa and Europe will make its way to the United States, or morph into a human super-flu. But controlling the disease in birds is one way to help ensure that it doesn't, so scientists want to know if migrating birds have brought it with them.
  
  "We know the specific sites in Alaska where wild birds arrive from Asia," said Dr. Leslie Dierauf, director of the USGS's National Wildlife Health Center here.
  
  "Almost to the day, we're aware of what birds are coming and from where," because birds in the Pacific flyway have "high fidelity" and typically return to the very spot they left months before, she said.
  
  The center, a sprawling, woodsy compound fronted by 15 acres of restored prairie on the far west side of Madison, will do most of the nation's testing of wild birds. The center is 30 years old, and many of its scientists have been there that long, with experience in animal diseases as diverse as lead poisoning in eagles and chronic wasting disease in deer.
  
  This summer, they expect to analyze more than 11,000 swabs from trapped, healthy birds plus about 4,000 dead birds, starting with 400 samples arriving today or Wednesday from 10 villages in the Yukon delta region of western Alaska, where hunters recently shot migrating ducks and geese for food.
  
  Also coming are samples taken over the weekend from healthy migrating shorebirds in coastal marsh areas near Anchorage.
  
  In addition, the U.S. Department of Agriculture will be testing droppings from tens of thousands of birds around the country.
  
  At the Madison lab, each bird gets a numbered manila folder file that is entered into a global positioning database being built to help track movement of H5N1, if it shows up.
  
  Virologist Hon Ip will test samples inside a secured, highly automated Biosafety Level 3 lab, air-pressurized to prevent germs from escaping.
  
  A small robot extracts genetic material from a sample. Another robot sets up the test, injecting bits of the sample into narrow, test-tube-like wells. The machine goes through heating and cooling cycles to make more copies of the genetic material; a substance is added to make it glow if H5N1 is present.
  
  The process is so high tech that even simple interpretation is not trusted to mere mortals: A fiber-optic cable measures the strength of the fluorescence and reports the amount of virus.
  
  The analysis takes one day, but "the implications of that first positive are so high, we would want to repeat that test" before announcing that H5N1 had turned up in the United States, Ip said.
  
  Scientists also will inject each sample into eggs containing 9- to 11-day-old chicken embryos and allow them to grow for about two weeks before testing for the virus again.
  
  In a separate, even more secured lab, "we're going to deliberately infect wild birds with known quantities of virus," Ip said.
  
  That will tell them how easily the germ spreads from bird to bird and whether particular species are most vulnerable, as crows were to West Nile. These answers one day might help control the disease - in birds and perhaps even in people.

• 05/23/2006:  Madison Research Battling the Bird Flu, WMTV (NBC) - Channel 15 (Madison)
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

  ---

  
  

  Justin Ware
  
  You might have noticed the set of smoke stacks, if you've ever taken a drive down Madison's belt line between Gammon and Whitney Way.
  
  Now, have you ever wondered what those smoke stacks are there for?
  
  The smoke stacks are part of this USGS National Wildlife Health Center.
  
  And the lab there, is leading the way in the battle against the bird flu.
  
  "In particular, in the current little bit," said Dr. Hon Ip, virologist who works at the center. "I think we'll be doing a lot of Avian influenza testing in particular."
  
  Ip is one of the virologists that, starting this week, will be looking for the bird flu in samples taken from birds in Alaska.
  
  Experts say Alaska is one of the most likely places for the bird flu to first appear in the US, because of all the birds that migrate across the Bering Strait from Asia.
  
  "Right now we're anticipating an influx of up to 15,000 samples coming from Alaska, the Pacific trust territories and the Pacific fly way," said Dr. Leslie Dierhauf, National Wildlife Health Center director.
  
  Dierhauf says she's not surprised they were picked to do the research.
  
  Dierhauf says Madison, with the University and laboratories like hers, is one of the leaders in battling the bird flu.
  
  "We'd like to think so," said Dierhauf. "We think that there's an incredible amount of expertise in this city related to Avian influenza."
  
  Diefhauf says catching the bird flu in Alaska is important, because that would give them more time to study it and prevent it from spreading to humans in the lower 48 states.

• 05/22/2006:  Keeping bird flu out of the States, Detroit Free Press
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

  ---

  
  

  Biologists begin testing for deadly virus in Alaska
  
  BY DAN JOLING
  
  ASSOCIATED PRESS
  
  May 22, 2006
  
  ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- The search for the first wild bird carrying a deadly flu virus to North America is under way on a lonely stretch of coastal salt marsh on the outskirts of Alaska's largest city.
  
  Biologists are ankle-deep in mud and yellowed marsh grass, trying to net and test two types of shorebirds. Both are known to visit regions where flocks have caught the dangerous H5N1 virus that has spread across Asia and even into Europe and Africa.
  
  "Birds up here are going to be interacting with birds that are going to be moving back in the United States," said Paul Slota of the U.S. Geological Survey. He will be overseeing the testing of samples at the USGS wildlife lab in Madison, Wis.
  
  The focus now is on long-billed dowitchers and pectoral sandpipers, just two of the 28 bird species that come to the great avian mixing zone that is Alaska. If bird flu can be carried long-distance by wild birds, experts hope to see it first there, before the fall migration through other states.
  
  No one knows if the H5N1 flu will arrive on the wings of a migratory bird. Or if it will reach North America this year. But if it does, federal wildlife officials want to stop it from spreading through many bird species and threatening domestic poultry.
  
  Bird flu has killed or led to the slaughter of millions of chickens and ducks in Asia. It has infected more than 200 people who had very close contact with poultry. Of the known human cases, about half of the victims have died.
  
  The big fear is that the virus will mutate into a virulent form that can easily infect people and spread among them.
  
  But for now, the mission is swabbing the backsides of dowitchers and sandpipers to get fecal samples that will be tested for bird flu. The project is so massive, Alaska biologists have faced a swab shortage. Nationwide, the goal is to sample 75,000 to 100,000 wild birds.
  
  This week, when 50 to 100 samples are in hand, they will be sent to the USGS National Wildlife Health Center lab in Madison. There, the testing begins.

• 05/22/2006:  Madison lab is 'border patrol' for deadly flu in migrant birds, WBAY-TV via Associated Press
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  MADISON, Wis. An unconventional border patrol in the Midwest is watching for a dangerous migrant that may be trying to enter the country thousands of miles away.
  
  The National Wildlife Health Center on the edge of Madison is ground zero for testing whether wild birds from Alaska may be harboring the bird flu. Scientists known specific sites in Alaska where wild birds arrive from Asia.
  
  This summer, the center expects to analyze more than eleven-thousand swabs from trapped, healthy birds plus about four-thousand dead birds. They'll start with 400 samples arriving tomorrow or Wednesday from ten villages in the Yukon delta region of western Alaska.
  
  Also coming are samples taken over the weekend from healthy migrating shorebirds in coastal marsh areas near Anchorage.
  
  Tests should show within a day whether the deadly flu is present in the birds.
  
  No one knows whether the virus that has ravaged poultry in Asia and spread to Africa and Europe will make its way to the U-S -- or morph into a human super-flu. But, scientists say detecting and controlling the disease in birds is one way to help ensure that it doesn't.
  
  Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

• 05/22/2006:  Local Health Officials Seek Bird Flu Aid: Local Health Officials Ask Federal Government for Supplies to Handle Possible Bird Flu Outbreak, ABC News via Associated Press
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

  ---

  
  

  By KEVIN FREKING
  
  The Associated Press
  
  WASHINGTON - Local health officials presented a bird flu shopping list to the federal government Monday that included face masks, oxygen equipment, IVs and other supplies.
  
  The federal bird flu plan emphasizes the development of a vaccine and international surveillance, but it places too little emphasis on providing them with the equipment and supplies they would need to treat masses of sick people, the officials told congressional staff members.
  
  "I think we need to look seriously at matching the development of vaccines and antivirals with the means of making sure they can be distributed," said Patrick Libbey, executive director of the National Association of County and City Health Officials. "
  
  The officials also briefed staffers on some of the innovative approaches that communities have undertaken to prepare for a pandemic. For instance, Marty Fenstersheib, the health officer for the Santa Clara, Calif., County Department of Public Health, said his community is developing a three-step triage system.
  
  The county's 2,300 hospital beds would be filled in about three weeks during a serious pandemic, so most patients would be treated in their homes, Fenstersheib said. Sicker patients would be sent to "influenza care centers" in places such as hotel ballrooms. Only the sickest of the sick would get care at the hospital.
  
  "Hospitals have told us to keep people away from our rooms, keep them away from our facilities as best you can," he said.
  
  Fenstersheib said the California hospitals believe they can use cafeterias, hallways and other space to increase their bed capacity by 10 or 12 percent. They also would send home people scheduled for elective surgery.
  
  "It's still not going to be enough. We'll still need people taken care of at home and at alternative care sites," he said.
  
  Dorothy Teeter, a public health officer from Washington, said her agency has been working with businesses to ensure they have contingency plans for staff shortages, or for isolating sick workers. But she said that health officials also have doubts about their ability to deal with a pandemic when they don't have on hand any of the extra medical supplies that would be needed. With such equipment, health officials "would feel way more sure we can do this," she said.
  
  Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt has visited several states in recent months to talk about bird flu preparation. One of the first things he tells listeners is that any community that fails to prepare for a pandemic and expects the federal government to come to the rescue "will be tragically wrong."
  
  Congress provided the department with about $3.3 billion this year to improve the nation's bird flu preparedness. In December, Leavitt announced that $100 million would be going to the states for planning efforts. Each state got a minimum of $500,000. Another $250 million is supposed to go out later this year.
  
  "Vaccines are the answer to dealing with a pandemic," said HHS spokesman Bill Hall. "That's the ultimate answer to combatting a pandemic. Today, should a pandemic occur, the United States doesn't have the domestic capability to produce quickly enough a vaccine for all Americans."
  
  Libbey said local health departments see the largest share of dollars going to drug manufacturers for vaccine development and wonder if the appropriate balance is being struck. He said the Federal Emergency Management Agency responds to natural disasters because there is an expectation that such disasters are beyond the scale of local government.
  
  "We have to think of a health issue on the magnitude of a pandemic as a parallel to that," Libbey said.
  
  On the Net:
  
  National Association of County and City Health Officials: http:http://www.naccho.org
  
  Officials U.S. government site on bird flu: http://www.pandemicflu.gov
  
  Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
  
  Copyright 2006 ABC News Internet Ventures

• 05/22/2006:  Photo of NWHC biological technician inoculating eggs, Associated Press
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

  ---

  
  

  Adam Ray, a biological technician, inoculates eggs with fecal samples taken from birds at the U.S. Geological Survey National Wildlife Health Center, Thursday, May 11, 2006, in Madison, Wis. Researchers at the NWHC are looking for the Asian strain of the H5N1 avian influenza virus. (AP Photo/Andy Manis)

• 05/22/2006:  Scientists Hunt Bird Flu in Alaska, Associated Press
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

  ---

  
  

  By DAN JOLING
  
  ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
  
  
  
  ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- The search for the first wild bird carrying a deadly flu virus to North America is under way on a lonely stretch of coastal salt marsh on the outskirts of Alaska's largest city.
  
  Biologists are ankle-deep in mud and yellowed marsh grass, trying to net and test two types of shorebirds. Both are known to visit regions where flocks have caught the dangerous H5N1 virus that has spread across Asia and even into Europe and Africa.
  
  "Birds up here are going to be interacting with birds that are going to be moving back in the United States. This is kind of Grand Central Station," said Paul Slota of the U.S. Geological Survey, who will be overseeing the testing of samples back at the USGS wildlife lab in Madison, Wis.
  
  The focus now is on long-billed dowitchers and pectoral sandpipers, just two of the 28 bird species that come to the great avian mixing zone that is Alaska. If bird flu can be carried long-distance by wild birds, experts hope to see it first here, before the fall migration through other states.
  
  Of course no one knows if the H5N1 flu will arrive on the wings of a migratory bird. Or if it will reach this continent this year. But if it does, federal wildlife officials want to stop it from spreading through many bird species and threatening domestic poultry.
  
  Bird flu has killed or led to the slaughter of millions of chickens and ducks in Asia. It has infected more than 200 people who had very close contact with poultry. Of the known human cases, about half of the victims have died.
  
  The big fear is that this virus will mutate into a virulent form that can easily infect people and spread among them.
  
  But for now the mission at hand is swabbing the back sides of dowitchers and sandpipers to get fecal samples that will be tested for bird flu. The project is so massive, Alaska biologists have faced a swab shortage. Nationwide, the goal is to sample 75,000 to 100,000 wild birds.
  
  advertising
  
  The long-billed dowitcher is a 10-inch gray shorebird with long legs. It breeds in high-latitude coastal wetlands in Alaska, Canada and the Russian Far East.
  
  Those that breed in Russia range near H5N1 outbreak areas in Asia and mix with birds that could be infected. Then they pass through Alaska in spring and fall.
  
  Half of the world's pectoral sandpipers breed in Alaska or Canada, the other half in Russia. Small numbers of Siberian birds winter in Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand and have the potential to pick up the virus along the way.
  
  Each May, some pectoral sandpipers make a stop on the Anchorage salt marsh, a beach of mud, grass and brackish ponds that stretches a thousand feet to Cook Inlet. The view is magnificent - across the water is Mount Susitna, known locally as Sleeping Lady because of its resemblance woman reclining on her side - but the standing water, mud and rotting vegetation give off a slightly sweet odor of decay.
  
  To a wading bird traveling from South America, it's a buffet line. The shorebirds feed on seeds, emerging beetles and spiders. With their sensitive bills, they probe the top half-inch of the mud for fly larvae, said USGS biologist Bob Gill.
  
  "They can feel a clam move from a few centimeters away," he said.
  
  Bird tracks blanket the bottom of the shallow ponds. Biologist Dan Ruthrauff ducks down behind a weathered log, waiting for his prey to fly into an 8-foot-tall, 45-foot-wide fine-mesh mist net. Over the course of the day, the net captures more than 20 sandpipers in several varieties.
  
  Ruthrauff quickly extracts the birds, puts them into cloth bags and takes them to a table where Gill and other biologists use digital calipers to measure beaks, wings and legs.
  
  Handling one, Gill says the bird may have flown all the way from Chile. "It probably started a month ago and could go as far as the Taimyr Peninsula" in northernmost Siberia.
  
  He banded its leg, took a blood and feather sample, and holding the bird upside down, swabbed for a fecal sample. The H5N1 virus replicates in a bird's intestines.
  
  Gill heads up the survey for shorebirds. Other Alaska biologists at more than 40 remote sites will focus on waterfowl, seabirds and perching birds. Several thousand hunter-killed birds also will be checked with the help of local subsistence hunters.
  
  Sometime this week, when there are 50 to 100 samples are in hand, they will be sent to the USGS National Wildlife Health Center lab in Madison, Wis. There, under Slota's supervision, the testing begins.
  
  photo
  
  Racing pigeon fanciers work with their birds Friday May 19, 2006 in Jakarta, Indonesia. Indonesia has come under fire in recent months for doing too little to stop the spread of bird flu, which has been found in poultry in two-thirds of the country's 33 provinces, but the government says it cannot afford to carry out mass culls of birds in all infected areas, one of the most basic containment guidelines.(AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim)

• 05/22/2006:  Wisconsin Lab Leads Bird Flu Campaign, Associated Press
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

  ---

  
  

  By MARILYNN MARCHIONE Associated Press Writer
  
  2006 The Associated Press
  
  MADISON, Wis. An unconventional border patrol in the Midwest is watching for a dangerous migrant that may be trying to enter the country thousands of miles away.
  
  On Wednesday, agents will start searching their first detainees _ wild birds from Alaska that may be harboring bird flu.
  
  "The whole point is early detection," said Scott Wright, one of the U.S. Geological Survey scientists involved in the effort.
  
  "When West Nile virus started, nobody knew what was going on," and the germ started killing people before scientists realized it had been killing birds, he said. With bird flu, "we have the advantage of being able to sit down and plan things out" to try to find it and prevent an epidemic, Wright said.
  
  Tests will signal within a day whether the deadly H5N1 flu is present.
  
  No one knows whether the virus that has ravaged poultry in Asia and spread to Africa and Europe will make its way to the United States, or morph into a human super-flu. But controlling the disease in birds is one way to help ensure that it doesn't, so scientists want to know if migrating birds have brought it with them.
  
  "We know the specific sites in Alaska where wild birds arrive from Asia," said Dr. Leslie Dierauf, director of the USGS's National Wildlife Health Center.
  
  "Almost to the day, we're aware of what birds are coming and from where," because birds in the Pacific flyway have "high fidelity" and typically return to the very spot they left months before, she said.
  
  Her center, a sprawling, woodsy compound fronted by 15 acres of restored prairie on the edge of Wisconsin's state capital, will do most of the nation's testing of wild birds. The center is 30 years old, and many of its scientists have been there that long, with experience in animal diseases as diverse as lead poisoning in eagles and chronic wasting disease in deer.
  
  This summer, they expect to analyze more than 11,000 swabs from trapped, healthy birds plus about 4,000 dead birds, starting with 400 samples arriving Tuesday or Wednesday from 10 villages in the Yukon delta region of western Alaska, where hunters recently shot migrating ducks and geese for food. Also coming are samples taken over the weekend from healthy migrating shorebirds in coastal marsh areas near Anchorage.
  
  In addition, the U.S. Department of Agriculture will be testing droppings from tens of thousands of birds around the country.
  
  At the Madison lab, each bird gets a numbered manila folder file that is entered into a global positioning database being built to help track movement of H5N1, if it shows up.
  
  Virologist Hon Ip will test samples inside a secured, highly automated Biosafety Level 3 lab, air-pressurized to prevent germs from escaping.
  
  A small robot extracts genetic material from a sample. Another robot sets up the test, injecting bits of the sample into narrow, test-tube-like wells. The machine goes through heating and cooling cycles to make more copies of the genetic material, and a substance is added to make it glow if H5N1 is present.
  
  The process is so high-tech that even simple interpretation is not trusted to mere mortals: A fiber-optic cable measures the strength of the fluorescence and reports the amount of virus.
  
  The analysis takes one day, but "the implications of that first positive are so high, we would want to repeat that test" before announcing that H5N1 had turned up in the United States, Ip said.
  
  Scientists also will inject each sample into eggs containing 9- to 11-day-old chicken embryos and allow them to grow for about two weeks before testing for the virus again.
  
  In a separate, even more secured lab, "we're going to deliberately infect wild birds with known quantities of virus," Ip said.
  
  That will tell them how easily the germ spreads from bird to bird and whether particular species are most vulnerable, as crows were to West Nile. These answers one day might help control the disease _ in birds and perhaps even in people.

• 05/21/2006:  Bird flu not immediate threat to wild birds, The Mississippi Press
  
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  Sunday, May 21, 2006
  
  BY ROYCE ARMSTRONG
  
  The Mississippi Press
  
  LUCEDALE -- One of the concerns raised in the recent flurry of media stories about the Asian bird flu is that it could be spread by wild birds, a scenario of special concern for people living along the Gulf Coast.
  
  The Coast is home to countless shore birds and is a respite for migratory waterfowl. The Pascagoula River system is a major corridor for annual songbird migrations. Jackson County is home to the last sizeable area of natural pine savannah; habitat for the endangered Mississippi Sandhill Crane. Thousands of households maintain feeders for backyard birds.
  
  "Yes, we are concerned," said Scott Hereford, the senior wildlife biologist and crane specialist at the Mississippi Sandhill Crane National Wildlife Refuge near Gautier. "We do not have any detailed plans for dealing with the avian flu at this time. The Department of the Interior is doing preparation work in case the flu reaches this country. We are also working closely with the National Wildlife Health Center."
  
  The 19,000 acre refuge is home to about 120 Mississippi Sandhill cranes, the last surviving population of this particular subspecies, according to Hereford. The endangered birds once numbered in the thousands, inhabiting the Gulf Coast from East Texas to the Florida Panhandle.
  
  People who enjoy watching and feeding backyard birds are not in any danger of contracting the avian flu, according to Dr. David Bonter of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology in a recent statement on the Wild Bird Feeding Industry Web site.
  
  "The spread of the H5N1 strain of the flu across Asia and Europe is certainly a cause for concern. However, there has not been a documented case of the H5N1 strain in wild birds in North America. There is no need to be concerned about feeding birds," he stated.
  
  Grace McLaughlin, DVM, a wildlife disease specialist for the National Wildlife Health Center agreed.
  
  "There are no reported cases of the H5N1 flu virus in this hemisphere," McLaughlin said. "Songbirds are not susceptible to this disease at this time. There is no need for people to make in changes in feeding birds."
  
  McLaughlin went on to remind people that normal care should be taken to keep bird feeders clean to reduce the risk of salmonella and other diseases that can harm birds.
  
  These expert opinions are echoed by the National Audubon Society.
  
  The highly pathogenic form of H5N1 avian influenza virus has not been found in wild birds in North America according to the Audubon Society Web site.
  
  In 2005, a low pathogenic form of H5N1, which is not thought to pose a danger to poultry or humans, was found in wild ducks in Canada. There is a remote chance that infected wild birds from Asia could bring the highly pathogenic form of the virus with them during spring or fall migration to North America.
  
  The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Geological Survey, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and public health agencies are working together to test thousands of shore birds and waterfowl for the virus in Alaska, and field sampling is being integrated with surveillance programs throughout the United States and Canada.
  
  "There is a low risk of this disease, but people are thinking about it," Hereford said.
  
  He added that until there is a documented case in North America, people should feel at ease about continuing to enjoy watching and feeding waterfowl, shore birds, backyard birds and other wildlife, including the Sandhill cranes.
  
  Reporter Royce Armstrong can be reached at rarmstrong@themississippipress.com or (601) 766-9624.

• 05/19/2006:  Bird Flu Testing Begins, KTVA (CBS- Alaska)
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has begun testing for the bird flu in Anchorage.
  
  We've heard for quite a while how they were going to be testing for the bird flu this summer. Well now that spring is here and it's nice out, experts are out in the field beginning their testing.
  
  They began swabbing shorebirds for testing Wednesday. It's the first sampling in a summer-long project to swab birds for avian flu throughout Alaska. They say there are over 40 types of waterfowl and shorebirds that are susceptible to getting infected with the H591 virus. They'll be trapping and catching migratory shorebirds all week long.
  
  This is the time that the birds were most able to get caught. It's all dependent on Mother Nature and how the birds migrate
  
  when they get up here, said Paul Slota, USGS, National Wildlife Center in Wisconsin.
  
  In addition to the Anchorage testing, scientists will be testing birds throughout the state all summer long.
  
  To contact Ali, call 907-273-3186

• 05/19/2006:  Researchers Fan Out to Find Bird Flu in Alaska, National Public Radio
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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• 05/18/2006:  U.S. hunt for bird flu begins in Anchorage, Anchorage Daily News
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Testing shorebirds here is first line of defense against avian virus
  
  By DOUG O'HARRA
  
  Anchorage Daily News
  
  (Published: May 18, 2006)
  
  At a salt marsh along Anchorage's mucky west coast, federal scientist Bob Gill palmed a tiny shorebird trapped only minutes earlier in a fine-mesh net.
  
  It was a female pectoral sandpiper and, Wednesday morning, the little pond-wader became the unwitting volunteer in an extraordinary quest:
  
  Find the first carrier of deadly avian flu in North America.
  
  One of the world's impressive long-distance migrants, most pectoral sandpipers range from Argentina through Alaska to Siberia. The fear is that some wild birds will catch the flu in Asian breeding grounds and bring it here.
  
  This particular bird, the first captured for testing here at the edge of the continent, had probably arrived in Anchorage only days ago to forage for bugs and worms in marshes below the Coastal Trail. It's likely bound for Russia or Arctic Alaska. Just passing through.
  
  But was it infected?
  
  While Gill held the bird's head and sharp beak firmly between fingers protected by gloves, biologist Lee Tibbitts inserted a sterile swab in the bird's anal cavity.
  
  "You've got to twist around," Gill said. "There you go."
  
  The bird's beady little eyes blinked, but it gave no other sign of distress at the maneuver. Then Tibbitts eased the swab free and stowed it in a vial of pink fluid. It would soon be tested at a national lab.
  
  This local effort launched an unprecedented government project to intercept the H5N1 strain, a virulent killer of poultry that has sparked fears of a new human pandemic.
  
  During the next five months, bird biologists will swab, poke, measure and tweak as many as 12,000 birds in Alaska -- some 28 different high-priority species caught or killed from the brown tundra of the Yukon Delta to the silty flats near Alaska's largest city.
  
  Alaska leads the way in the national bird flu surveillance because it's the migratory hub for dozens of Asian and North American species. But by the end of summer, biologists with three federal departments hope to sample 75,000 to 100,000 live and dead birds from the Pacific Islands to the Atlantic flyway. Another 50,000 samples will be taken of water or feces.
  
  "It's pretty unique," said Paul Slota, a spokesman from the National Wildlife Health Center in Wisconsin, where samples will undergo initial screening. "I've been (a federal biologist) for 30 years, and I've never seen this much cooperation by the departments of Agriculture, Interior and Health and Human Services, all working for the same goal."
  
  The scientists will probe genetics and diet, plus band captured birds to find out where they go. But the major focus will be the detection of the deadly H5N1, a virus that has killed millions of domestic and wild birds across Asia, Europe and Africa since it first appeared in 1997.
  
  This nightmare strain does not easily spread to humans. But 115 of the 208 people confirmed with the disease since 2003 have died, according to statistics posted Monday by the World Health Organization.
  
  Almost every known victim caught the H5N1 flu directly from poultry, usually after constant daily exposure to chickens and geese raised in family flocks. Only one report has blamed exposure to infected wild birds, when several women died in Azerbaijan this winter after plucking dead swans, according to the World Health Organization.
  
  If the H5N1 flu were to evolve into a form that could move quickly from person to person, health officials say, it has the potential to trigger a global outbreak with deaths in the tens of millions.
  
  Since last week, shorebird biologists from the Alaska Science Center had been watching for the arrival of pectoral sandpipers and long-billed dowitchers, two of Alaska's 28 high-priority species. Monday and Tuesday, Tibbitts and biologist Dan Ruthrauff spied increasing numbers of both species foraging in the salt flats along Cook Inlet.
  
  Wednesday, they returned with Gill and several other biologists to test trapping techniques. Under cool gray skies, they placed walk-in traps in the muck to capture dowitchers and strung lightweight nets against the sky for the sandpipers.
  
  Within a few minutes, a batch of about 20 birds skittered into the nets. Among them was the pectoral sandpiper.
  
  Ruthrauff removed the bird and slipped it into a bag. Gill and others struggled to get the birds from the mesh while wearing surgical gloves -- a new requirement for preventing exposure to bird flu.
  
  "I've never used gloves before," Gill said, as he concentrated on unraveling a fluttering western sandpiper from the mesh.
  
  Soon the team had carried the birds to the shore in Rubbermaid totes. With Tibbitts and Ruthrauff helping, Gill measured the birds, took blood samples, plucked a certain feather for tests and clipped bands on their legs.
  
  After he finished with the sandpiper, Gill set it down in the grass. It leaped up, tripped, sprang up again, then trotted away, zigzagging through the hummocks.
  
  But something was wrong. Its left wing didn't lay down. Gill watched it for a moment, then ran out and caught the bird.
  
  "Nothing's broken," he said, gingerly examining the wing. "It could have been strained in the net."
  
  They decided to keep the bird overnight. Maybe it would recover.
  
  Reporter Doug O'Harra can be reached at doharra@gci.net.
  
  adn.com story photo
  
  A least sandpiper was caught in a mist net as biologists were trying to catch pectoral sandpipers and long-billed dowitchers in the Anchorage Coastal Wildlife Refuge to sample the live birds for the presence of the deadly avian flu virus. (Photos by BILL ROTH / Anchorage Daily News)
  
  adn.com story photo
  
  Wildlife biologists Dan Ruthrauff, left, and Lee Tibbitts collect data while banding and swabbing a western sandpiper. (Photos by BILL ROTH / Anchorage Daily News)
  
  adn.com story photo
  
  Biologists from the USGS Alaska Science Center swab the cloaca of a pectoral sandpiper in the Anchorage Coastal Wildlife Refuge on Wednesday. The bird was captured during its migration from southern South America to Western Alaska or Siberia. (Photos by BILL ROTH / Anchorage Daily News)

• 05/18/2006:  Testing for bird flu begins in Alaska, Associated Press
  
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  By DAN JOLING, Associated Press Writer
  
  (Published: May 18, 2006)
  
  ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - Federal scientists have started testing migratory birds for signs of the highly pathogenic Asian H5N1 avian flu.
  
  Testing of shorebirds began Wednesday on an Anchorage coastal wildlife refuge, said Bruce Woods, spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
  
  It was the first sampling of a summer-long project to swab birds for bird flu throughout the state. Nationwide, the goal is to sample 75,000 to 100,000 wild birds.
  
  In Alaska, about $4 million in federal money will be spent studying about 15,000 birds, Woods said. Samples will be collected from more than 40 locations.
  
  In initial sampling along Cook Inlet near Anchorage, scientists targeted two species, the long-billed dowitcher and the pectoral sandpiper. Bob Gill of the Alaska Science Center, an arm of the U.S. Geological Survey, said birds will spend a few days feeding and keeping up their energy reserves before moving north to breeding grounds.
  
  "It's kind of like stopping to top off the tank on a trip," Gill said.
  
  The long-billed dowitcher is a medium-size shorebird, about 10 inches long, with a long, straight bill. It has a pale gray head and breast with faint spotting and a white belly.
  
  The birds breed in high-latitude coastal wetlands in Alaska, Canada and the Russian Far East. About one-third breed in Asia. Most birds that breed in Asia pass through Alaska in both spring and fall.
  
  The nonbreeding range of the long-billed dowitcher is near sites of recent Asian H5N1 outbreaks. During migration and on Russian breeding grounds, those birds mix with other species of birds present in outbreak sites, making dowitchers potential carriers.
  
  Pectoral sandpipers are slightly smaller at 7.5 inches. They have brown heads with dark streaks, black back feathers that turn brown on the wings, and a brown breast with streaks that end with white underparts.
  
  Roughly half of the population breeds in Siberia. The rest breed throughout western and northern Alaska and parts east to central Canada.
  
  Most pectoral sandpipers begin to migrate in late July and August south through the Great Plains and across the Gulf of Mexico to South America.
  
  Most Siberian birds fly east to join that route. However, pectoral sandpipers are a high priority species for the survey because small numbers winter in Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand, migrating through the Philippines, Taiwan and Japan. Back in Siberia, they mix with the birds flying through North America.
  
  Alaska researchers who captures birds in nets or ground traps will collect fecal samples. The samples are placed in small vials filled with a liquid transport medium to preserve the virus and flown to a laboratory.
  
  Other samples will be taken from birds killed by subsistence hunters, Gill said.
  
  H5N1 bird flu virus has killed more than 100 people, mostly in Asia. More than 40 species of Alaska waterfowl and shorebirds are considered susceptible to the virus. Alaska bird experts narrowed the survey list to the 28 species considered most likely to be carriers and most practical to sample.
  
  If the virus is found in Alaska, it will not be reason to panic, said Paul Slota of the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis., where Alaska samples will be tested.
  
  "If we find it here, that would not necessarily indicate that there was a public health concern or there was an agricultural concern, but it would sure alert public health and agriculture," Slota said.
  
  Many questions remain about whether wild birds can spread the virus or survive it, Slota said. Some outbreaks initially suspected to be caused by wild birds have been proved to come from other sources, he said. Trade and smuggling in domestic poultry also may spread the virus, he said.
  
  "Those are all equally likely," he said. "We're trying to cover as many bases as possible."
  
  To screen other migratory birds for the virus, state and federal agencies are setting up remote backcountry camps accessible mainly by float planes or boats.

• 05/03/2006:  Dead Birds No Threat To People, KOB15, Medford, OR
  
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  Wildlife biologists are continuing to track the outbreak of a disease that's killing hundreds of waterfowl in the Klamath Basin.
  
  A concerned citizen alerted the scientists to the higher than usual numbers of dead Grebes and ducks. Fish and wildlife specialist immediately responded to the call.
  
  Grace McLaughlin, of the National Wildlife Health Center says that she has recorded several hundred dead birds along the south shore of Upper Klamath Lake this week.
  
  'We've had a number of these birds submitted to our center, we've done complete necropsy work-ups, as well as lab tests on them. and we have confirmed the diagnosis of avian cholera, which is a bacterial disease that is not normally at risk to humans at all - really not any human risk here' she says.
  
  McLaughlin's report will be placed in a database at the National Wildlife Health Center in Wisconsin to help identify long-term trends.
  
  The number of dead birds recorded so far is relatively small compared to some previous events in the Klamath Basin.

• 04/30/2006:  Chatham plans for pandemic flu, Savannah Morning News (SavannahNow.com, GA)
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  It may never happen, but some emergency probably will, health director says.
  
  Mary Landers
  
  (912) 652-0337
  
  mary.landers@savannahnow.com
  
  The winter flu season is over, so why is the Chatham County Health Department still planning for the disease?
  
  Here's the two-word answer: bird flu.
  
  The health department is among the first in Georgia to create its own pandemic flu plan, according to Dr. W. Douglas Skelton, district health director.
  
  "We're in what the World Health Organization refers to as pandemic flu alert level 3," Skelton said.
  
  That means a novel virus, in this case the H5N1 avian influenza virus, has shown the ability to infect people.
  
  By last Thursday, the World Health Organization had recorded 205 lab-confirmed human cases of the disease and 113 deaths. Avian influenza has infected people in nine countries, with most of the deaths occurring in Asia.
  
  Those numbers indicate the disease is still rare and has not shown the final hallmark of a pandemic: the ability to spread quickly from person to person.
  
  Researchers fear the virus still could acquire that trait.
  
  "At this point planning and surveillance are the important thing, Skelton said.
  
  The Chatham County plan addresses ways to overcome overcrowding of hospitals and ways to reduce the quick spread of the infection, such as mass vaccination clinics.
  
  Local surveillance is an ongoing process, some of which dates back to Georgia's hosting of the G-8 Summit in 2004, according to Skelton.
  
  It takes three forms:
  
  The first is a network of "sentinel providers," 19 pediatricians and general practitioners who agree to track flu cases and watch for changes in respiratory or flu symptoms and report them to the health department.
  
  Second is the real-time monitoring of 911 calls to look for spikes in calls related to flu symptoms or respiratory distress.
  
  Third is a similar surveillance of pharmacy sales, including the sale of over-the-counter flu medicines.
  
  Wild bird surveillance is largely the work of national and state agencies, which are gearing up to look for signs of H5N1 avian influenza in Georgia.
  
  Terry Norton, wildlife veterinarian for St. Catherines Island, has coordinated the avian flu testing of about 30 shorebirds found dead or injured on Georgia barrier islands. Another 30 samples await testing, he said. That work is part of a larger assessment of shorebird health.
  
  Surveillance efforts of the National Wildlife Health Center of the U.S. Geological Survey are focused far from Georgia, particularly on the Pacific flyway, specifically Alaska and Hawaii, where the birds come on migratory routes from Asia, according to spokeswoman Catherine Puckett. Those efforts would be refocused immediately if a major bird die-off happened in Georgia, she said.
  
  During the fall, more routine testing is likely to take place as the Georgia Department of Natural Resources makes plans to cooperate in the testing of bagged ducks for the virus.
  
  All this government preparation is not a substitute for personal responsibility, Skelton warned. Among people's priorities should be getting a flu shot when it becomes available, he said.
  
  "Get the regular flu vaccine," he said. "It won't protect you from the pandemic but it will protect you from getting the regular flu on top of it."
  
  He also recommends a pneumonia vaccine for those over 65 or with a chronic illness. Secondary pneumonia infections killed many of those who died in the pandemic of 1918, Skelton said.
  
  Preparing for a pandemic includes much of the basic preparedness recommended for other emergencies, such as storing a two-week supply of prescription medicines, water, and non-perishable foods.
  
  "There's a chance we won't have a H5N1 pandemic flu episode," Skelton said. "But we'll have a pandemic flu episode sometime. History indicates it'll come."

• 04/25/2006:  Bird Flu Not Likely to be Spread by Pigeons, Experts Say, HealthCentral.com
  
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  America can probably rule out one of its most common birds as an avian flu carrier, the Associated Press reports.
  
  The ubiquitous pigeon, found in every American city and in most parts of the U.S.A. countryside as well, is not likely to carry the deadly H5N1 bird flu strain for long, the wire service reports, despite an incident earlier this year of a 14-year-old Iraqi pigeon seller dying from bird flu.
  
  But there may have been other reasons for his death, experts say, and no other evidence has indicated that pigeons would be major carriers of the disease were it to come to North America.
  
  According to the A.P., test indicate that pigeons will contract bird flu only when exposed to it very high does, and even then, would be carriers for a short amount of time. Rather, health experts speculate, avian flu is more likely to be spread through migratory birds, such as geese.
  
  "Pigeons aren't a big worry," the wire service quotes Rex Sohn, a wildlife disease specialist at the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis. as saying. "But to make absolute predictions that pigeons won't be susceptible to this virus, in whatever form it arises in North America, is not something you want to say."
  
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  Copyright 2006 ScoutNews LLC. All rights reserved.

• 04/24/2006:  The real bat-man story, The Boston Globe
  
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  True, bats carry deadly diseases, but it's human beings who cause the outbreaks
  
  By Gareth Cook, Globe Staff | April 24, 2006
  
  Bats have been getting a bad rap.
  
  Last fall, a team of scientists tied bats to the deadly SARS outbreaks. Bats in China, they said, are likely where the virus hides between human outbreaks. Then, in December, another group of researchers suggested that bats in Africa serve as a reservoir for the vicious virus for Ebola hemorrhagic fever, which causes its human victims to bleed to death. Bats have also been definitively tied to two other recently discovered viruses that are lethal to humans: Nipah and Hendra.
  
  But as researchers have worked to uncover the mysterious links between bats and these emerging viruses, they say they have stumbled upon an even wilier culprit working behind the scenes: humans. It now seems that these outbreaks, and likely many others, were set off when people encroached on rain forests, expanded wild animal markets, or made other changes that removed the natural barriers that keep diseases at bay.
  
  'This is not a wildlife problem, it is a human problem," said Jonathan Epstein, an American researcher who spoke by phone from Bangladesh, where he has been investigating the causes of Nipah outbreaks.
  
  The insights that are coming from these outbreaks are feeding an emerging discipline that seeks to redefine the very meaning of health. Epstein and other proponents of this thinking, which they have dubbed 'conservation medicine," argue that it is impossible to divorce human health from that of the environment. Emerging viruses like the one that causes SARS are symptoms of the drastic, large-scale changes humans are making in the life of the planet.
  
  At a time of intense concern about avian flu, it is hardly controversial to argue that human health is linked to animal health. But the field challenges traditional academic divisions, especially the cultural divide between doctors and veterinarians. Epstein is a senior research scientist at the New York-based Consortium for Conservation Medicine at Wildlife Trust, which organizes projects that cross the old disciplinary boundaries. The consortium includes the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the United States Geological Survey National Wildlife Health Center.
  
  There are other centers of activity, such as the Harvard Medical School Center for Health and the Global Environment, as well as more ad hoc teams of researchers working on projects that bring together biologists, public health specialists, doctors, and others. The focus of this work is varied, from the health impact of climate change to a program organized by Tufts to use volunteers around New England to monitor the health of seabirds -- a kind of biological early-warning system on our coast.
  
  As researchers do their detective work around the world, they are finding connections between human society and disease. Global warming could push mosquito-borne diseases like malaria and encephalitis into more northern countries. One new bat-borne disease, the Nipah virus, was tied to the expansion of pig farming in Malaysia. Outbreaks of avian flu have been tied to farms, and the disease's spread has been helped by farmers reluctant to come forward with sick birds.
  
  The researchers hope that by studying these connections, they will discover the means to prevent future epidemics.
  
  After the 2003 outbreaks of SARS, which attacks the respiratory system, scientists initially identified an animal known as a civet as the disease's reservoir, the place where the virus sustains itself between outbreaks in humans. But further testing found that civets were not widely infected. In a paper published online by the journal Science last September, a team that included Epstein and scientists from China and Australia named a new suspect: cave-dwelling horseshoe bats. These bats, they reported, carry a family of viruses very similar to the one that causes SARS.
  
  It is likely, the study found, that one of these 'SARS-like" viruses evolved into the SARS virus at an exotic animal marketplace, where it infected civets, which, in turn, infected humans, according to Michael Farzan, a Harvard Medical School assistant professor who was not involved in the research.
  
  But why did this happen when it did? One intriguing possibility is that it is linked to China's economic boom, according to Peter Daszak, a co-author of the SARS paper who is executive director of the Consortium for Conservation Medicine. With the newfound wealth there, he said, animal markets have grown as more people can afford fresh animal meat. As the markets grow, so grow the chances that a virus will jump from one species to the next.
  
  In December, a different group of researchers linked fruit bats to the dreaded Ebola virus. Outbreaks of the disease in humans have been associated with dramatic outbreaks among chimpanzees and gorillas. The team, working in Gabon and the Republic of Congo, captured various animals near the bodies of chimpanzees and gorillas. They then looked for signs of Ebola virus.
  
  From this, the team found three different species of bats with antibodies to the virus, according to a paper in the journal Nature. Bats are now the leading suspect as the Ebola virus reservoir, but the case against them remains controversial, according to Jens Kuhn, an Ebola specialist at Harvard Medical School. It is thought that changes in human activity are behind the Ebola outbreaks -- such as new mining operations deep in forests and the eating of primate meat -- Kuhn said, but nobody knows the true origin.
  
  The ties between bats and disease have raised fears in the conservation community that the winged creatures, long maligned and misunderstood, will become the targets of calls for elimination. This would be a mistake, researchers said, because bats play important environmental roles, such as eating pests -- and killing off bats would be very difficult in any case. There are about 1,000 species of bats, making up a fifth of all mammal species.
  
  One study, published in December in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, found that bats are involved in fewer of the world's emerging viruses than other groups of animals. But with their role becoming clear in several particularly nasty viruses, scientists have been pushing to better understand bats and their role in carrying disease.
  
  At Boston University, Thomas H. Kunz, a professor of biology and longtime bat specialist, is involved in an ambitious study in the United States of bats and the virus that causes rabies. This study, he said, should shed new light on rabies, but it could also yield clues into the interactions between bats, viruses, and the environment.
  
  For example, he said, his team wants to measure the dynamics of the virus during the year. It may turn out that the ebbs and flows of the virus can be tied to factors like migration, when the animals are under more stress. If the team finds patterns, then researchers could look for similar patterns in the bats that carry other viruses, like Nipah.
  
  Kunz and his collaborators are also working on experiments on the immune systems of bats. There could be reasons why bats carry particular viruses, and there also may be reasons why some bats are able to fend off viruses that kill humans. All of this could help in the fight against disease, he said -- once someone figures out the answers.
  
  The key, he and other researchers said, will be to understand the bat as a part of a larger web of life that also includes humans. And before we blame the bat, or any other animal, for our diseases, we need to look closely at ourselves.
  
  Gareth Cook can be reached at cook@globe.com.

• 04/23/2006:  Tests: Pigeons don't pose bird flu trouble, Associated Press
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  By JOHN HEILPRIN
  
  ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
  
  WASHINGTON -- City folks, don't worry. Nobody expects pigeons, more common than manhole covers, will bring the deadly bird flu virus. Pigeons are not immune from the virus. But tests indicate the birds pick it up only when they are exposed to very high doses, do not always become infected under those conditions and are carriers only briefly.
  
  "Pigeons aren't a big worry," said Rex Sohn, a wildlife disease specialist at the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis. "But to make absolute predictions that pigeons won't be susceptible to this virus, in whatever form it arises in North America, is not something you want to say."
  
  Government scientists looking for the first signs of the H5N1 bird flu strain in the United States are focusing on wild migratory birds, not resident birds such as pigeons, starlings and sparrows that stay close to home.
  
  In February, a 14-year-old pigeon seller in Iraq died after coming down with bird flu-like symptoms. Authorities said three of his cousins also were hospitalized with similar symptoms.
  
  There have been no pigeon die-offs in parts of the world experiencing H5N1 outbreaks, according to USGS wildlife disease specialist Grace McLaughlin.
  
  Three studies since the late 1990s by the Agriculture Department's Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory in Athens, Ga., have produced "more questions than we have answers," said the center's director, David Swayne. The lab has been working on bird flu since the 1970s.
  
  In one experiment, researchers squirted into pigeons' mouths liquid drops that contained the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus from a Hong Kong sample. The birds got about 100 to 1,000 times the concentration that wild birds would encounter in nature. "We couldn't infect the pigeons," Swayne said. "So that's good news."
  
  In 2004, the lab did two more experiments. Using a pigeon and a crow that had both died in Thailand, researchers gave 12 pigeons similarly high doses of the bird flu virus. Seven became infected and one died. Five others did not become infected.
  
  "What that tells us is that pigeons can be susceptible. But they're not uniformly susceptible," Swayne said. "Not like chickens or ducks - they all become infected."
  
  Infected pigeons carried the virus about 10 days. But they were infectious for only about two days and then at levels below what it would normally take to infect a chicken.
  
  "The experimental data is not very strong that pigeons are going to be spreading this virus around," Swayne said. "At this point they have not been implicated in spreading it to humans and to farms."
  
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  On the Net:
  
  Agricultural Research Service: http://www.ars.usda.gov/main
  
  National Wildlife Health Center: http://www.nwhc.usgs.gov

• 04/21/2006:  Bird flu strain could be hard to spot, The California Aggie
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  The government is currently mass testing migratory birds in Alaska for avian flu, and a review released today warns that the virus may not be as easily detectable as thought.
  
  "If results in the spring are entirely negative, we still have that opportunity in the late summer and the fall when many species of birds come into closer contact with one another all using the same wetlands at the same time rather than using more discreet breeding areas," said Grace McLaughlin, who is helping to lead that testing at the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center.
  
  The bird flu has killed over 100 people since its re-emergence in 2003 and has spread to over 50 countries, according to the World Health Organization. (Associated Press)

• 04/21/2006:  Scientists work to spot flu in migratory birds, Monterey Herald
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  By LAURAN NEERGAARD
  
  Associated Press
  
  WASHINGTON - Ducks have a flu season just like people do -- and they're more likely to be sick in the fall than in the spring.
  
  So authorities must keep their guard up even if the government's mass testing of migrating birds, beginning now in Alaska, doesn't spot the worrisome H5N1 bird-flu strain right away.
  
  That's a key warning from a new review, being published today, of what scientists know -- and don't know -- about how waterfowl constantly incubate influenza, and how much of a role wild birds play as this deadly new flu strain hopscotches around the globe.
  
  And it's one that federal wildlife officials are taking into account as they determine how many birds to test now, as ducks and other migratory species start flying into Alaska's breeding grounds from Asia, and how many to test later in the year.
  
  'If results in the spring are entirely negative, we still have that opportunity in the late summer and the fall when many species of birds come into closer contact with one another... all using the same wetlands at the same time rather than using more discreet breeding areas,' said Grace McLaughlin, who is helping to lead that testing at the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis.
  
  Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, agreed on Thursday that avian flu has shown a seasonality in poultry, but she added, 'We don't know if it will back off this summer.'
  
  'Obviously, it's a pandemic if you're a bird, but its certainly not a pandemic if you're a person,' she said. Nevertheless, 'we must err on the side of caution' by preparing for this disease, she told a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
  
  Among other research, she said, her agency is planning a study this fall of how non-drug measures, such as masks, affect the spread of seasonal influenza, information they hope will also be useful if bird flu occurs here.
  
  The virulent H5N1 strain erupted in Asia and has now spread to Europe and Africa, killing or causing the slaughter of more than 200 million animals -- and killing 110 people who had close contact with sick birds -- since 2003. Health authorities worry that eventually this virus could become easily spread person-to-person, sparking a global epidemic.
  
  For birds, H5N1 already is an epidemic in much of the world, and authorities fear it could finally reach birds in North America sometime this year.
  
  H5N1 is most lethal to poultry, and outbreaks originated from chickens in China, not from wild birds, said Ron A.M. Fouchier, a virologist at the Netherlands' Erasmus Medical Center who led the scientific review published in today's edition of the journal Science.
  
  The question is what role wild birds now play as the virus hops across continents. There's growing suspicion that international smuggling of contaminated live poultry or poultry products, such as fertilizer, may be playing a bigger role.
  
  But wild birds do play some role, Fouchier said, pointing to dead swans found in parts of Europe where no chickens were sick. What isn't clear is whether the swans were sentinel species, the victims that died after infection from a still unknown source, or were actual flu spreaders.
  
  In Europe last fall, scientists spent three months testing 30,000 live wild birds and couldn't find the virulent H5N1 strain -- but they did find it in 500 of 2,000 dead birds tested, Fouchier said in calling for better global surveillance to quantify and understand flu strains in birds.
  
  The U.S.-based Wildlife Conservation Society, with some government funding, is about to launch a global bird-testing network to help do that, said William Karesh, chief of the nonprofit group's field veterinary program.
  
  Meanwhile, as the U.S. steps up its effort to detect H5N1's arrival, Fouchier's review does provide some reassurance, McLaughlin noted: Over the years, there hasn't been much mixing of Eurasian and North American strains of bird flu.
  
  Nor do very many species fly from Asia into Alaska.
  
  But, 'the chance is certainly not zero,' Fouchier said. 'In America, you cannot simply rely on the geographical separation of the continents.'
  
  Fouchier and colleagues in Sweden painstakingly detailed global patterns of flu infections among wild birds, an analysis that suggests that climate and migratory patterns coincide to spur spread.
  
  Flu viruses like cold weather, and cold water -- ducks and other birds typically trade influenza through feces in ponds or lakes. Flu viruses can live more than 30 days in near-freezing water but for no more than four days in warm water. Migrating ducks in turn tend to have the most flu infection when young, immune-naive birds are congregating in early fall, to prepare for winter flight to warmer climates.
  
  'This is not the time of year you'd expect it to come in force,' agreed Rob Fergus, science coordinator for the National Audubon Society.
  
  ------
  
  On the Net:
  
  U.S. Geological Survey: http://www.usgs.gov
  
  Wildlife Conservation Society: http://www.wcs.org/

• 04/20/2006:  Are we ready for bird flu?, The Capital Times
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  300 local leaders meet and plan
  
  By Anita Weier
  
  April 20, 2006
  
  File photo
  
  Necropsy technician Nathan Ramsay, right, and Lou Sileo, a wildlife pathologist, examine a northern pintail duck at the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison.
  
  Community leaders are starting to think about the little things that could cause problems at the local level if a bird flu pandemic were to break out.
  
  If schools were to close, who would stay home with the children of health care workers?
  
  If someone were isolated or quarantined, who would pay his or her bills?
  
  What would happen to the homeless?
  
  How would bodies be handled, and by whom?
  
  About 300 representatives of businesses, schools, local governments, police and fire departments, emergency services and the health care system gathered Wednesday at the Marriott West in Middleton to ask and answer similar questions.
  
  They were invited by Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk to help refine plans for responding to the possibility that the disease will become communicable among humans and reach Wisconsin.
  
  The H5N1 flu strain circulating in birds across the globe has caused 196 human infections with 110 deaths, according to the World Health Organization.
  
  There has been no continued human-to-human transmission of the disease, but the fear is that the flu virus infecting birds will mutate, allowing human-to-human spread, sparking a pandemic.
  
  Or the virus could remain in birds and simply burn itself out.
  
  "We want to learn practical, concrete, local ways" to prepare for and respond to the possibility of an outbreak, said Dr. Tom Schlenker, director of the Madison-Dane County Public Health Department.
  
  Mary Proctor, coordinator of the South-Central Wisconsin Public Health Consortium, said that some things about a pandemic are predictable:
  
  There will be very little warning, the outbreak will spread rapidly, and the numbers affected will be much higher than seasonal flu.
  
  Vaccine will not be initially available, so everyone will be susceptible to the virus. Public health officials will use isolation and quarantine to slow the spread of the disease.
  
  In Dane County, a pandemic would mean almost 2,000 hospital admissions and 364 deaths, Proctor said.
  
  Gail Scott, director of the Jefferson County Health Department, warned the Dane County officials that it would be extremely difficult to isolate large numbers of people.
  
  "It was a major effort to isolate one person at home with tuberculosis," she said. "We had to arrange to pay his rent and get him to the doctor. He couldn't buy food and he lost his health insurance. It took a statewide effort to maintain one person. The American Lung Association and the state Division of Public Health helped out and local restaurants donated food.
  
  "It would be an enormous effort if many people were isolated. Basic needs have to be thoroughly thought out."
  
  Lynn Green of Dane County Human Services, noting that many people are living near the poverty line, said, "You have to keep their pay going or they won't stay home."
  
  Consistent message: Another priority will be providing the information people will desperately want if the disease strikes, and a central information source is necessary to provide accurate facts, instead of a variety of confusing messages.
  
  "Dane County has an emergency operations center. We would talk about the message we want to get out," said Kathy Krusiec, the county's emergency management director.
  
  Businesses, government agencies and hospitals should have continuity-of-operations plans, Krusiec added, because many workers will be ill.
  
  One audience member raised the issue of home health care and human services delivery.
  
  "We are supporting more people at home than in facilities," she said. "I'm not sure we're ready for this. We do not want them surging to hospitals if their workers don't come."
  
  Like Y2K: Preventing panic will be important, several people stressed. Residents need to know that there will be electricity, that there will be food on shelves and that banking will continue.
  
  But what will happen if grocery stores - which use just-in-time delivery and have a limited inventory on hand - run out?
  
  Officials suggested that residents prepare as they did for Y2K, the turn of the century, when many feared a catastrophe. People stocked food, water and medication in advance, and that might make sense now, they said.
  
  Schlenker said it is important to focus on schools early on. "Every school keeps careful attendance records. If we could identify a base absentee rate and watch that. It would be an indication that we should close schools," he said.
  
  However, universities don't do a good job of monitoring attendance, he noted.
  
  A representative of University Health Services at the University of Wisconsin-Madison said that a work group is looking at issues such as when to recommend to the chancellor that classes be suspended or campus gatherings limited.
  
  The sick, the dead: Dane County Coroner John Stanley stressed that deaths must be reported to his office. "We would work with funeral directors to arrange removal" of bodies, Stanley said.
  
  Refrigerated facilities are available, and there is a national stockpile of body bags, officials said.
  
  It was noted that the National Guard has transportation assets, beds at military facilities and manpower services.
  
  "The governor can call on the Guard and the Civil Air Patrol," said Bob Klinger of Wisconsin Emergency Management, who led the discussion. "Short-wave radio operators could also be helpful."
  
  Surveillance would be necessary at the Dane County Airport to isolate anyone with a respiratory-fever illness, Schlenker said, adding that perhaps everyone on a plane would have to be isolated for 24 hours.
  
  Having a countywide database for qualified medical worker volunteers is important, several said.
  
  Hospitals could cancel elective surgeries, prevent people from visiting patients and divert the "worried well" from emergency rooms.
  
  But local hospitals have little reserve capacity, a St. Marys representative noted.
  
  Proctor said that care center sites and a triage center are being identified, as well as locations for quarantines.
  
  "Wisconsin is a home rule state. Statutes are in place to require isolation or quarantine," she said.
  
  Dave Bloom, fire chief for the town of Madison, said after the meeting that it provided a good exchange of information. "There needs to be a lot more planning, but this was a good start," he said.
  
  Capt. Steven Rogers of the UW-Madison Police added: "It was a good thing to get this large breadth of people together. Everybody has been doing their own plans, but it's good to get together."

• 04/19/2006:  Should you fret about bird flu? Experts weigh in, MSNBC
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Top scientists help clear up the confusion
  
  Updated: 1:25 p.m. ET April 19, 2006
  
  With bird flu marching across Asia and Europe and expected to reach the United States soon, scientists fear the H5N1 strain of the virus could evolve into a form that would spread more easily among humans. This has sparked fears, concerns and, most of all, questions.
  
  MSNBC.com posed some frequently asked reader questions to top experts in the field. Our panel consisted of:
  
  Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Bethesda, Md.
  
  Dr. Eric Toner, senior associate, The Center for Biosecurity, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
  
  Leslie A. Dierauf, center director at the U.S. Geological Surveys National Wildlife Health Center, Madison, Wis.
  
  Lisa Caffery, epidemiology project coordinator, Genesis Medical Center, Davenport, Iowa.
  
  Heres what they had to say:
  
  Why are medical experts so concerned about bird flu?
  
  Fauci: Any influenza virus that is circulating with a potential to infect people that is, a virus to which human society has never been exposed to before poses a significant threat. It happened three times in the 20th century: with the infamous 1918 Spanish flu; in 1957 with a moderate event; and in 1968, which was a relatively minor pandemic. The 1918 one was a public health catastrophe, the likes of which we had never seen before.
  
  There is a concern that sooner or later we will get another pandemic. The big uncertainty is when its going to happen and whether its going to be a 1918 version or its going to be a 1968 version.
  
  There is a big spectrum of seriousness going from the horrendously serious to the relatively mild.
  
  Since 2003 weve seen the steady emergence of H5N1, a virus that is fundamentally a bird flu. It has killed tens of millions of birds and required the culling of millions of birds. It has evolved in such a way that, in very rare instances, it has jumped from a chicken to a human. It is highly virulent in humans, killing about 50 percent of the people it has infected.
  
  The concern of medical experts is that the virus has the ability to evolve, to mutate and to exchange genes with other human viruses.
  
  If we dont get this under control in chickens and more people get exposed, were giving the virus the opportunity to evolve in a situation where it might and this is a big if, because it isnt inevitable that this will happen evolve the capability in going from human to human.
  
  If it does, then we could have a very serious situation. So, medical experts and public health officials need to prepare for the worst-case scenario.
  
  That doesnt mean the general public should assume that the worst case could occur. There is a big difference there.
  
  What are the chances the H5N1 virus will emerge in pandemic form and begin spreading from person to person?
  
  Fauci: You cant put a quantitative number on what the chance is that this H5N1 is going to be a catastrophe. The complexity of things for this to happen is multifaceted and very complex. A pandemic is not necessarily going to be caused by the H5N1 virus. H5N1 may not, in fact, go anywhere and just dead-end itself.
  
  The H5N1 virus has been spreading from Asia into Europe and Africa via migratory birds. How is it expected to reach the U.S.?
  
  Dierauf: There are three main ways in which scientists believe avian influenza will arrive in North America. One, by commercial transport egg products, illegal and legally (imported) birds, or smuggled meat. The second is on the wings of migratory birds. Those would be birds that come from Asia and intermingle with birds from Alaska. The third way would be people the arrival of someone who is ill.
  
  Toner: It will probably come to this country on an airplane with someone who is sick or incubating the virus. But were not going to be able to stop the virus by screening people at airports. We know with SARS it was completely ineffective. There is no way to detect people who are incubating the disease.
  
  What types of wild birds should we worry about?
  
  Dierauf: H5N1 has been found in up to 80 species of birds. The ones we worry about most are the migratory birds that move long distances. If there is a pigeon or an urban goose that stays around all winter long, those are not the animals I worry about. Its the birds that fly long distances.
  
  What about poultry?
  
  Dierauf: The poultry industry has a very strong biosecurity system in the United States. That means they keep poultry housed indoors, under cover and away from wild birds. You dont want wild bird viruses mixing with domestic bird viruses. The trick is to keep the wild birds separate from poultry.
  
  How might the virus affect people in the United States?
  
  Toner: What Id expect is there would be cases in wild birds, occasional outbreaks in poultry as has been seen elsewhere, and rare, isolated cases in people kind of like the West Nile virus. That is almost certainly going to happen. But thats not the pandemic.
  
  How will person-to-person spread be detected?
  
  Fauci: It will be very clear. Youll start to see infection in people who are exposed to the people who get sick, like doctors, nurses, health-care workers. When a group of people in a family get sick, you dont know that its very likely they all got contaminated by the droppings of the chickens in the backyard.
  
  When you get somebody who is sick, and all the doctors and the nurses and all the people in the waiting room get sick, then you know that virus has adapted in a very bad way to go from human to human.
  
  How can we control a pandemic if it starts overseas?
  
  Toner: The World Health Organization has plans to throw a fire blanket on an outbreak so that it doesnt spread. A fire blanket is where they control the outbreak locally and then give everyone in the area Tamiflu to make sure it doesnt spread. There are many who doubt that those efforts are likely to be effective.
  
  How quickly would it spread?
  
  Fauci: When youre dealing with biology, it really is unpredictable. Its unlikely that all of a sudden, overnight, youll have it being able to go from spreading extremely inefficiently to spreading all over the place.
  
  Its likely that it will gradually adapt itself to going from human to human until it gets to the point that it has the same degrees of transmissibility as the seasonal flu. If and when that happens, then you have rapid spread that would take weeks to months to go all over the place. It really relates to the capability of an individual virus to adapt itself to spread easily from person to person. If it does that in a very abrupt, highly efficient way, then you have less time to prepare. If it does it gradually, then you have more time to prepare.
  
  Are U.S. hospitals prepared?
  
  Caffery: Hospitals around the country are preparing for some type of influenza outbreak. If an outbreak of avian or some other type of influenza were to occur, we would follow our Infectious Disease Response Plan and work with local and state public health officials to assess and address our needs and those of the community.
  
  Toner: We dont have any surge capacity in our health-care system. Hospitals have only just enough beds for the patients they currently serve. No hospital has more than a day or two of medicine or supplies. Even with a mild pandemic, hospitals would be overwhelmed and unable to provide for flu patients or patients with other kinds of problems like heart attacks or stroke. We need a lot more leadership on a national level for hospital preparedness. It would cost a lot of money.
  
  Is the U.S. government ready for a pandemic?
  
  Toner: No. We are beginning to try to wrestle with some of these things. The most important thing we need to do is to greatly accelerate our governmental programs for vaccine production. We need to investigate new ways of making and administering vaccines. The most important thing to do is spread out the epidemic over time, so that fewer people are sick all at once. Wed want to lessen the load at hospitals and lessen the load on critical infrastructure, on schools, businesses and society in general. If you have 5 percent of people sick at once, its better than having 10 percent of the people sick at once.
  
  Fauci: There has been a considerable amount of progress on the public health level. In particular, there is a vaccine being tested. We are expanding our vaccine production capacity. One of the real problems is getting the production capacity of the companies that make influenza vaccine to the level that they will be able to make enough vaccine within a reasonable period of time to protect all the people that need to be protected.
  
  What can people do to protect themselves?
  
  Fauci: On a day-by-day basis, people should have a plan. That kind of plan doesnt need to be that much different than youd have if there were a natural disaster, if there was a hurricane, a tornado or an interruption of services.

• 04/14/2006:  Crews gear up for bird flu testing, The Mercury News (Associated Press)
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  By ANNE SUTTON
  
  Associated Press
  
  ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - Rows of insulated seafood boxes are lined up in a spare room at the new Alaska Environmental Health Laboratory in Anchorage.
  
  Instead of fish, they're packed with field kits destined for the Alaska bush, where crews will net and sample migrating birds for avian influenza.
  
  Cherie Rice, normally a state dairy inspector, used her spare time Friday to pack the boxes with four sizes of bright yellow protective plastic suits ``because people come in all variety of sizes,' she said. She's also added gloves, goggles, swabs, disinfectant solution and sample boxes to the kits.
  
  ``We're just sending out a little bit of everything,' she said.
  
  The field crews -- comprised of government biologists, volunteers and contractors -- will return the smaller boxes with vials of samples taken by swabs from live birds. Some boxes also could contain dead birds to be tested if there is an unexplained die-off.
  
  The laboratory is the state's latest defense on the front lines of the fight against bird flu.
  
  Scientists believe the first reported case of the Asian H5N1 virus in the United States will likely show up in Alaska, brought by migratory birds arriving from Russia or Southeast Asia.
  
  The U.S. Department of Agriculture is preparing to authorize the lab to test samples from migrating waterfowl -- as many as 10,000 this spring. It could well be the busiest lab in a network of 43 labs around the nation that will test for presumptive findings of the virus.
  
  Barb Martin, the National Animal Health Laboratory Network coordinator in Ames, Iowa, is working with the Alaska lab on its certification.
  
  ``Because of Alaska's position with migratory bird patterns, I think we can anticipate they will receive more samples and sooner than other states,' she said by telephone.
  
  If an initial finding is positive, the National Veterinary Services Lab in Ames will determine if the disease is a high or low pathogenic strain of the virus.
  
  State veterinarian Bob Gerlach said staff members in Anchorage has ``been through the grinder' to prove to the USDA that they can run a quality lab with the proper protocols in place to protect the samples and the staff from contamination.
  
  Sara Watt, the lab's head microbiologist, went through trial testing Friday to prove her expertise in detecting the virus. Lab officials could learn as early as next week if they have been certified.
  
  ``The pressure's on Sara because they said, 'OK, here's your unknown.' It's kind of like your big final exam,' Gerlach said.
  
  The state has purchased specialized equipment for the lab, which will provide faster and more efficient testing than the old method of growing cultures in petri dishes. The equipment also is used for testing such things as salmonella, E. coli and paralytic shellfish poisoning.
  
  Watt estimates she will be able to process about 200 avian samples in a three-day period.
  
  Even with the fast turnaround, final confirmation from the Ames lab of a virulent form of the disease could take one to two weeks, Martin said. In a priority case involving a high bird die-off, more testing and surveillance would occur simultaneously.
  
  The Anchorage lab will test samples collected by the USDA and the state Department of Fish and Game. The National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis., also will test samples collected in Alaska by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. ------

• 04/13/2006:  Bird flu expected in Alaska in May, Toronto Star (Associated Press)
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Scientists look north for first U.S. case
  
  Apr. 13, 2006. 04:09 PM
  
  ASSOCIATED PRESS
  
  WASHINGTON In about three weeks, waterfowl, shorebirds and songbirds will start arriving in the Alaska Peninsula, the Yukon Delta and the westernmost Aleutian Islands to begin mating. That's when and where government scientists expect the first case of bird flu to show up in the United States.
  
  To screen the birds for the deadly virus, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Alaska's Fish and Game Department are setting up more than 50 remote backcountry camps accessible mainly by float planes or boats.
  
  More than 40 species of waterfowl and shorebirds are considered susceptible to infection by a highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu virus that's killed more than 100 people, mostly in Asia. It also has killed or led to the slaughter of more than 200 million chickens, ducks, turkeys and other domestic fowl in Asia, Europe and Africa.
  
  Species migrating from Asia across the Bering Strait considered the most likely carriers of the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus include eiders, pintails, geese, long-tailed ducks, dunlins, sandpipers and plovers. There's also concern about gulls, terns and falcons.
  
  Rick Kearney, wildlife program coordinator for the U.S. Geological Survey, described the $29 million surveillance program to collect and sample 100,000 birds 15,000 to 20,000 in Alaska alone as an early warning system for poultry producers and health officials in the lower 48 states.
  
  "If we find it this summer, it could provide them with several weeks of warning," he said. "We're looking in all places, but we're looking most intently in the place we most expect to find it, Alaska.'
  
  Kearney is co-author of the joint surveillance plan created by the Interior and Agriculture departments and the state of Alaska for use in all 50 states.
  
  The plan mentions that the H5N1 virus also could arrive in the U.S. through a smuggled chicken or duck, an infected traveler, black-market trade in exotic birds or even an act of bioterrorism, but it says the most likely carrier will be a migrating wild bird.
  
  Government officials say there's no known case of virus being passed from a wild bird to a person and no one knows whether wild bird-to-person transmission is possible.
  
  At each of the more than 50 camps in Alaska, several government biologists, volunteers and contractors stationed for days or weeks at a time will test living birds, those dead from unknown causes and hunter-killed birds such as those taken during Alaska Native subsistence hunts.
  
  They'll collect the samples by swabbing both ends of a bird's digestive system for mucous and feces. At least 200 birds from each sample population are needed to detect the virus accurately.
  
  After Alaska, surveillance priorities are a matter of geography: the Pacific flyway from the Canadian border to southern California and then east to the Central, Mississippi and Atlantic flyways.
  
  The swabs will be sent to one of 40 veterinary labs around the country certified by the government as capable of testing them for the bird flu virus. Most are state-run or associated with universities.
  
  Ground zero for the testing program is the Interior Department's National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis., which alone is expected to handle 12,000 to 15,000 samples.
  
  It could be a week or so before sample results are known. From there, the plan calls for confirmatory testing to be done by Agriculture Department labs in Ames, Iowa, and Athens, Ga.
  
  "If highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza virus becomes established in North America, the likelihood of rapid and diffusive spread across the continent is high," according to the surveillance plan Kearney co-authored with Thomas DeLiberto, wildlife disease coordinator for the Agriculture Department.
  
  In that case, the plan calls for focusing on urban zoos, parks and lakes where the highest concentrations of people could come into contact with contaminated water and waterfowl. It also targets ponds, lakes and waterfowl management areas around the biggest poultry producers.

• 04/09/2006:  Bird flu may fly to U.S. this fall - Migrating flocks expected to bring virus to N. America, The Columbus Dispatch
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Sunday, April 09, 2006
  
  Mike Lafferty
  
  Editors note: Public-health officials worry that the bird flu will arrive in the United States sometime this year and could mutate into a deadly virus passed among people. Then again, it might not. An occasional Dispatch series will separate fact from fiction.
  
  Somewhere in Alaska this spring, the avian-influenza virus will jump from a Southeastern Asian duck to a North American duck, setting the stage for the long-feared arrival of bird flu in the United States.
  
  Summer nesting areas for Asian and North American waterfowl in northern Siberia, Alaska and Canada form a kind of continental Grand Central Station for birds.
  
  And its there where scientists think the virus dubbed H5N1 will transfer from one avian express train to another.
  
  Scientists are watching for birds in Alaska now. When the flocks move south again in August and September, birds that migrate through Ohio likely could have the virus.
  
  "The assumption right now is that wild birds are vectors," said Mark Shieldcastle, a biologist at the Crane Creek state wildlife research station along Lake Erie in Ottawa County.
  
  The wetlands at Crane Creek and other areas along the lake are rest areas for millions of migrating birds.
  
  Waterfowl biologists are watching for the virus to morph and infect domestic chickens or, far worse, humans.
  
  "I dont think there are any symptoms to notice except for dead birds," said Ron Huffman, a biologist at the Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge, near Crane Creek.
  
  "Just seeing one dead bird is not necessarily alarming. The key point is looking for a whole bunch of dead birds."
  
  Shieldcastle said there are a few likely suspects, including shorebirds such as the dunlin, pectoral sandpiper, long-billed dowager and ducks, including the northern pintail.
  
  Wright State University biologist Thomas Vant Hof said there is a lot of evidence that wild birds are spreading the H5N1 virus.
  
  The virus has been detected in swans and other wild birds in Europe. It is being spread in a pattern that follows wild-bird migrations, especially along a major central Asian flyway. Vant Hof said birds probably picked up the virus in Turkey and carried it south to Africa.
  
  Shieldcastle has been watching for one variety or another of the 100-plus avian influenza strains for 20 years as part of a monitoring program organized by Ohio State University veterinary researcher Richard Slemons.
  
  Slemons has collected samples of bird feces from the Lake Erie marshes annually as part of an early-warning program to help protect the states poultry industry.
  
  "Weve dealt with (avian-flu viruses) before," Slemons said. "This virus acts differently."
  
  The virus not only has spread rapidly in the past six months but also killed large numbers of wild birds, which usually shake off flu viruses.
  
  A big concern is the viruss ability to jump the species boundary, not only between wild birds and domesticated fowl but between birds and humans.
  
  There are 144 possible combinations of avian-flu strains.
  
  Scientists worry that some new combination of the H5N1 virus could spread among humans and kill large numbers of people.
  
  The virus has been confirmed in 186 people living close to poultry and killed 105 of them.
  
  "The good news is there is no pandemic," Slemons said. "The bad news is the longer it goes, the more likely for a pandemic."
  
  Slemons said although wild birds should be watched closely, we still need to guard against other ways the virus could enter the country.
  
  "Somebody going through a market in Southeast Asia could bring it back on their clothing or be infected themselves," he said.
  
  Illegally imported birds, such as parrots and other exotic breeds, worry Slemons the most.
  
  "Theres a tremendous amount of money to be made. People have put them in hubcaps and come across the Mexican border," he said.
  
  Wild birds and domesticated turkeys, chickens and ducks swap viruses all the time. Its estimated, for example, that in Minnesota, where millions of turkeys were once raised outside, wild birds introduced avian-flu viruses an average of four times a year.
  
  While veterinarians keep a close eye on poultry diseases in the United States, the same cant be said for many parts of Asia, where surveillance is sporadic and annual humanflu strains usually form first.
  
  Biologists say they think Asia is where a low-pathological form of H5N1 jumped from wild birds to domestic fowl. In wild birds, it affects the digestive tract. In domestic fowl, it is a respiratory infection.
  
  Once it made the jump, it cooked for as long as a decade, adapting to become a scourge to domestic birds, said Paul Slota, a microbiologist at the National Wildlife Health Center, a federal lab run by the U.S. Geological Survey.
  
  And when the virus jumped back to wild fowl, it retained its ability to kill large numbers of wild birds.
  
  Weak strains of H5N1 are common in wild birds.
  
  "At some point, if we do get (a strong strain of) H5N1 ... we will need to determine place of origin," Slota said.
  
  Another worry is where it might spread, such as into domestic house cats.
  
  Still, many experts, including Slemons, are hopeful that if H5N1 enters the country this fall, it might stay in migrating ducks and geese.
  
  "If it comes into wild birds," he said, "well be able to keep it under control."
  
  mlafferty@dispatch.com

• 04/06/2006:  State Conference to Explore Defenses for Biological Threats, Wisbusiness.com
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  By Brian E. Clark
  
  MADISON Disease as a national security threat will be one of the main topics at an all-day symposium that will be held Friday on the UW-Madison campus.
  
  The conference will also focus on what the state and Dane County are doing to prepare for a possible avian flu pandemic, said Alison Alter, associate director of the universitys Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy (WAGE), the conferences lead sponsor.
  
  She said the conference is designed to build bridges between the university and the public, and across the natural and social sciences, as well as to increase the capacity to confront bioterrorism and emerging diseases.
  
  Alter said top government and academicians from Washington, D.C. and Madison will discuss issues surrounding global biological threats at the free symposium, which will be held in Grainger Hall, 975 University Ave. (To register, go wage@intl-institute.wisc.edu.)
  
  Understanding the origins, risks, and possible solutions to these problems demands a multi-faceted response, said Alter, who said the response to the conference has been strong.
  
  We thought we would get perhaps 75 people and most of them from the campus, she said. But weve had 200 people register and the majority of them are from off campus.
  
  Even the fire chief from Appleton is coming, as well as representatives of Alliant Energy and Promega Corp., for example, she said.
  
  This symposium follows a related symposium held just last month in Madison. Dubbed Wisconsins Pandemic Readiness Summit, it attracted officials from commerce, schools and churches to discuss preparations for a flu pandemic. Other forums have been held around the state as well, Alter said.
  
  This is the first conference of this kind for the university, Alter said. This will be a general overview of the issue and how prepared we are.
  
  Alter said she believes the public is aware of the avian flu threat, which has killed more than 100 people in Asia, Africa and Europe. It has yet to reach North America.
  
  We are very pleased with the response, she said, noting that the symposium has been lengthened and will include a question-and-answer session at the end.
  
  In addition to avian flu and the threat of bioterrorism, well also be looking at things we are doing to the environment that are changing the risk environment.
  
  Well also have a private sector planning session that will cover things like how does a business function if everyone is quarantined? she said.
  
  She said Dr. Eric Noji, senior policy advisor for health and national security for the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), will deliver the keynote address, Disease as a National Security Threat.
  
  He is also the former associate director for bio-emergency preparedness and response with the National Center for Infectious Diseases at the CDC.
  
  Other speakers include:
  
  *Dr. Jonathan Patz, a WAGE Senior Fellow, Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, on Emerging Disease Threats from Ecological Change.
  
  *Hon Ip, a virologist at the USGS National Wildlife Health Center on Avian Influenza: How Close Are We to a Pandemic?
  
  *Josh Dein, a USGS veterinarian, Madison, on Wildlife Health Monitoring Network.
  
  *Donald Moynihan, La Follette School of Public Affairs, on Public Management Perspectives on Foreign Animal Diseases.
  
  *Vicki Bier, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, UW-Madison, on "Pandemic Planning: The Needs of the Private Sector."
  
  *Mary Proctor, program director of the Southcentral Wisconsin Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Consortium, on Ready or Not: Preparedness at the Local Level.

• 04/05/2006:  For bird flu, cats might be canary in coal mine, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Researchers say animal could be carrier and signal disease's arrival
  
  By SUSANNE RUST
  
  srust@journalsentinel.com
  
  Posted: April 5, 2006
  
  Although H5N1 avian flu has caused many people to look at migrating birds and domestic poultry in a new, menacing light, it may be time to reappraise the bewhiskered feline serenely licking her paws on your couch.
  
  Danish and Italian researchers are calling on the world's health organizations and experts to start taking notice of cats. And they're urging officials to consider these domestic animals as both potential threats to human safety and as possible sentinels for the arrival of the disease.
  
  "We believe that the potential role of cats should be considered in official guidelines for controlling the spread of H5N1 virus infection," wrote the authors in a commentary in today's issue of the journal Nature.
  
  But others say too little is yet known about these animals' role in the spread of the virus. And in North America, where avian flu has not appeared, there is little cause for alarm.
  
  "We believe at the present time a general survey of cats and other carnivores, certainly in North America, and even in H5N1-endemic regions, may not be generally warranted, as the exposure of the cats to infected birds is likely to be low," said Hon Ip, director of the diagnostic virology laboratory at the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center in Madison.
  
  But, he said, if cats begin "showing unusual morbidity or mortality" in areas infected by the virus, that stance might have to be reconsidered.
  
  According to the authors, cats have been relatively silent victims in the spread of the flu. As early as February 2004, reports of domestic cats dying from H5N1 started to appear. In a household near Bangkok, Thailand, 14 out of 15 cats "became weak, started vomiting and coughed up blood before dying."
  
  Tigers and a leopard in two zoos in Thailand also have died after eating fresh chicken carcasses infected with the virus or being exposed to birds with H5N1.
  
  "These reports were surprising because both domestic cats and wild felids were considered to be resistant to disease from influenza A virus infection, of which H5N1 is a subtype," wrote the researchers, who include Thijs Kuiken and Albert Osterhaus, virologists at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, Netherlands, as well as Peter Roeder of the Animal Production and Health Division of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in Italy.
  
  Widespread and high mortality of cats has been reported in areas where the disease has become endemic, including Iraq and Indonesia.
  
  Two views on evidence
  
  As of February, the World Health Organization has said "there is no present evidence that domestic cats play a role in the transmission cycle of H5N1 viruses."
  
  But Osterhaus and his colleagues think there's increasing evidence to the contrary.
  
  They point to fatal infections in regions where the virus has become endemic, feline deaths where the virus has only recently appeared, and their own laboratory experiments.
  
  The combined evidence, they say, indicates that these animals could provide the material the virus needs to mutate, giving it a chance to become an effective mammal, and human, disease.
  
  Their laboratory work indicates that cats were not only susceptible to the virus but also could pass it between one another, albeit with prolonged exposure.
  
  "Collectively, the data so far show that domestic cats can become infected by contact with domestic or wild birds," by eating them or coming into contact with their droppings, the authors wrote.
  
  "Consequently, these data indicate a possible role for cats in the epidemiology of H5N1 in poultry, humans and other species," they wrote.
  
  And they recommend taking steps to prevent contact between cats and infected birds or their droppings, as well as quarantining and testing cats suspected of such contacts or cats that show symptoms of H5N1 influenza.
  
  The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control recommends keeping cats indoors if they live within about six miles of a verified H5N1 infection in birds.
  
  Ip, of the National Wildlife Center, stressed that no cat-to-human transmission has been documented.
  
  "Cats are clearly potential players" in the possible spread of the disease, said Stanley Temple, professor of wildlife ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "Because free-ranging cats are likely to prey on sick birds, are susceptible to the virus, live at high densities around people and often have intimate contact with people, they might be the intermediate mammal that allows H5N1 to jump from birds to humans."

• 04/05/2006:  Canada geese expert urges town to consider alternate options, The Hammonton News (NJ)
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  The Coalition to Prevent the Destruction of Canada Geese was disheartened to read the Hammonton police will begin shooting two Canada geese a day in an effort to decrease the population of the birds, whose droppings have contributed to high fecal coli levels in the lake.
  
  The U.S. Geological Service, National Wildlife Health Center has conducted a screening for potential human pathogens in fecal materials deposited by resident Canada geese in New Jersey. Low frequency of positive cultures indicated that the risk of humans to disease through contact with Canada goose feces appeared to be minimal. Nor do the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have a record of any outbreaks of human illness definitively attributed to Canada geese.
  
  Furthermore, as per the March 13 Town Council meeting minutes, water superintendent James Massara asked council members if the proposed Clean Flo pilot program will take care of the geese problem. "Councilperson Jeanne Sparacino Lewis responded yes, Clean Flo does eliminate the fecal matter in the water."
  
  Hammonton's lethal attempt to decrease its Canada goose population, which amounts to nothing more than target practice, is cruel, inhumane and totally unnecessary. Consequently, the coalition urges the council to abandon their lethal plan and initiate the successful, non lethal-goose abatement program designed by GeesePeace (www.geesepeace.org), which will serve both the geese and the community, well.
  
  Sharon Pawlak
  
  Medford
  
  National Coordinator,
  
  Coalition to Prevent
  
  the Destruction of Canada Geese

• 04/04/2006:  Wild birds tested for avian flu clues, Chicago Tribune
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  U.S. expands watch on migrating flocks
  
  By Michael Hawthorne
  
  Tribune staff reporter
  
  April 4, 2006
  
  MADISON, Wis. -- In the nationwide dragnet for a deadly strain of bird flu, even the marble-size liver of a cedar waxwing can be an important clue.
  
  A few days after a dozen of the tawny songbirds were found dead in a Seattle park, they ended up at a federal lab outside this university town, a place where birds and other critters are sent when wildlife diseases threaten to infect people.
  
  Working in a highly secure examination room, a masked pathologist methodically gathered tissue samples to check for the molecular fingerprint of the H5N1 virus.
  
  The remains of a snow goose, mallard duck and bald eagle waited on a nearby cart, each sealed in a bag marked with an ominous-looking biohazard symbol.
  
  Normally the discovery of a few dead birds wouldn't be cause for great concern. But with the dangerous virus spreading across the world, scientists increasingly are watching for any unusual signs of illness or death among wild birds, which may signal where bird flu will arrive next.
  
  The waxwings were among the first tested this year in a dramatically expanded effort by the federal government to scour the United States for signs of the H5N1 strain and quickly stamp out any outbreaks in domesticated fowl.
  
  Starting this month, the National Wildlife Health Center will be analyzing thousands of songbirds and waterfowl making their spring journey along migratory flyways. Samples will be drawn from live birds and others found dead or killed by hunters.
  
  While no birds have tested positive in the U.S., top federal officials say it is a matter of time before the influenza strain turns up here.
  
  Before this year, when the federal government plans to test as many as 100,000 wild birds for avian flu, a total of 12,000 had been checked since 1996. Officials also will analyze water samples from areas where flocks gather because the most common means of flu transmission in the wild is through feces in breeding ponds.
  
  "This could be bigger than anything we've dealt with before," said Christopher Brand, a scientist for 29 years whose typical day involves diagnosing exotic wildlife illnesses such as avian cholera, bubonic plague and chronic wasting disease.
  
  Brand and his colleagues at the Madison laboratory, run by the U.S. Geological Survey, are busy clearing space for new equipment that will allow them to quickly analyze the crush of samples headed their way.
  
  Testing ducks and geese and songbirds is seen as an early warning system that could prevent the virus from contaminating the nation's multibillion-dollar poultry industry.
  
  The virus can quickly sweep through poultry barns, where thousands of birds are raised in close proximity. More than 200 million chickens in other countries already have been killed by the H5N1 strain or destroyed to prevent its spread.
  
  "This is a huge issue for us right now," said Angela Harless, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, another agency that will be testing wild birds for the virus.
  
  Health officials are concerned the influenza virus could mutate into a form that could spread among humans, prompting a worldwide flu pandemic. All of the viruses that caused pandemics--in 1918, 1957 and 1968--started out as bird flus.
  
  The H5N1 strain has killed nearly 100 people in the last nine years, more than half of those known to be infected. But so far, no signs indicate that the virus has been passed from person to person; the individuals who got the disease had close contact with infected birds.
  
  One reason scientists are focusing on migratory birds is that avian flu rarely kills them in large numbers, mostly because the birds have developed natural defenses. If infected birds are strong enough to keep flying, they could carry and spread the worrisome virus.
  
  Much of the federal effort is focused on the migratory path between Siberia and Alaska. Limited testing in the last couple of years identified 22 strains of bird flu in the area, but none has been highly pathogenic.
  
  "At some point H5N1 will make it into wild birds here," said Thomas Roffe, chief of the wildlife health branch of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which manages the national refuge system. "The concern is they will survive and spread it around."
  
  If the virus is detected in migratory birds, officials plan to pay closer attention to nearby poultry barns and move quickly to destroy any infected birds.
  
  As they did when West Nile virus began to sweep through the country, officials are warning people not to pick up dead or diseased birds. Instead, they should contact state, tribal or federal wildlife agencies, such as the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.
  
  Based on what has happened as the bird flu virus spread from Asia to Africa and parts of Europe, some scientists are skeptical that wild birds will be responsible for carrying the disease here.
  
  It appears the international trade of live chickens could play a far greater role.
  
  "It's something to be concerned about because these wild birds are on the move and you don't necessarily know where they are going next," said Peter Marra, senior scientist at the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center at the National Zoo.
  
  "But I think our biggest concern should be with imported poultry and the movement of birds through illegal pet trade."
  
  The USDA has beefed up monitoring and random testing of imported birds, and has placed restrictions on imports from nations with outbreaks.
  
  There is one important difference between bird flu and some other recent disease scares: Officials had to scramble to contain West Nile virus, monkeypox and chronic wasting disease after it already started spreading in the United States.
  
  The H5N1 strain isn't here yet.
  
  "We're on a steep learning curve right now," said Hon Ip, a virologist at the Madison lab. "The virus has shown us how dangerous and lethal it can be elsewhere.
  
  "That's giving us time to prepare and get our act together."
  
  - - -
  
  Spread of virus
  
  The H5N1 strain of avian influenza, which has spread to nearly 50 countries, has yet to show up in the Western Hemisphere, though scientists say it is only a matter of time.
  
  1997--First outbreak of the virus is reported in Hong Kong.
  
  2003--Large outbreak in chickens in South Korea.
  
  2004--Virus spreads to other parts of Asia, including Japan, India and Indonesia.
  
  2005--More cases reported in Southeast Asia, and later in Mongolia and Russia. By the end of the year, the virus is detected in Turkey, Eastern Europe and Italy.
  
  2006--The virus spreads to other countries in Europe and is reported in Egypt and three other African countries.
  
  ----------
  
  mhawthorne@tribune.com

• 03/31/2006:  Hunters told to take precautions against bird flu transmission, Associated Press (Medford, OR)
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  3/31/2006, 12:15 a.m. PT
  
  MEDFORD, Ore. (AP) Oregon waterfowl hunters might find themselves on the frontlines of the fight against an avian flu outbreak in North America.
  
  Birds founds in this region are known to mix in Alaska with birds from Asia, where the virus is most prevalent, leaving birds migrating through the western U.S. to be considered one of the virus' possible routes to America.
  
  Waterfowl experts are warning hunters to take due precautions as a result, from wearing gloves when field-dressing waterfowl to dousing knives with a bleach solution when done. They are also advising hunters to clean and disinfect decoys and waders if hunting in waters where the virus is found.
  
  Hunters are also being told to provide samples waterfowl they've killed for testing, and to ensure that all waterfowl are fully cooked before eaten.
  
  "It's like (hurricanes) Katrina and Rita," spokesman Gregg Patterson of the Tennessee-based Ducks Unlimited told The Medford Mail-Tribune. "You realize we're not insulated against this kind of stuff. What everybody needs to do is prepare for it."
  
  Avian Influenza, or AI, is a set of viruses that are naturally found in wild birds, particularly waterfowl and shorebirds that normally suffer no ill effects from them. However, domestic birds like chickens are generally more susceptible.
  
  But the H5N1 strain now found in 41 countries in Asia, Africa and parts of Europe is frequently fatal to birds and easily transmissible between species. To date, scientists' ultimate fear is that the virus will mutate into one that directly affects people as well as be passed among humans.
  
  The National Wildlife Health Center in Wisconsin says as of mid-March, the H5N1 virus has sickened 177 people and killed 98, mostly in Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Thailand and Turkey. Most of those were infected from eating or handling infected chickens.
  
  Just the mention of avian flu has scared some Oregonians out of waterfowl hunting, said Brad Bales, waterfowl biologist for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.
  
  "I got, maybe, a dozen calls (last season) from hunters who said their families won't let them hunt anymore because of avian influenza," Bales said.
  
  Oregon expects to receive about $400,000 in federal funds for various sampling efforts beginning in the fall, Bales said.
  
  Cackling Canada geese, a priority species, will be tested by sampling birds at hunter check-in stations in Northwest Oregon, where they concentrate, Bales said. Other species, such as shovelers, pintails and green-winged teals, could be tested elsewhere in the state, he said.
  
  ___
  
  Information from: Mail Tribune, http://www.mailtribune.com/

• 03/31/2006:  Officials keep eye on bird flu trends, Sapulpa Daily Herald (OK)
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  By SEAN KENNEDY
  
  CNHI News Service
  
  TAHLEQUAH, Okla. While worries over the outbreak of bird flu have spread worldwide, health officials are urging people not to panic.
  
  In its current form, Asian avian flu, or the H5N1 strain, will not be a significant threat to human health, said Dr. Kristy Bradley, Oklahoma state public health veterinarian. There are a lot of things occurring, but those are just preparations. There is no indication an influenza pandemic is spreading.
  
  Bird flu, the name for the deadly H5N1 strain of the avian flu that has spread from Asia to Africa and Europe, remains primarily a contagious bird disease that has infected more than 170 people and killed roughly 100. It is typically spread from direct contact with contaminated birds.
  
  According to the U.S. Geological Survey, avian flu can infect chickens, pheasants, quail, ducks, geese and guinea fowl, as well as migratory waterfowl and shorebirds, and less commonly, mammals.
  
  The virus can be spread through contact with fecal droppings, saliva and nasal discharges of infected animals. When the virus jumps to a new species, such as from wild birds to domestic animals or to humans, it may change or mutate into a new virus that is more adapted to the new host. In that case, its no longer the same virus that was originally in the wild bird population.
  
  This strain is behaving unusually and some scientists are concerned that it will evolve so that it can spread from person to person, said Bradley. That has not occurred yet, and nobody can say it will occur. Were just being very cautious right now.
  
  Bradley said that so far, there has not been efficient sustained person-to-person transmission of the virus, which is needed for a pandemic to start.
  
  There are fears the H5N1 virus does have characteristics that make it more virulent, said Bradley.
  
  The virus was first documented in 1997 in Asia and has spread throughout a large geographic area, causing the largest and most severe outbreaks in poultry on record.
  
  The human cases to date have primarily been in Turkey, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam as the result of direct or close contact with domestic (not wild) birds especially chickens, the USGS reports.
  
  Testing facilities in the U.S. are monitoring migratory birds as they return from the north this year, since they expect bird flu to reach North America this year.
  
  The federal government has appropriated money to ramp up surveillance of migratory wild birds to watch for signs of disease, said Bradley. There is also ongoing testing of birds in the four primary flyways over the country.
  
  The testing on monitoring of migratory birds is being conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife and the Department of Interior.
  
  Through that process, certain types of birds will be targeted for testing, said Bradley. As the birds fly north and co-mingle with birds from Asia, they will watch to see if the disease spreads over the migratory pathways.
  
  The testing is not scheduled to start until the summer, when migratory birds start to make their way south after spending the summer in the north.
  
  Theres no reason to test until theyve started moving south during the fall migration, said Bradley. Its unlikely for the virus to occur until that time.
  
  A bird that tests positive for the virus does not mean an outbreak is eminent among humans.
  
  Even if they find some birds testing positive is does not mean we have a significant health threat, said Bradley. It is still primarily an animal disease and is spread through direct contact with the animal.
  
  Most of the people who have been infected with the H5N1 virus acquired it through direct handling of infected poultry, eating uncooked or undercooked poultry products, or through contact with virus-contaminated surfaces or materials, including blood and feces.
  
  The nations schools, long recognized as incubators of respiratory diseases among children, are being told to plan for the possibility of an outbreak of bird flu.
  
  Rebel Nelson, registerd nurse at Cherokee Elementary School in Tahlequah, has done some independent research on bird flu. Nelson said if an outbreak should occur, instructions on how to handle it would be handed down by the health department.
  
  Nelson sees about 30 children a day in her office at Cherokee, dealing with everything from handling daily medications to monitoring outbreaks of lice and pink eye.
  
  With pink eye, we send the kids home for two days, said Nelson.
  
  Depending on the type of disease, the reaction might be different, Nelson said. That determines whether the school will contact the health department for instructions.
  
  The government has created checklists on preparation and response steps, specialized for preschools, grade schools, high schools and colleges. The dominant theme is the need for coordination among local, state and federal officials.
  
  Some of the advice is common sense, like urging students to wash their hands and cover their mouths when they cough or sneeze to keep infection from spreading. Other steps, such as legal and communication issues, would take schools considerable time to figure out.
  
  Sean Kennedy writes for Tahlequah (Okla.) Daily Press.

• 03/30/2006:  Bird flu concerns waterfowl hunters, Mail Tribune, Medford, OR
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  By MARK FREEMAN
  
  Mail Tribune
  
  Latex gloves, bottles of bleach and cooking thermometers may soon join nontoxic shot, decoys and duck calls as standard field tools for waterfowl hunters who might find themselves on the front lines of the fight against an avian flu outbreak in North America.
  
  Concerns that the H5N1 avian virus, also known as Asian bird flu, might reach North America through migratory birds has waterfowl experts and health officials warning hunters that they need to protect themselves if the virus shows up here.
  
  Asian bird flu so far has not been found on this continent and it has not become a danger here to people or poultry, which are most affected, experts say. But Pacific Flyway birds are known to mix in Alaska with birds from Asia, where the virus is most prevalent, and birds migrating along this flyway are considered one of the virus possible routes to America.
  
  "I dont think anybody really knows what the chances are of it moving in with migratory birds," says Paul Sota from the National Wildlife Health Center, the Madison, Wis., facility helping spearhead national bird-flu testing. "But, if migratory birds bring it here, Alaska and the Pacific Flyway are the most logical places for it."
  
  The possibility of it reaching here has waterfowlers and health experts saying its time to talk about protection now, before the virus comes.
  
  "Its like (hurricanes) Katrina and Rita," says spokesman Gregg Patterson of the Tennessee-based Ducks Unlimited. "You realize were not insulated against this kind of stuff. What everybody needs to do is prepare for it."
  
  That means wearing gloves when field-dressing waterfowl and dousing knives with a bleach solution when done. It means cleansing and disinfecting decoys and waders if hunting in waters where the virus is found.
  
  It also means providing samples of hunter-killed waterfowl for testing, as well as ensuring that all waterfowl are fully cooked before eaten.
  
  "I think theres a lot of wisdom in that kind of modification," Patterson says. "That was something we never thought about before. But now its a big deal."
  
  Think of it as the shotgunners version of chronic wasting disease, whose outbreak among elk in the West has triggered stiff rules for bringing hunter- killed meat into Oregon. Or West Nile Virus, which has more people wearing mosquito repellent now. Even Lyme disease has old-schoolers putting tick inspections as part of their ritual for ending a day afield.
  
  Go ahead. Joke about how "bird flu" is what a mallard does when you miss. You still need to protect yourself.
  
  "Its like keep smoking or quit smoking," Patterson says. "Put on my seat belt, not put on my seat belt. When AIDS came around, do you change your behavior. You have to make a decision."
  
  Avian Influenza, or AI, is a set of viruses that are naturally found in wild birds, particularly waterfowl and shorebirds that normally suffer no ill effects from them. However, domestic birds like chickens are generally more susceptible.
  
  But the H5N1 strain now found in 41 countries in Asia, Africa and parts of Europe is frequently fatal to birds and easily transmissible between species. To date, scientists ultimate fear is that the virus will mutate into one that directly affects people as well as be passed among humans.
  
  "This is a bird disease," says Brad Bales, waterfowl biologist for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. "Its not a human disease at this point."
  
  The National Wildlife Health Center in Wisconsin says as of mid-March, the H5N1 virus has sickened 177 people and killed 98, mostly in Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Thailand and turkey. Most of those were infected from eating or handling infected chickens.
  
  The virus, however, is easily killed with bleach, soap and water or cooking birds until the meat reaches 165 degrees.
  
  Still, just mentioning avian flu has scared some Oregonians out of waterfowl hunting, Bales says.
  
  "I got, maybe, a dozen calls (last season) from hunters who said their families wont let them hunt anymore because of avian influenza," Bales says. "Right now, theres not a human health risk. If it gets here, it doesnt mean it will turn into a human health risk. But it has a lot of people concerned."
  
  Oregon expects to receive about $400,000 in federal funds for various sampling efforts beginning in the fall, Bales says.
  
  Cackling Canada geese, a priority species, will be tested by sampling birds at hunter check-in stations in Northwest Oregon, where they concentrate, Bales says. Other species, such as shovelers, pintails and green-winged teals, could be tested elsewhere in the state, he says.
  
  A quick swab of the birds is all thats required, Bales says. Some water sampling also is planned, he says.
  
  No one knows whether this is much ado about nothing for waterfowl hunters, Sota says.
  
  "Maybe they will see nothing," Sota says, "That would be a good scenario.
  
  "Hunters may see some mortality in birds should the H5N1 get into North America," he says. "Although birds may be carrying it, they might show very few signs."
  
  Still, bring that bleach, clean those knives, wear gloves and get that meat thermometer.
  
  "I know that its really difficult to change old habits," Sota says. "But I think its becoming more and more like a practical thing to do."
  
  Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail mfreeman@mailtribune.com.

• 03/30/2006:  Avian flu threat increases, Media General News Service
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Mar 30, 2006
  
  By SEAN MUSSENDEN AND A.J. HOSTETLER
  
  Media General News Service
  
  WASHINGTONTheyre sifting through goose poop in the wilds of Alaska.
  
  Theyre sending out undercover birds as spies.
  
  Theyre tracking waterfowl with satellites, drawing chicken blood on Virginia farms and swabbing poultry beaks in Alabama.
  
  Across the country, scientists and public health officials are on a high-stakes hunt for a deadly Asian strain of bird flu.
  
  Its a serious mission with an uncertain outcome. The virus might never show up. Or it could kill thousands of birds and devastate the $29 billion U.S. poultry industry.
  
  RELATED STORY
  
  U.S. unprepared for flu pandemic
  
  Or, in a nightmare scenario, it could combine with a strain of human flu, creating a pandemic super-virus that spreads easily from person-to-person and kill millions. To prepare for that possibility, the U.S. government is spending billions to stockpile vaccines and antiviral drugs and millions more to monitor the spread of the virus.
  
  "We may be the first generation in human history with the ability to do something in advance of this," Health and Human Services secretary Mike Leavitt said.
  
  The bird flu strain, known as highly pathogenic H5N1, has spread across Asia, Europe and Africa, killing thousands of wild birds and poultry. In rare cases, the bird virus has jumped to humans, killing about half it infects, 105 people worldwide since 2003.
  
  Scientists believe the disease will reach North America soon. Identifying it quickly will be crucial to containing it.
  
  Government agencies now are focusing on wild birds that cross continents as they migrate thousands of miles. Alaska is ground zero. In the spring and summer, the vast northern wilderness provides an ideal nesting ground for millions of wild birds from Asia and North America.
  
  Alaska is kind of the crossroads, the Grand Central Station for migratory birds, said Paul Slota, an avian flu specialist with the U.S. Geological Surveys National Wildlife Health Center.
  
  Scientists worry that birds migrating through Asia will carry the virus to Alaska this month and intermingle with North American-based species. When the North American birds move south in the fall, they could bring the virus into the United States.
  
  Last month, officials from Slotas agency and the Department of Agriculture rolled out a vastly expanded monitoring plan for wild birds, primarily waterfowl.
  
  Last year, government scientists tested an estimated 2,000 samples from wild birds, USDA officials said. This year, they will test closer to 150,000.
  
  They will take fecal samples from live birds, test birds killed by hunters or those found dead in the wild, sample water where wild birds congregate and test spy birds known as sentinel ducks sent to mix with wild birds.
  
  If the disease is found, scientists would alert public health officials and the poultry industry along the migration route, but the wild flock likely would not be destroyed.
  
  If the virus shows up in a U.S. poultry flock or a human, it would pose a much greater risk to public health. Worldwide, there have been no confirmed cases of a human contracting avian flu from interacting with wild birds.
  
  Waterfowl and shorebirds, the primary reservoirs of viruses like H5N1, can carry the disease without dying. When the virus spreads to land-based birds especially chickens through feces, infected water or respiratory secretions, it frequently becomes much more lethal, said Bill Pierson, an avian infectious disease specialist at Virginia Tech.
  
  Scientists worry that the avian flu will infect a person already sick with the seasonal human flu. If this Superman bird virus combines forces with a Wonder Woman strain of human flu, the alliance could produce what Pierson calls a "monster virus" able to spread rapidly among a susceptible human population, producing a pandemic.
  
  Thats one reason poultry farmers in the Southeast, the epicenter of the American poultry industry, take bio-security seriously. In a stark contrast to Asia -- where chickens roam freely in villages, facilitating the spread of the virus to humans most poultry here is produced in controlled environments.
  
  At his family farm near Harrisonburg, Va., James Rodes raises chickens, 16,000 at a time, for Perdue in an enclosed chicken house designed to keep his birds in and wild birds out.
  
  The handful of people authorized to enter his chicken house must wear protective suits and boot and head coverings at all times.
  
  With the thousands of dollars Ive got borrowed to run this farm, I cant help but take the threat of avian flu very seriously, Rodes said. But with the bio-security measures weve got in place, I feel pretty comfortable.
  
  When the birds are 22 weeks old, they are moved to another farm to lay eggs. Before the move, a Perdue technician will take blood samples from several chickens to check for avian flu and other diseases.
  
  Virginia poultry farmers know well the risk of avian flu. In an outbreak in the Shenandoah Valley in 2002, a USDA worker tested positive for a less dangerous strain of avian flu, H7N2, making him the country's first case of avian flu transmitted to a human.
  
  In some states, like Alabama, government agriculture inspectors regularly take samples from commercial poultry flocks.
  
  On a recent morning on a poultry farm near Clanton, Ala., state agriculture department commissioner Ray Hilburn held a feisty rooster while an assistant swabbed the inside of its throat. Hilburn swirled the swab in a test tube of chemical broth to preserve the sample, which he then sent to the state lab for testing.
  
  We used to, on average, test between 10,000 and 20,000 samples per year. Now our testing this year will be above 200,000, Hilburn said. We want to have safeguards against it so that we can find the first case Once we find the first case, we want to control it.
  
  If H5N1 or other highly pathogenic strains of avian flu are found in domestic poultry, government regulations require the flocks immediate destruction.
  
  In Texas last year, fast work by state and federal officials prevented a major outbreak of a similar bird flu virus. The owner of an infected flock regularly sent dead birds to a state lab for testing. One day, a test turned up high-path avian flu. The flock was quickly destroyed. Flocks at two live bird markets where the virus had moved were killed, and it spread no farther.
  
  The big thing with avian influenza is how quickly you respond to it. The response to the Texas case worked, said Fidelis Hegngi, a senior staff veterinarian specializing in poultry with National Center for Animal Health Programs, a branch of the USDA.
  
  An outbreak in Pennsylvania in the mid-1980s, however, showed how the system in place at that time failed. A slow response led to the death of 17 million birds, according to USDA.
  
  As the global threat of avian influenza increases, USDA is working with states to increase surveillance of high-risk populations so called backyard flocks that are not raised in sheltered houses.
  
  The H5N1 virus was first detected in 1997 in the bird markets and homes of Hong Kong. Six people and millions of chickens died before the outbreak was extinguished. The current outbreak, which began in 2003 in Asia and has accelerated this year through the Middle East, Europe and Africa, has killed 105 people, according to the World Health Organization.
  
  With the virus moving into more countries each week, there is a growing consensus amongst scientists that the disease will reach the United States, most likely this year as birds return from their summer migrations.
  
  Thomas Toth, an avian virologist at the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine, at Blacksburg, Va., said he's 100 percent certain that the virus will reach North America. For him, there's just one question.
  
  It is not whether," Toth said, "rather it is when.
  
  Sean Mussenden is a national correspondent in Media General's Washington Bureau. E-mail Mussenden at smussenden@mediageneral.com

• 03/29/2006:  Second Egyptian dies of bird flu; H5 virus found in mink, Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP)
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Mar 29, 2006 (CIDRAP News) A second Egyptian has died of H5N1 avian influenza, and the virus may have infected a mink in Sweden, according to recent reports.
  
  The Egyptian victim, Fatma Mahmoud Youssef Sabra, 30, lived in the Qaliubiya governorate north of Cairo, the Associated Press (AP) reported today. Egyptian authorities confirmed that she died of H5N1 infection, according to a World Health Organization (WHO) statement. The agency said she became ill on Mar 12 after slaughtering chickens at home; she was admitted to a hospital Mar 16 and died Mar 27.
  
  The first human case in Egypt involved another 30-year-old woman from the same governorate, who died Mar 17.
  
  As previously reported, tests by the Cairo-based US Naval Medical Research Unit 3 (NAMRU-3) confirmed three other human cases in Egypt, for five total cases to date. The WHO listed the patients as a 32-year-old man who worked on a farm where poultry were culled shortly before he fell ill on Mar 16, a 17-year-old boy from a poultry farm in the Nile Delta who fell ill Mar 18, and an 18-year-old girl from the Kafr-El-Sheikh governorate who fell ill after butchering sick poultry. She has been hospitalized since Mar 25, but the man and the teen-ager have recovered, WHO said.
  
  The WHO has postponed adding these cases to its case count until confirmatory testing is completed, the agency said today. The current tally is 186 human cases, including 105 deaths.
  
  Conflicting reports on the status of avian flu in Iraq have emerged in the past 3 days. A WHO spokeswoman told Reuters news service on Mar 27 that avian flu was under control in Iraq, in comments that appeared focused on the virus' spread in poultry.
  
  Today Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported that birds in a district of Baghdad have tested positive for H5N1 flu, while a man elsewhere in the city has been hospitalized with signs and symptoms consistent with avian flu. Tests on birds from the Kamamaliya district were positive for H5N1, said Ibtisam Aziz, a spokeswoman for the Iraqi government's avian flu committee. The tests were conducted after a man who died earlier this week was suspected of having avian flu, AFP reported. A relative of the man had similar symptoms but has since recovered, Aziz said.
  
  Reports did not say when test results for those three suspected human cases were expected.
  
  Mink had H5 flu virus
  
  In Europe this week, an H5 virus has been confirmed in a new species, a mink found in Sweden. There have been no confirmed reports of H5N1 avian flu in mink, according to a species list maintained by the US Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center.
  
  The mink had an aggressive H5 virus and was euthanized, the National Veterinary Institute in Sweden said, as reported by Reuters Mar 27. The animal was found in the Blekinge region of southern Sweden, where several infected birds have been found.
  
  The institute said the mink was thought to have contracted the virus by consuming infected wild birds, the suspected mode of transmission to felines as well.
  
  Bird cases continue to spread
  
  The H5N1 virus has now been confirmed in two more European countries where it was suspected of killing wild birds, news services reported. A dead swan found last week in southwestern Czech Republic had the virus, and confirmatory tests are under way at the European Union reference lab in England, AFP reported today.
  
  The English lab has confirmed H5N1 in a buzzard that was found in Denmark, south of Copenhagen, AFP reported in a separate story today. Denmark has now reported a dozen cases of the virus in birds.
  
  In western India, the culling of a quarter-million chickens began today, following newly confirmed cases of H5N1 in several villages, AFP reported. Four hundred cullers began the culling, which was expected to last 5 days and span 1,500 square kilometers in two states, said Bijay Kumar, animal husbandry commissioner in Maharashtra state.
  
  Meanwhile, concerns have arisen over the handling of samples from poultry in India. Spoiled samples have hampered efforts to identify new outbreaks, according to AFP. Only one lab in India is testing for H5N1, and it has been handling as many as 5,000 samples a week. However, conditions outside the lab in Bhopal are posing problems, said H.K. Pradhan, head of the High Security Animal Disease Laboratory in Madhya Pradesh, in an AFP interview.
  
  "The samples are coming from far-off places and the cold chain is not maintained properly so the virus dies," Pradhan said. "In some areas ice is not readily available" to preserve poultry carcasses, he added. "The state authorities need to take more care."
  
  In Israel, authorities in Jerusalem ordered culling of poultry at Kibbutz Ma'aleh Hahamisha today after H5N1 was found there yesterday, The Jerusalem Post reported online today. Israel earlier had culled 1.2 million poultry from 53 farms in 14 communities in only 9 days, the agriculture minister was quoted as saying.
  
  See also
  
  Mar 29 WHO update on situation in Egypt
  
  http://www.who.int/csr/don/2006_03_29/en/index.html
  
  US Geological Survey list of species affected by H5N1 avian flu
  
  http://www.nwhc.usgs.gov/disease_information/avian_influenza/affected_species_chart.jsp

• 03/28/2006:  From the Chickens' Perspective, the Sky Really is Falling, New York Times
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  From the Chickens' Perspective, the Sky Really Is Falling
  
  By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
  
  The A(H5N1) influenza strain circulating the globe now may never seriously threaten humans, but for another subset of the earth's living creatures, it is already a disaster.
  
  "If you're a chicken," Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said at a recent conference on avian flu, "this is a pandemic. We have to be aware that other species are thinking about this differently."
  
  By some estimates, more than 200 million domestic chickens, ducks and geese have already either died of the disease or been killed on the order of public health authorities to prevent its spread.
  
  But scientists are scratching their heads over how much of a threat the virus presents to the world's birds.
  
  All birds are thought to be susceptible, said P. Patrick Leahy, acting director of the United States Geological Survey, which tracks wild bird movements in the country. The survey's National Wildlife Health Center lists all the 87 species from which infected birds have been found in Asia, Africa and Europe. The species include sparrows, eagles and flamingoes. But in most cases, it has been a dead bird here and a dead bird there.
  
  While the virus can race through a chicken farm, killing tens of thousands of birds in a few days, there have been very few die-offs of large numbers of wild birds in any one spot. Nor have ornithologists who net live birds along international flyways and take samples from birds shot by hunters found many infections.
  
  And bird experts cannot yet point to any species they think is likely to become extinct.
  
  "As a conservationist, I'm not concerned about it wiping out whole populations," said Colin Poole, director of the Asia program for the Wildlife Conservation Society, which runs the Bronx Zoo and others. "I'd say the biggest threat is things like Russian politicians saying people should go to the borders and shoot migrating birds. There's plenty of that kind of nonsense going around."
  
  In May 2005, Chinese researchers reported that 6,000 dead birds had been found in Qinghai Lake nature reserve, among them many bar-headed geese (Anser indicus). In theory, that could mean that 5 percent to 10 percent of the world's population of bar-headed geese was wiped out, but foreign teams were not allowed near the lake, and several bird experts said that the sampling data China released was sketchy about which species were affected.
  
  Shortly afterward, reports of a large die-off at Erkhel Lake in Mongolia were investigated by Wildlife Conservation Society veterinarians. They found only 100 dead birds, many of them swans, and counted 6,500 live ones of 55 species. Only one sample from about 800 they gathered turned out positive for the virus.
  
  "It had a very low impact," Dr. William Karesh, one of the veterinarians, said at the time. "The disease is self-limiting in wild birds."
  
  According to Birdlife International, a bird-protection group based in England, members of two other threatened species, the red-breasted goose (Branta ruficollis) and the Dalmatian pelican (Pelecanus crispus), have been found dead of the disease. But only a handful were found, and there are an estimated 88,000 of the geese and 15,000 of the pelicans remaining.
  
  There are at least 15 types of avian flu, and wild ducks are a natural host. The viruses, which are shed in feces and linger in water, turn Arctic breeding ponds into a duck soup of influenza, and migratory birds carry antibodies to many strains.
  
  But when a new virus gets into a barn packed with thousands of young chickens that have been genetically selected for their plump breasts rather than their ability to survive in the wild, it leaps from bird to bird, mutating slightly each time, and sometimes morphs into a lethal strain just as the 1918 Spanish flu was believed to become more deadly as it passed through crowded American military camps during the cold winter of 1917.
  
  The new, lethal virus may then be passed back to migratory birds when they visit ponds or rice paddies used by domestic flocks or perhaps through intermediaries like crows or mynahs that steal food from poultry operations. But then, that wild infection may snuff itself out again because dying birds cannot fly far.
  
  This may help account for the unpredictable hopscotch pattern the virus is following, experts said.
  
  "It's hard to know what's going on," said Rob Fergus, science coordinator for the National Audubon Society. "But we're not seeing many wild birds dying nearby every time we find outbreaks in poultry."
  
  Another possible route is the international trade in day-old chicks. After the outbreak in Nigeria, the Nigerian agriculture minister, Adamu Bello, said poultry producers there import chicks from China and Turkey, where the disease is widespread. Although the river deltas of southern Nigeria shelter many birds that migrate from Europe, ducks there are not dying, and the first infected poultry operations were in the arid north.
  
  The chick trade "has made the chicken the most migratory bird in the world," said Adrian Long, a spokesman for Birdlife International. "When the United Nations puts every outbreak on wild birds, they're not exactly being Sherlock Holmes in their inquiries."
  
  Two localized die-offs of wild birds, one in Azerbaijan and one in Germany, have been reported. And from Italy to Sweden, small numbers of dead, infected swans have been found, while many other species sharing waters with them appear healthy.
  
  Many of the dead were mute swans (Cygnus olor), Mr. Poole said, which often live close to humans in park lakes. Unlike whistling swans, which migrate thousands of miles to the Arctic, mutes tend to circle Europe following food crops, the way Canada geese circle North America, and might have caught their infections from poultry in Turkey or Romania.
  
  Human overreactions have proved more of a threat. In January 2004, the Thai government briefly laid plans to kill 70,000 open-billed storks in two nature reserves, fearing they were spreading the disease after 200 of them died. It canceled the plan a month later after only two of the dead birds turned out to have had the flu.
  
  In Romania, villagers were reported to have attacked exhausted wild birds on an icy lake. In Maine, Kathleen F. Gensheimer, the state epidemiologist, said her department had fielded calls from citizens asking if they should shoot all the Canada geese landing in their backyards.
  
  No bird with the deadly A(H5N1) strain has yet been found in North or South America.
  
  The disease is endemic in China's poultry, and many species migrate over those flocks. Authorities in Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand have tested thousands of those migratory birds in the last two years, Mr. Poole said. Not a single infected one has been found. (Most of the tests were of feces, not blood, so the birds were not shedding the A(H5N1) virus. Blood tests might have shown antibodies to the virus, meaning the birds had been infected but survived.)
  
  In Hong Kong, 16 birds found dead have tested positive, he said, "but they were all chickens or resident species, not migratory, and all from species associated with humans crows, magpies, mynahs."
  
  A huge study of swabs and fecal samples from 13,000 wild ducks in marshes in Hong Kong and eastern China and 51,000 ducks in wet markets around China, reported last month by virologists in Asia and from St. Jude Research Hospital, showed that some healthy looking wild ducks were shedding a form of the virus that was lethal to domestic birds. And the A(H5N1) strains in domestic poultry had mutated into such distinct regional clades that the authors believed most of the spread in those flocks was from farm to farm, not from wild birds.
  
  The study suggested that wild ducks were probably responsible for moving the virus to Mongolia, Russia and Europe, but that they were probably getting infected by strains percolating in the domestic flocks of southern China.

• 03/26/2006:  A Sure Sign of Spring: Wild Whooping Cranes Return to Wisconsin, Aero-News.Net
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  A Sure Sign of Spring: Wild Whooping Cranes Return to Wisconsin
  
  Sun, 26 Mar '06
  
  Our Fellow Flyers Head Home
  
  Among the signs of springtime these days in central Wisconsin is the arrival of wild whooping cranes on Necedah National Wildlife Refuge and the other public and private lands these majestic birds call their summer homes.
  
  Biologists with the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership (WCEP), which is coordinating an effort to return migrating whooping cranes to eastern North America, announced today that 15 reintroduced whooping cranes had arrived on or near Necedah NWR, and two others were roosting along the Wisconsin River.
  
  Thanks to the efforts of WCEP, an international coalition of public and private groups, there are now 64 endangered whooping cranes in the wild in eastern North America, which was part of their historic range.
  
  The newly arrived whooping cranes represent the migration classes of 2001 through 2004, which were guided southward by ultralight aircraft their fledging grounds at Necedah NWR to their winter habitat at Chassahowitzka NWR on the Gulf coast of Florida.
  
  The most recent ultralight-reintroduced cranes, the Class of 2005, remain at their pensite at Chassahowitzka. These birds have begun taking short evening flights in the immediate area of the pen. The 19 birds of the Class of 2005 arrived in Florida on Dec. 13, 2005, after a 64-day migration.
  
  In addition to the 19 chicks that migrated behind ultralights in 2005, biologists from the International Crane Foundation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also released four additional chicks last fall into the company of older birds at Necedah NWR, in the hopes that the chicks would learn the migration route from adult whoopers or sandhill cranes.
  
  WCEP is using this direct autumn release technique to complement the known success of the ultralight-led migrations. Chicks for direct autumn release will be reared in the field and released with older birds after fledging, or developing their flight feathers. This method of reintroduction has been extensively tested and proven successful with sandhill cranes.
  
  As of March 24, two of the 2005 direct autumn release birds had embarked on migration and were in Indiana; the other two remain in Florida.
  
  WCEP asks anyone who encounters whooping cranes in the wild to please give them the respect and distance they need. Do not approach birds on foot within 600 feet and try to remain in your vehicle. Do not approach cranes in a vehicle within 600 feet or, if on a public road, within 300 feet. Also, please remain concealed and do not speak loudly enough that the birds can hear you. Finally, do not trespass on private property in an attempt to view whooping cranes.
  
  In 2001, project partner Operation Migrations pilots first led whooping crane chicks conditioned to follow their ultralight surrogates south from Necedah NWR to Chassahowitzka NWR. Each subsequent year, WCEP biologists and pilots have conditioned and guided additional groups of juvenile cranes to Chassahowitzka NWR.
  
  The whooping crane chicks that take part in the reintroduction project are hatched at the U.S. Geological Surveys Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Laurel, Md., where they are introduced to ultralight aircraft and raised in isolation from humans. To ensure the impressionable cranes remain wild, project biologists and pilots adhere to a strict no-talking rule, and use recorded adult crane calls to communicate with the young birds. Researchers wear costumes designed to mask the human form whenever they are around the cranes.
  
  New classes of cranes are taken to Necedah NWR each June to begin a summer of conditioning behind the ultralights to prepare them for their fall migration. Pilots lead the birds on gradually longer training flights at the refuge throughout the summer until the young cranes are deemed ready to follow the aircraft along the migration route.
  
  Project staff from the International Crane Foundation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service track and monitor southbound cranes in an effort to learn as much as possible about their unassisted migrations and the habitat choices they make along the way. ICF and FWS biologists, along with Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources biologists, track the cranes as they make their way north, and continue to monitor the birds while they are in their summer locations.
  
  In the first four years of the project, returning whooping cranes have used wetlands in 35 of 72 Wisconsin counties, primarily within the lower two-thirds of the state along major rivers and wetlands. In addition to the core reintroduction area of Necedah National Wildlife Refuge, the birds increased use of wetlands along the lower Wisconsin River and in more than 15 state wildlife areas, private wetlands and Horicon NWR demonstrates the value of preserved habitat to the success of this restoration effort.
  
  Whooping cranes were on the verge of extinction in the 1940s. Today, only about 300 birds exist in the wild. Aside from the 64 Wisconsin-Florida birds, the only other migrating population of whooping cranes nests at the Wood Buffalo National Park in the Northwest Territories of Canada and winters at the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge on the Texas Gulf Coast. A non-migrating flock of approximately 60 birds lives year-round in the central Florida Kissimmee region.
  
  Whooping cranes, named for their loud and penetrating unison calls, live and breed in wetlands, where they feed on crabs, clams, frogs and aquatic plants. They are distinctive animals, standing 5 feet tall, with white bodies, black wing tips and red crowns on their heads.
  
  Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership founding members are the International Crane Foundation, Operation Migration Inc., Wisconsin Department of Natural Resource, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Geological Surveys Patuxent Wildlife Research Center and National Wildlife Health Center, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin, and the International Whooping Crane Recovery Team.
  
  Many other states, provinces, private individuals and conservation groups have joined forces with and support WCEP by donating resources, funding and personnel. More than 60 percent of the projects budget comes from private sources in the form of grants, donations and corporate sponsors.

• 03/25/2006:  Experts will test birds for signs of avian flu, Anchorage Daily News
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Experts will test birds for signs of avian flu
  
  By ANN POTEMPA
  
  Anchorage Daily News
  
  (Published: March 25, 2006)
  
  About 40 biologists from throughout the state came to Anchorage Friday to learn how to test wild birds in Alaska for H5N1, the bird flu strain that's killed birds and people in Asia and beyond.
  
  So far, the potentially deadly virus hasn't been detected in birds or people in North America. Even more, government agencies tracking bird flu say there's no known case of it being passed from a wild bird to a person.
  
  No one knows, however, whether wild bird-to-person transmission is possible.
  
  Starting in a couple of weeks, biologists and others hired for the task will scatter throughout Alaska to swab birds in what's touted as the main avian flu surveillance project nationwide. Many live birds will be tested and released, while others will be hunted and tested after they have died.
  
  Alaska is a hub for bird flu surveillance because it's at the crossroads of many wild bird migratory pathways. Some of these birds fly here from Asia, where the deadly H5N1 bird virus has been detected, said Scott Wright, branch chief with the U.S. Geological Survey's disease investigations department.
  
  This year, people throughout the state will be watching for the virus in these birds. Disease specialists from the USGS visited Anchorage and Bethel this week holding workshops to train biologists and others how to safely look for H5N1. On Friday, these biologists practiced a quick test that involves swabbing a bird's anal opening.
  
  Rex Sohn is a wildlife disease specialist with the USGS's National Wildlife Health Center laboratory in Madison, Wis. -- where many of Alaska's bird samples will be sent. Standing in front of a room packed with Alaska biologists, he dressed in a blue plastic apron, pulled on gloves and covered his eyes with protective goggles. He reached into a bag and pulled out a dead long-tailed duck. Grabbing its bottom, he pulled the tail back and inserted a swab into the cloaca -- the pouchlike opening where feces is defecated. The H5N1 virus is shed in the feces of infected birds, Wright said.
  
  Afterward, Sohn watched as biologists tried the technique on large and small dead birds.
  
  Nationwide, the goal is to sample 75,000 to 100,000 wild birds. In Alaska, about $4 million in federal money will be allocated to study about 15,000 birds, said Bruce Woods, spokesman with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
  
  The USGS, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Alaska Department of Fish and Game are working together to study live birds, birds killed during the Alaska Native subsistence hunt that begins in spring, and birds killed during the fall hunt.
  
  Wright said Alaska's remoteness will challenge the biologists collecting and shipping the samples. The best samples are ones that aren't frozen, "but we know the realities of Alaska," he said. To get the bird specimens from Alaska to Wisconsin, they have to be frozen in some way and sent thousands of miles by air to Madison. The turnaround for results will depend on a number of factors, Wright said, including the species of bird and the test used.
  
  "People should not expect that we would be able to tell them anything about the samples in a short period of time," said Karen Sullivan, a Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman. She and Woods said significant sample results should not be expected until early May.
  
  Other bird surveillance efforts will continue in the state. For example, researchers with the University of Alaska Fairbanks have studied thousands of birds for all types of avian influenza in recent years and plan to keep studying these birds this year, said Kevin Winker, an associate professor with the university.
  
  The state Department of Environmental Conservation also intends to continue looking at Alaska's domestic bird populations. Last year, state veterinarian Bob Gerlach visited agricultural fairs to swab chickens, turkeys and other domestic birds. Kristin Ryan, director of the DEC's Division of Environmental Health, said her department's staff hopes to visit fairs again this summer. It also is working with people who own domestic poultry, asking them to look for and report suspicious symptoms of bird influenza.
  
  Ryan said the state's new Environmental Health Laboratory in Anchorage will likely be able to test samples collected from domestic birds for avian flu starting this spring.
  
  Daily News reporter Ann Potempa can be reached at 257-4581 or apotempa@adn.com.
  
  (1st photo caption)
  
  U.S. Fish and Wildlife held a daylong workshop Friday in Anchorage to train biologists and others to test wild Alaska birds for avian influenza, or bird flu. Long-tailed ducks were used during a hands-on demonstration session, Mar. 24, 2006. (Photos by EVAN R. STEINHAUSER / Anchorage Daily News)
  
  (2nd photo caption)
  
  Marc Pratt from the USDA Wildlife Service Program swabs a long-tailed duck Friday during a workshop to learn to test wild Alaska birds for bird flu, a virus naturally found in certain types of waterfowl and shorebirds, Mar. 24, 2006. (Photos by EVAN R. STEINHAUSER / Anchorage Daily News)

• 03/24/2006:  Bird flu could close refuge, The News-Press, Fort Myers, FL
  
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  Bird flu could close refuge
  
  By Michelle L. Start
  
  mstart@news-press.com
  
  Originally posted on March 24, 2006
  
  Bird lovers may be turned away from J.N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel once bird flu arrives here.
  
  "Our first and foremost concern is public health," refuge manager Rob Jess said. "We will shut the refuge down to the public. I have no concerns with doing that."
  
  Some officials are estimating that migration patterns will bring bird flu to the United States by autumn.
  
  The bird flu virus, H5N1, can only be contracted by humans through handling of bird feces, saliva or other contact with a bird's corpse.
  
  North Fort Myers resident Judy Scott, 61, worries about what will happen if her cat, Jenny, captures an infected bird.
  
  "She likes lizards and birds," she said. "Jenny is a bird catcher."
  
  Other mammals, including cats, have become infected with the virus after coming into contact with diseased birds.
  
  But officials are unsure whether a mammal could pass the virus on to human owners.
  
  "There is very little science in this area," said Dick Thompson, spokesman for the World Health Organization. "However, we know that people who have spent a great deal of time around infected chickens, for example, only rarely get infected themselves. If it is an extremely rare event to get infected from a flock of infected chickens, it is likely that infections from cats is even rarer still. But again, there is little real evidence to guide us."
  
  As of Tuesday, 184 people had come down with the virus and 108 had died, according to the World Health Organization.
  
  Dr. Bob Schwartz, an infectious disease specialist with Lee Memorial Hospital, said once the virus arrives here, people may want to keep their pets indoors.
  
  "Pets should be kept away from fowl," he said.
  
  The virus is highly contagious among birds but, at this point, cannot be passed among people. However, health officials worldwide are watching the virus closely because it mutates every time it replicates. Repeatedly, they have said there is a strong chance the next pandemic outbreak will be linked to H5N1.
  
  Every year, thousands of birds pass through the Sanibel refuge on migratory pathways. More than 800,000 people visit the refuge annually.
  
  "This is our first trip," said Barbara Salamore, 47, who was visiting the refuge with her 21-year-old daughter, Lisa, on Thursday. "We live in Cape Cod. We just did the tram tour and it was excellent. It would be a shame if they had to close."
  
  Jess said birdwatchers and visitors to the refuge will likely be the first to find an outbreak with birds infected with the avian flu. He said that's how administrators typically learn about a dead bird.
  
  "I think it is the easiest thing for us because we have so many people out there fishing and we have the water impoundments," Jess said. "In the public area, people are watching birds all day long. This is probably one of the most photographed areas in the country."
  
  When there is a suspect case of avian flu, Jess said the birds will be frozen and shipped to the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis., for testing.
  
  Hon Ip, director of virology at the center, said staff has been beefed up from four employees to 16, but he is not sure that will be enough to handle the demand.
  
  Workers have already begun to test for H5N1 because spring migratory patterns have begun, but thus far have not found any cases in the United States.
  
  The U.S. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services has increased the number of sentinel birds and the frequency of testing, as well, officials said.
  
  Jess said officials at the Sanibel refuge are finalizing plans on how they will react when the virus appears here. Officials are discussing how employees should remove dead birds.
  
  "The bottom line is we are taking this very seriously," he said. "We are getting masks, suits and gloves, just to protect our people."
  
  BIRD TESTING
  
  What happens when a bird is suspected of having avian flu:
  
  Frozen bird is shipped to National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis.
  
  A pathologist completes an external exam, determining age, nutrition and other factors.
  
  A necrotopsy, which is an autopsy for animals, is conducted
  
  Blood and tissue work is sent to a lab
  
  Fecal matter is swabbed, mixed with a solution and injected into embryonic chicken eggs to see if the H5N1 strain of the virus grows
  
  Genetic material is taken from the virus and is put through a heating machine that acts as a molecular photocopier. The machine takes one sample, goes through 35 cycles and replicates 34 billion copies. The more samples a virologist has, the easier it is to detect H5N1.
  
  Source: Hon Ip, director of virology at the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis.

• 03/24/2006:  I Want to Know -- rhinocerous auklets Q&A, The World, Coos Bay, OR
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Q: Is it possible the rhinoceros auklets in this month's seabird die-off died of bird flu? Did anyone check?
  
  Answer: There are a number of different kinds of avian influenza viruses. Most bird species appear to be susceptible to infection, but the principal means of transmission is through viruses shed in feces, according to Jan Hodder, associate professor at the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology in Charleston.
  
  This is why poultry, which live in close contact to each other, are the main carriers of avian influenzas. Waterbirds, especially ducks and geese that spend time in freshwater areas, are the most-commonly infected group of wild birds. These birds have the opportunity to come into contact with poultry when they commingle in wetland areas such as ponds.
  
  Rhinoceros auklets spend their entire lives associated with the ocean and never encounter poultry or freshwater. So the likelihood of an auklet being infected with avian flu is exceedingly low. However to help determine why so many rhinoceros auklets died, some specimens have been sent to the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis. There a pathologist will examine the carcasses and conduct tests for a number of avian diseases. The results of their findings will be available in a few weeks. The results from a similar die-off of fulmars (an arctic nesting seabird) that occurred off Oregon in late 2005 indicated that there were no viruses of any kind in the birds that were tested.

• 03/20/2006:  Isles in bird flu's path, The Honolulu Advertiser
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Hawai'i in bird flu's path
  
  
  
  By Christie Wilson
  
  Advertiser Neighbor Island Editor
  
  If avian influenza spreads to Hawai'i, it likely will arrive on the wings of a Pacific golden plover or some other migratory bird returning from arctic nesting grounds.
  
  Once here, the disease could spread to backyard pens, poultry farms and the clusters of feral chickens that roam many communities. It could impact operations at the Honolulu Zoo and wildlife refuges, threatening native birds already teetering on the brink of extinction.
  
  Evidence is mounting that wild birds may have been the source of recent outbreaks in China, Russia, Central Asia, Europe and Africa. Hawai'i wildlife officials are working to develop a monitoring strategy in time for the start of the migratory season in August, when birds arrive here at wetlands and large open spaces.
  
  Avian influenza, also known as AI or bird flu, is a contagious disease caused by viruses that normally infect only birds. A less potent form of the disease triggers mild symptoms in birds, such as ruffled feathers, but the highly virulent H5N1 strain can spread rapidly through poultry flocks, with near 100 percent mortality.
  
  On rare occasions, the disease has crossed the species barrier, at last count infecting 177 people and killing 98 in Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Thailand, Turkey, Iraq and Vietnam since 2003. The virus is carried in bird feces, and the main route of human infection has been direct contact with infected poultry or contaminated surfaces and objects.
  
  Most worrisome to health officials is the possibility the virus will mutate into a form that is highly infectious for humans and will spread easily, triggering a global outbreak that could kill millions.
  
  The consequences of a bird flu pandemic for Hawai'i could be devastating, not only in terms of the health and environmental impacts but in economic losses, as tourists avoid known flu hotspots, as they did during the SARS scare.
  
  "I can't predict how it's going to come here or whether it will come here before its introduction by humans," said Duane Gubler, director of the Asia-Pacific Institute of Tropical Medicine and Infectious Diseases. "The fact that you have Asian birds perhaps most likely mixing with birds that come down across the Pacific is a good indication it could be introduced by migratory birds. It's a major, major concern.
  
  "With the state quarantine on importing poultry, that's less likely."
  
  The institute is part of the University of Hawai'i's John A. Burns School of Medicine in Kaka'ako. Gubler said the task for public health officials worldwide is to contain avian influenza in the bird population before it can make the jump to humans.
  
  "The challenge is that it is such a 'hot' virus," he said. "It emerged in Asia and has spread through Asia and around the world. The only place it hasn't been detected is in the western hemisphere, and that's most likely just a matter of time."
  
  In fact, officials worry the virus could arrive in North America with the spring bird migration to Alaska.
  
  ON ALERT
  
  Avian flu surveillance in the migratory bird population has become a priority for federal wildlife agencies. The U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center in Honolulu is working with federal and state partners to monitor migratory birds here and elsewhere in the Pacific. Simultaneous efforts are under way in other regions with migratory ranges that connect to bird flu zones.
  
  Thierry Work, a USGS wildlife disease specialist, said the center has been doing necropsies on dead migratory birds to test for disease and is working with other organizations to set up a system for taking samples from live birds.
  
  "Little is known about migratory bird patterns in Asia," Work said. "We are devising a way to do surveillance of live birds, especially with priority species like Pacific golden plovers, wandering tattlers, sanderlings and other birds known to migrate from Alaska to Hawai'i, but also probably from the Pacific islands and other places in Asia."
  
  A federal surveillance plan calls for sampling at least 200 individuals from each species, but Work said that in Hawai'i, migratory birds are widely dispersed and seldom group together in large flocks, so obtaining the required number of samples could be difficult. The birds would be trapped, marked and released after samples are taken using swabs.
  
  A report prepared by a newly formed working group on the avian influenza threat to Hawai'i and other Pacific islands recommends hiring and training additional staff for bird surveillance, and that Hawai'i establish a laboratory to provide rapid testing of samples for the H5N1 virus. Samples are now sent to mainland labs in a process that takes several days.
  
  Gubler said a grant is being sought from the National Institutes of Health to set up such a facility at the UH medical school.
  
  Biologists also are seeking money to study the movement of birds between the Pacific and Asia and the North American tundra and Siberia, according to wildlife biologist Fern Duvall of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources' Division of Forestry and Wildlife.
  
  He said more than 40 species of birds that have been spotted in Hawai'i over the years are known to migrate to the North American arctic, where they could mix with infected birds from Asia. There also are a handful of species that migrate in small numbers directly from Russia and Kazakhstan, where avian influenza has been detected. These include the sharp-tailed sandpiper and white-fronted goose, Duvall said.
  
  "It's a small number, not anything like the 250,000 geese that show up there. ... But people don't know" the extent of the direct migration, Duvall said.
  
  Some experts theorize that Hawai'i's remote location in the middle of the Pacific could provide some protection from the flu because of what Duvall called "the splash-down effect" a sick bird wouldn't have the strength to fly this far and would splash down in the ocean before reaching the Islands.
  
  But Duvall's not so sure.
  
  "There are long-distance migrations between Asia all the way to Africa, and the virus is starting to show up in those places," he said. "It could also be that some birds, like wedge-tailed shearwaters, have it and do not get sick, but when they pass it on to other birds, those birds die.
  
  "Bird flu is something birds have had for a long time. That the virus is getting more virulent and killing more birds means it is altering and moving and killing birds in many areas," Duvall said. "I think the general professional opinion about the seriousness of the threat is not overblown. It's when it's going to arrive rather than if, and what happens when it gets here."
  
  THE ZOO ZONE
  
  The Honolulu Zoo, which has hundreds of birds, has been part of recent meetings between state and federal agencies to begin coordinating protocols for a potential outbreak.
  
  "We might have to take some drastic steps, such as closing the walk-through aviaries," zoo veterinarian Ben Okimoto said.
  
  The American Zoo and Aquarium Association in November released guidelines for monitoring and prevention of the H5N1 virus. Measures include discontinuing direct contact between visitors and zoo birds, suspending behind-the-scenes tours of animal food preparation and storage areas, and bringing indoors the birds that commingle with free-ranging waterfowl and shorebirds.
  
  "We're thinking about how to take steps to prevent exposure, but it's difficult," Okimoto said, because the zoo is wide open.
  
  DLNR chairman Peter Young said it is not known how avian influenza would affect Hawai'i's fragile forest birds, some of the rarest in the world, since they live in isolated habitats. But he said the disease could be a major threat to native waterfowl such as the koloa, nene and Laysan duck, which share wetlands with migratory species.
  
  Duvall said the virus could spread from wetlands via cattle egrets, which visit areas frequented by waterfowl and shorebirds "then spread out to all over the island during the daytime."
  
  Plans are not far enough along to determine what actions are needed if the H5N1 virus makes landfall in Hawai'i, but Duvall said a strategy could include "targeted work" with some birds.
  
  He said much still needs to be learned about the state's wild and domestic bird populations.
  
  "It's important to intercept the very first appearance of bird flu in Hawai'i," he said. "It's important to know where people have chickens, and where cattle egrets roost."
  
  Work said people needn't fear the kolea (plover) and other migratory birds.
  
  "You need to keep it in perspective. Most of the people infected had intimate contact with domestic poultry. Just because a migratory bird is sick doesn't mean a human is going to get it," he said.
  
  CHICKENS IN THE WILD
  
  The state's wide-ranging feral chicken population also would draw attention with a bird flu outbreak, Young said.
  
  None of the agencies contacted by The Advertiser said they had discussed rounding up the birds as part of a response to an epidemic, and officials said it is not clear who, if anyone, is responsible for feral chickens, since they are not endangered and can be found on private, county, state and federal lands.
  
  The 2002 outbreak of exotic Newcastle disease in the United States prepared the poultry industry for new epidemics such as avian influenza, said veterinarian Jim Foppoli of the state Department of Agriculture. Birds of foreign origin that are imported into Hawai'i are sent first to federal quarantine sites on the Mainland for a 30-day holding period.
  
  Most of the 250,000 day-old chicks imported annually for Hawai'i's egg farms are produced at large corporate hatcheries in Washington state and British Columbia that follow strict biosecurity rules, Foppoli said.
  
  "Nowadays all these flocks are AI-monitored. We don't feel that day-old chicks coming in are of any real substantial risk," he said.
  
  There are roughly 480,000 layers at Hawai'i egg farms and countless others raised in backyard pens. Foppoli said farms of all sizes should become familiar with measures aimed at preventing commingling of domestic and wild birds and the introduction of diseases by contaminated vehicles, equipment and clothing.
  
  Smuggling of pet birds and gamecocks from foreign ports and the import of prohibited poultry products does occur, but it's "so small it's off the radar screen," said Claude Knighten of the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. It's "not a good pathway for avian flu."
  
  Foppoli said that what travelers bring in on their shoes and clothing from AI zones probably is more of a threat than bird imports.
  
  
  
  Key questions
  
  Q. Do I need to worry about my neighbors fighting cocks?
  
  A. Not yet. The state Department of Health says there has never been a documented case of the H5N1 virus in feral chickens, wild fowl, or any other type of bird in Hawai'i. However, in many parts of Southeast Asia cockfighting is suspected of spreading the bird flu virus from poultry to humans. Even without bird flu, its a good idea to avoid visiting your neighbors chicken coops because of a variety of poultry diseases. The virus is found in bird feces, so be careful about tracking it onto your property.
  
  Q. What about all the loose chickens running around in my neighborhood?
  
  A. If avian influenza arrives, it is more likely to hit domestic poultry operations where birds are kept in close quarters, said wildlife disease specialist Thierry Work of the U.S. Geological Survey.
  
  Q. Is it safe to travel to Asia?
  
  A. Health agencies say there is no reason to restrict travel to areas experiencing bird flu outbreaks. However, travelers should avoid contact with live animal markets and poultry farms, and any free-ranging or caged poultry. Make sure eggs and poultry are thoroughly cooked, and clean your hands often with soap and water or alcohol-based hand gels.
  
  Q. Is West Nile virus still a threat?
  
  A. Hawai'i experienced a West Nile virus scare in 2004 when a dead bird found at Kahului Airport was suspected of carrying the disease. Tests proved negative, and no cases have been reported in the state so far. However, the West Nile virus, spread by infected mosquitoes, remains a concern.
  
  Q. What should I do if I find a dead bird?
  
  A. Although officials continue to ask people to turn in bird carcasses that are intact and less than 48 hours old for West Nile virus testing, that could change with the arrival of avian influenza. Until then, use rubber gloves or a plastic bag when picking up dead birds. Double-bag the carcasses and secure tightly. Call 211 to report dead birds, and for more information visit www.state.hi.us/health/.
  
  Reach Christie Wilson at cwilson@honoluluadvertiser.com.
  
  (photo caption)
  
  At the Honolulu Zoo, Brenda Clawson gets ready to set up a duck feeder, which will make it harder for wild birds to get at the food. That may discourage them from hanging around and perhaps infecting the zoo's denizens. Even the variety of avian flu harmless to people can kill birds.
  
  JEFF WIDENER | The Honolulu Advertiser
  
  POULTRY SAFETY
  
  To reduce risk of avian influenza:
  
  Minimize traffic coming onto your premises. Insist that vehicles and equipment entering your premises be cleaned and disinfected.
  
  Avoid visiting farms that keep poultry/waterfowl/game birds.
  
  Seal poultry house attics and cover ventilation openings with screens. Keep poultry in closed and locked houses.
  
  Allow only essential personnel into your poultry houses. Place disinfectant foot baths at outside entries.
  
  Do not share equipment or vehicles with other farms. Vehicles transporting birds should be cleaned and disinfected, along with the crates.
  
  Protect open-range or backyard poultry flocks from contact with wild birds and water.
  
  Know the warning signs of infectious bird diseases: sudden death, diarrhea, decrease in or loss of egg production, soft-shelled or misshapen eggs, gasping for air, nasal discharge, coughing, swelling of tissues around eyes and neck, purple discoloration of wattles, combs and legs, muscular tremors, drooping wings, paralysis.
  
  Report sick birds to the state Department of Agricultures Animal Industry Division at 483-7106 or 837-8092 (manned 24 hours a day). The USDA operates a toll-free hot line at (866) 5367593 with veterinarians to help you.
  
  Source: Hawai'i and U.S. departments of agriculture

• 03/20/2006:  Aviary, zoo have plans to fight bird flu should outbreak occur here, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  By Linda Wilson Fuoco, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
  
  The people who care for animals at the zoo and birds at the aviary in Pittsburgh have plans for dealing with the avian flu when -- and if -- it spreads to the United States.
  
  Their goal is to protect the animals and the people who come in contact with them and to prevent the disease from spreading.
  
  At the National Aviary in Pittsburgh during the past year, "We have made a contingency plan and we are vigilantly tracking the movement of the virus," said Dr. Pilar Fish, the veterinarian who treats more than 600 birds at the North Side facility.
  
  Specifically, Dr. Fish said, the aviary has been monitoring the effectiveness of a vaccine being given to birds at zoos in Asia, where many cases of avian flu have been reported.
  
  "If the avian flu comes to the U.S., zoos and aviaries will be the first to vaccinate,' she said. The vaccine will come from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which will modify it to match the exact type of flu strain that arrives.
  
  "We will be a safe haven for our birds," Dr. Fish said.
  
  Zoos and aviaries are prohibited from importing animals from areas where avian flu occurs, but that's not really a problem in acquiring species, Dr. Fish said.
  
  Accredited zoos and aviaries participate in species-survival plans to make sure that threatened and endangered species are protected. Rather than importing animals captured in the wild, zoos share breeding animals to ensure the continuation of a species.
  
  The Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium is following guidelines adopted by the American Zoo and Aquarium Association, said Dr. Cindy Stadler, director of veterinary services at the zoo in Highland Park. The guidelines were adopted in November to assist the 210 AZA-accredited facilities, which includes the Pittsburgh zoo and aviary.
  
  Here's what they would do if the virus arrives:
  
  .....Isolate suspected or confirmed cases, decontaminate the area and close portions of the facility.
  
  Provide employees protective clothing and begin disinfectant procedures.
  
  Possibly bring indoors the birds in outdoor exhibits that could come in contact with wild water fowl.
  
  Set up quarantine areas.
  
  Discontinue direct contact between visitors and birds, including closing the walk-through exhibits.
  
  Discontinue behind-the-scenes tours of animal food preparation and storage areas.
  
  Guidelines for the professionals are clear, but what can the average pet owner do at this point?
  
  The best thing to do is don't worry, said Point Breeze veterinarian Lawrence J. Gerson, a past president and long-time board member of the Pennsylvania Veterinary Medical Association. He said his clients have not been asking questions or expressing concern about avian flu, and there is no need for them to do so at this point.
  
  Avian flu emerged in Hong Kong in 1996 and spread throughout Southeast Asia. Recently it has spread to Europe and the Mideast.
  
  It has affected birds in 44 countries, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including Iraq, Iran, Austria, Germany, Italy, Russia, Turkey, Vietnam, Laos, Japan and China.
  
  Humans have been affected in seven countries since 2004, according to the World Health Organization. They are Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Turkey and Iraq.
  
  Up to 120 humans have died. Experts emphasize, however, that it is not easy for people to get the virus from birds. Most of the victims have had close contact with diseased and dead birds.
  
  Veterinary schools are also tracking the disease and some, including the Purdue University School of Veterinary Medicine, are issuing periodic advisories.
  
  Avian flu is a virus, and it is not resistant to commercial disinfectants, said Dr. Lorraine Corriveau, a pet wellness veterinarian at Purdue. A disinfectant containing bleach should kill the avian flu virus, which is not as hardy as the canine parvo virus.
  
  Owners of all pets, including birds, reptiles, dogs and cats, should always thoroughly wash hands before and after handling them and should keep pet living areas clean.
  
  While the main concern is that bird flu can be transmitted to humans, veterinarians are concerned about the spread of the disease from birds to other animals.
  
  "About a year ago in Thailand, tigers and leopards became sick from eating dead birds" that apparently had the flu, Dr. Corriveau said. Some of the big cats died.
  
  The Pittsburgh zoo has a small number of birds, including peacocks, ostriches and flamingoes. Another concern there would be mammals, many of which have outdoor habitats. Migrating waterfowl have been one of the main avenues for spreading the disease to birds and other animals.
  
  Dr. Stadler said the Web site of the National Wildlife Health Center lists 10 species of mammals that have been affected by avian flu: tigers, leopards, rats, domestic and feral cats, pigs, martens, palm civets, ferrets, macaques and the New Zealand white rabbit.
  
  "We would not buy poultry fed to mammals and reptiles from areas affected by avian flu," Dr. Stadler said.
  
  Dr. Fish and Dr. Stadler emphasized there is no cause for panic -- a sentiment echoed by a range of agencies that include Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization, the United States Department of Agriculture, the American Zoo and Aquarium Association and the American Veterinary Medical Association.
  
  "The U.S. does a very good job of disease surveillance and monitoring," said Dr. Corriveau.
  
  Concerns have been raised about the avian flu arriving in North America by way of birds illegally imported as pets or for cock fighting. Officials are on the lookout for that, too.
  
  Last year the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement confiscated about 200 birds before they were smuggled into the country, according to Dr. David E. Swayne, director of the Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory in Athens, Ga. Dr. Swayne, quoted in the January issue of the JAVMA News, said none of the birds was infected with avian flu.
  
  (Linda Wilson Fuoco can be reached at lfuoco@post-gazette.com or 412-263-3064.)

• 03/19/2006:  State's big poultry industry raises bird-flu stakes, Indianapolis Star
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Caution is rising in Indiana, which produces 100 million chickens, turkeys and ducks a year
  
  By Tammy Webber
  
  tammy.webber@indystar.com
  
  March 19, 2006
  
  
  
  A hunter may shoot a duck that looks sickly. Or a biologist could come across birds whose deaths aren't easily explained. Or a random test will reveal the dreaded news.
  
  Although the avian influenza virus has not reached the United States, Indiana wildlife and emergency management officials -- operating under the assumption it eventually will reach the Hoosier state -- are drawing up plans to monitor and test wild birds, warn the public and keep the virus from spreading to domestic animals.
  
  The stakes are high, not only because of the chance a human could contract the deadly virus, but also because Indiana has one of the country's largest poultry industries, producing around 100 million chickens, turkeys and ducks a year.
  
  The virus has spread to birds in Europe and Africa, after originating in Southeast Asia. Scientists say if it reaches the United States, it will probably show up first in Alaska, in birds that migrated through Asia. From there, it could spread to the rest of North America.
  
  "I think it's not if, but when" it reaches this country, said Eric Dietz, executive director of the Indiana Department of Homeland Security. "We have a daily or weekly story about how it's shown up someplace else. We cannot say it would never be a risk for us."
  
  If the virus does reach Indiana, people won't necessarily become sick. Although humans can contract the virus from infected birds, it has not mutated into a form that could be passed from person to person, and most human cases were in developing nations, where victims were in close contact with birds. About half of those who have become sick have died.
  
  The fear, however, is that the longer the virus circulates, the greater the odds it could mutate or combine with another virus to create a totally new strain that could easily be passed among people. Because people would have no immunity to such a strain, it could trigger a worldwide pandemic that could kill tens of millions.
  
  Indiana health and emergency officials are planning a summit at Purdue University on Thursday to discuss plans for such a pandemic.
  
  But they say the first signs of the virus likely wouldn't be as dramatic as a human outbreak. Instead, it could arrive quietly, on the wings of birds.
  
  "We are still trying to get a handle on this," Dietz said. "What if we find a couple of dead birds or a barn full of sick animals? We are trying to figure out the risk to the state."
  
  Indiana's poultry farms, which have had tough "biosecurity" rules in place for years, are being even more vigilant about such things as restricting visitors, decontaminating shoes and disinfecting equipment. Poultry cannot be brought into the U.S. from countries where the virus has been detected.
  
  Such precautions, and the fact that most domestic poultry never leaves the barn, lessen the chance that their fowl will contract the Asian bird flu virus, industry officials said.
  
  Even so, they're not taking chances. The industry is reviewing security measures, and poultry testing will more than double this year, to about 75,000 birds, said Paul Brennan, executive vice president of the Indiana State Poultry Association.
  
  At Rose Acre Farms in Seymour, one of Indiana's largest egg producers with about 9 million chickens, 24-hour video surveillance recently was installed to ensure unauthorized people don't get in and that security measures are being carried out, executive vice president Tony Wesner said.
  
  "Avian flu is a concern to anybody in the poultry business," Wesner said, adding that farm officials are closely monitoring the latest information on bird flu overseas and from experts in the United States.
  
  "We educate ourselves daily to be ready if it does hit," he said. "How this all plays out is hard to say. We don't think the threat is immediate to the United States, but tomorrow could prove us wrong."
  
  The Indiana Department of Natural Resources and the Indiana Board of Animal Health are involved in planning for surveillance of wild and domestic birds.
  
  Conservation officers likely would be the first to respond to an outbreak among wild birds, because they're often who people call, said David Windsor, a captain in the DNR law enforcement division.
  
  Similar efforts already are being coordinated nationally and soon will include many states.
  
  Currently, waterfowl in Alaska are tested for any sign of the virus. Some birds migrate through Asia, then intermingle with birds from other parts of North America and South America, said Paul G. Slota, a biologist at the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis., which is responsible for investigating sick or dead birds in the United States.
  
  This spring, water and fecal samples will be collected from areas frequented by birds to check for the virus, and "sentinel" birds -- like a canary in a coal mine -- will be placed in areas where the virus might be expected to show up, to see whether they get sick.
  
  This fall, state conservation agencies will set up check stations to test birds killed by hunters while on their southward migration. Those locations have yet to be determined, so it is not certain whether birds shot in Indiana will be tested, officials said.
  
  The unprecedented attention being given to the bird flu can be only good, Slota said.
  
  "Agencies within the federal government are cooperating with each other on a disease that involves wildlife, public health and domestic animals' health to an extent I have not seen in the past," he said. "But I think it is very difficult to predict (what will happen). Some say the virus will (be in the U.S.) in months to a year, but I have no idea."

• 03/16/2006:  Will US migration spread flu?, Philadelphia Inquirer
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  As birds take flight, so do fears
  
  By Sandy Bauers
  
  Inquirer Staff Writer
  
  In coming weeks, many of the planet's birds will point their beaks northward in a vast migration to breeding grounds in higher latitudes.
  
  Researchers are watching one group in particular - roughly 6.6 million birds of 42 species flying from Asia to Alaska - concerned that they will bring the virulent H5N1 strain of avian influenza.
  
  This month, a government consortium is launching a $29 million campaign to capture and test as many as 100,000 birds in Alaska and throughout the United States, as other avian migrants head south.
  
  The H5N1 flu has spread inexorably, creeping across three continents and infecting 177 people, 98 of whom died, the World Health Organization reported Monday.
  
  Since the beginning of March, it has been found in a duck in Switzerland, a swan in Serbia-Montenegro, chickens in Albania, cats in Austria, a stone marten in Germany, and wild birds in Sweden.
  
  The new fear is that, because Alaska is a global bird hub with interconnecting flyways, Asian species could infect Western Hemisphere species. The birds could then transport the virus south along the continent's major migratory routes, including the Atlantic flyway that follows the East Coast.
  
  The flu spreads among birds through nasal and fecal secretions.
  
  Scientists are also worried the virus may sneak in with smuggled birds, which has happened elsewhere, or cross over from Europe via transatlantic migratory birds.
  
  Consider the tundra swan, which breeds on the Arctic tundra in Alaska and western Canada.
  
  Right now, thousands are migrating through Pennsylvania, stopping briefly at the Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area, which spans the border of Lancaster and Lebanon Counties. Anywhere from 500 to 3,000 also winter there.
  
  In mid-May, they will arrive on the Arctic coastal plain, where they could mix with, say, the king eider - some 200,000 of which migrate yearly between Asia and Alaska.
  
  If a grazing swan ingests fecal matter from a contagious eider, the swan could be infected and then further the spread when it flies back south in the fall.
  
  This scenario could play out among any number of East Coast species. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northern Alaska reports that birds there migrate to every state in the union - canvasback ducks to New Jersey, Lapland longspurs to Pennsylvania, black-bellied plovers to Delaware, and semipalmated sandpipers to New York.
  
  Overall, however, researchers have more questions than answers.
  
  When will the flu arrive? Scientists shun alarmist cries of "Deadly bird flu approaching Alaska within the month!"They do, however, feel certain the day will come, probably sooner than later.
  
  "A year ago we would have said if," said Leslie Dierauf, director of the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center. Now,"we're saying when."
  
  Researchers also don't know why this flu has turned deadly when many birds, especially waterfowl, harbor low-level flu viruses all the time. Scientists worry that such an unpredictable virus may mutate and trigger a human pandemic that could sicken millions.
  
  But it's still not clear whether migratory birds are responsible for the virus' spread.
  
  "We know migratory birds can catch the virus," said Bruce Woods, spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Anchorage. "But we don't know whether most of the spread we have seen so far has been the result of the movement of migratory birds or poultry products and processing equipment, or some other vector."
  
  Hon Ip, a virologist with the National Wildlife Health Center, notes that other avian flu viruses had different genetic fingerprints.
  
  "The virologists say, 'Well, birds may fly back and forth, but whenever I check a North American bird, I never see an Asian virus,' " he said. "It looks like there's a biological barrier for the virus between continents."
  
  Still, "the aftermath of having a bird come over and transmit it is severe," Ip said. "The risk is not zero, and the risk is what we want to monitor."
  
  Later this year, as birds begin to migrate south, officials in the lower states plan to collect birds, swab their secretions, and release them. They also plan to collect 100,000 environmental samples - feces and water - and test them.
  
  Meanwhile, by cross-referencing birds that could have been in flu areas with birds that have large populations migrating to Alaska, researchers have devised a hit list of 29 species to test there this spring.
  
  They will be setting up diaphanous "mist nets" to catch birds in flight, plus other nets to trap birds that alight on beaches and waterfowl during their molt, when they cannot fly.
  
  The goal is to detect the virus as early as possible, which Woods says is doable. "If there's a 1.5 percent occurrence of the virus within the sample population," he said, "we will have a 95 percent chance of spotting it."
  
  Contact reporter Sandy Bauers at 215-854-5147 or sbauers@phillynews.com.

• 03/15/2006:  Wisconsin on Front Line Against Asian Bird Flu, WISN-TV The Milwaukee Channel
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  POSTED: 4:49 pm CST March 15, 2006
  
  MADISON, Wis. -- If and when the deadly Asian bird flu invades North America, it will likely show up first in one Wisconsin lab.
  
  That is the front line in the battle, and a little gadget, no bigger than a paper clip, is the scientists' principal weapon.
  
  The impact of the deadly strain of Asian bird flu has, so far, been limited to foreign shores.
  
  But if that spreads to this continent, a Madison laboratory will likely be the first to sound the warning.
  
  "If and when this virus does come to North America on the wing of wild birds, we will probably be one of the first to know, if not the first," National Wildlife Heath Center Director Leslie Dierauf said.
  
  The U.S. Department of Interior's National Wildlife Health Center is the only facility of its kind.
  
  Next week, biologists from the laboratory will begin a massive monitoring program to watch for the virus in birds that have migrated from Asia.
  
  "The bulk of our samples will be coming from the Alaska area and from the Pacific flyway and Pacific Island areas," Dierauf said.
  
  They will inject eggs with blood samples to test for the virus, and if they suspect it is present, they will use specially designed, light transmitting flat test tubes to grow as many as three billion copies of the virus in each tube.
  
  It is the only way to be sure of what they have found, but they hope they don't find what they're looking for.
  
  "We sure do. We sure do hope the tests keep coming back negative," Dierauf said.
  
  The scientists will leave for Alaska and the Southwest next week and will start collecting samples in about two weeks.
  
  They are certain that they will find some cases of bird flu, but the less-harmful kind, which is common in wild birds.
  
  They said they don't know what to expect when looking for that one deadly strain of Asian bird flu.

• 03/14/2006:  Bird flu may wing its way to local shores, Press of Atlantic City
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  By RICHARD DEGENER Staff Writer, (609) 463-6711
  
  CAPE MAY One of the area's biggest tourist industries and a dangerous virus sweeping Asia, Europe and Africa may be on a collision course with a meeting date sometime next fall.
  
  Millions of dollars are spent each fall as tourists come here to observe migratory birds heading south. Scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey, however, are worried some of those birds may carry the deadly avian flu virus, more commonly known as bird flu. They are concerned because North American birds go up to Alaska, Canada and Russia during the summer and mix with birds from Asian flyways. A few North American species even winter in Asia.
  
  While most scientists believe the bird flu would likely come down from Alaska via the Pacific Flyway, and not down the Atlantic Flyway that passes New Jersey, there is a strong belief that it will come with migratory birds. There is evidence bird migrations are helping move the flu around Asia, Europe and Africa already. More reports are coming in of the virus being in migratory birds. Will they bring it here?
  
  It's probably not if, but when, said Leslie Dierauf, director of the USGS National Wildlife Health Center in Wisconsin.
  
  Dierauf said Congress has given the USGS and other federal agencies $12 million to test wild birds for the virus, a program that began in August and which serves as an early-warning system of the arrival of the virus. A meeting is taking place in Ohio next week so the councils that oversee the flyways can decide where to test and what birds to sample. Testing done thus far has found a low-pathogen virus in 10-percent of the birds sampled, but none have had the deadly H5N1 strain blamed for sickening 147 people and causing 78 deaths, mostly in southeast Asia.
  
  Most of those deaths have been blamed on contract with domestic birds. The concern is that the virus has caused death in more than 60 species of wild birds, and when the virus jumps to new species it can mutate. The main concern is it could mutate into a virus that is easily transmitted among humans. That could cause the first global influenza pandemic since World War I.
  
  Migratory birds are reservoirs for the virus, but they usually don't get sick. When the low-pathogen virus mixes with domestic birds, it becomes highly pathogenic and kills poultry, Dierauf said.
  
  What's more disturbing in this case is that the newly created virus has then gone back to wild birds.This had previously happened only one time before on a large scale, in 1961 in South Africa, Dierauf said. It happened last spring in Qinghai, China when as much as 10 percent of the known population of bar-headed geese died of H5N1.
  
  We're worried about people, the poultry industry and wild birds. The key is to keep wild birds separate from domestic birds so they don't mix. When they mix, something peculiar happens genetically that nobody can really explain yet, Dierauf said.
  
  Peter Dunne, who directs the New Jersey Audubon Society's Cape May Bird Observatory, said it would be impossible to control the wild bird population. He said it wouldn't succeed and it would do a lot of damage.
  
  This is the natural world in motion. Objecting to this is like saying, Stop the world, I want to get off,' Dunne said.
  
  The list of the most worrisome species also reduces Dunne's concern for the East Coast. Dierauf said the biggest concern on the Atlantic Flyway are the horned grebe, tundra swan and greater scaup. Dunne said the horned grebe is a regular here, but the greater scaup and tundra swan are not common.
  
  Other waterfowl species of concern, birds that mix in the north with Asian birds, are the whooper swan, emperor goose, black brant, and Aleutian Canada goose. Dunne said none are regulars here.
  
  Shorebirds of concern include the Pacific golden plover, black-bellied plover, semipalmated plover, black-tailed godwit and marbled godwit. There are also three loon species that will be tested, including red-throated, yellow-billed and Pacific Arctic loon. Dunne said even in cases where some of these birds frequent the East Coast, the population is often separate from the those birds heading down the Pacific coast, which are mixing in Alaska and Siberia.
  
  It would be tantamount to listening to traffic reports from Los Angeles and getting concerned about road closings, Dunne said.
  
  The prevailing westerly winds on the East Coast actually serve to blow more North American birds to the Old World rather than vice versa. One exception is the Northern wheatear, which migrates from the Northeast polar region to Africa.
  
  Still, Dunne acknowledges any disease that gets to this continent could spread across it.
  
  We're bird experts, not flu experts, Dunne said.
  
  The bird flu first arose in 1997 in Asia and has since become the largest and most severe outbreak among poultry ever recorded. The people who got it had contact with domestic birds. No cases of transmission between humans has been recorded.
  
  There is concern the virus could find other ways to America, such as travel by infected people and illegal smuggling of birds.
  
  To e-mail Richard Degener at The Press:
  
  RDegener@pressofac.com

• 03/11/2006:  Deadly bird flu not yet made its way to North America, Reuters
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Publish Date: Saturday,11 March, 2006, at 09:23 AM Doha Time
  
  WASHINGTON: The H5N1 avian flu virus has not yet made its way to North America, although many experts believe it will, US government researchers have said.
  
  Eight months worth of sampling migratory birds has turned up no evidence of the dangerous H5N1 strain, the team at the US Geological Surveys National Wildlife Health Center said.
  
  The team has been sampling migratory waterfowl, considered to be the most likely carriers of influenza viruses from east Asia across to western North America, notably Alaska and Canada. They found several viruses but not H5N1.
  
  Avian influenza viruses are common in North American waterfowl and shorebirds, and the finding of a variety of avian influenza viruses is not unexpected, said Dr Leslie Dierauf, director of the USGS National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wisconsin.
  
  The USGS said in a statement that with its partners it would aggressively monitor and test for avian influenza in wild birds this year due to the increasing number of countries that have discovered highly pathogenic H5N1 in their migratory birds.
  
  The agency said biologists from several federal and state agencies, universities and nongovernmental organisations planned to collect between 75,000 and 100,000 samples from migratory birds this year.
  
  US Department of Agriculture laboratories that specialise in testing for avian viruses will screen most samples, although USGS labs are equipped to test about 11,000 of those samples in 2006.
  
  So far, the only H5 subtype USGS scientists found was a low pathogenic strain of H5N2 from one duck in North Dakota. There have been several outbreaks of H5N2 in poultry in the United States and Mexico.
  
  Canada recently found low-pathogenic H5 avian influenza subtypes in 250 wild bird samples, including a low pathogenic, H5N1 virus, different to the H5N1 strain.
  
  H5N1 avian influenza has killed or forced the culling of more than 200mn birds since it re-emerged in 2003. While harmless to some duck species, the virus kills chickens within a day or so and is lethal to other species such as swans.
  
  It has spread from east Asia across to western Europe and West Africa.
  
  Experts believe that migratory birds and the poultry trade will eventually spread it to birds around the world. It does not easily infect humans but has sickened 175 people and killed 96 of them.
  
  Health officials fear that the virus could mutate into a form that easily infects humans and say if it did, it would spark a devastating pandemic. - Reuters

• 03/05/2006:  Bird flu could migrate to U.S., The Baltimore Sun
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  Scientists identify Alaska as possible gateway for virus to enter Americas; focus put on wildfowl
  
  By Frank D. Roylance
  
  Sun reporter
  
  March 5, 2006
  
  As spring approaches in the Northern Hemisphere and millions of birds begin their ancient long-distance migrations, scientific evidence is mounting that the deadly Asian strain of H5N1 "bird flu" virus is flying with them.
  
  If so, the virus may soon wing its way into Alaska - where biologists are establishing an unprecedented surveillance network as part of an aggressive, $29 million early warning campaign with a new focus on birds in the wild. Until now, scientists' greatest focus has been on domestic flocks.
  
  From Alaska, scientists fear, the virus will spread into all the Americas and ultimately become a global presence - raising the odds it will mutate and touch off a new human flu pandemic.
  
  "I think it is more likely than not that we are going to see H5N1 bird flu in the Western Hemisphere," said Dr. William Schaffner, chairman of the department of preventative medicine at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn.
  
  "Whether it takes place during this migratory season or the next is uncertain," he said. But "I wouldn't be at all surprised if we get some introduction of the virus during this ... season."
  
  Scientists already suspect wild swans of carrying the H5N1 virus last month onto an island in northern Germany, where more than 100 of the graceful birds were found dead.
  
  The virus later killed a house cat on the same island, and Dutch scientists have evidence that cats can spread the virus to one another in the laboratory. Meanwhile, Thai scientists have found that dogs and cats there could also be carrying the bug.
  
  All of these findings raise new questions about whether a virus hitherto spread by wild birds can now infect and spread among the mammals people live with.
  
  "Probably not," said Vanderbilt's Schaffner. "In the real world, unlike the research lab, we see no mammalian die-offs, and believe me, they would have been noticed.
  
  "But this is something we have to keep watching, both in animal populations and in people," he said.
  
  Confined for years to poultry flocks in Southeast Asia, the highly pathogenic strain of the H5N1 avian flu virus has been moving west since May.
  
  Just since Feb. 1, according to the World Health Organization, it has turned up for the first time in wild birds and poultry in India, Iran, Egypt, Niger, Nigeria, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Hungary, Greece, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro, Italy, Austria, Germany, France and Switzerland.
  
  It's now present in at least 35 countries, and exports of birds or poultry products from those nations have been banned.
  
  Although human commerce and travel can explain some of the spread of the virus, its velocity in recent months has scientists increasingly convinced that wild birds, and perhaps bird migration, are also playing a significant role.
  
  "I think the evidence is now quite strong indicating that migratory birds are involved in serving as at least one carrier of the H5N1 subtype," said Dirk V. Derksen, supervisory wildlife biologist at the U.S. Geological Survey's Alaska Science Center, in Anchorage.
  
  Avian influenza is not uncommon in waterfowl. There are many strains, and they are commonly passed around by the birds through their respiratory secretions and feces.
  
  "What is uncommon is for migratory birds, particularly waterfowl, to be affected by it," said Paul G. Slota of the National Wildlife Health Center, in Madison, Wis. "In this case, there are instances where wild birds are dying from the H5N1 Asian strain."
  
  It's a strain that veterinary health officials call highly pathogenic to poultry, or "high-path." More common "low-path" strains produce little or no illness in poultry flocks, and low mortality rates.
  
  The big worry among global health authorities is that this "high-path" strain of H5N1 will infect so many poultry farms that it will eventually mutate into a form that can pass from person to person.
  
  Humans generally have had no previous exposure to this bird virus, and health officials fear that its spread would trigger a global pandemic, potentially killing tens of millions of people.
  
  So far, the virus doesn't have that capacity, and its human toll remains low.
  
  Since 2003, at least 174 people - in Southeast Asia, Turkey and Iraq - have been reported with H5N1 infections. Nearly all were ascribed to direct contact with infected poultry or contaminated surfaces, according to the WHO. Ninety-four of those have died - a fatality rate of 54 percent.
  
  No one has reported a human H5N1 infection from contact with wild or migratory birds. But wild birds do appear to be spreading it, and scientists think the most likely route to the Americas will be through Alaska.
  
  The 49th state is an avian mixing bowl. Migrants winging along flyways from Asia, the central Pacific and western North America converge there to forage and breed in the northern summers.
  
  And that's where the federal government is focusing its new $29 million Interagency Strategic Plan for early detection of high-path Asian H5N1.
  
  From now through the fall, biologists and field specialists from the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and the Interior, as well as state agencies, will fan out across Alaska and U.S. possessions in the Pacific.
  
  They will trap and draw viral samples from more than 75,000 live birds and collect 50,000 samples of water and bird feces.
  
  Their goal is to learn more about which avian pathogens are being passed around by which migrating birds - and to sound the alarm when the high-path H5N1 virus arrives in the Western Hemisphere.
  
  But not everyone is ready to lay blame for the spread of the virus solely on migrating birds.
  
  One of them is Hon Ip, director of the Diagnostic Virology Lab at the National Wildlife Health Center, one of several federal labs that will test the samples from Alaska and the Pacific.
  
  Wild birds may be a factor in the spread of the virus across Europe this winter, he said, but maybe not by migrations. Instead, he suggests that severe cold may simply have moved nonmigratory species to new locations. Will their presence now ignite new outbreaks among local birds and poultry flocks? Or have they just flown a short distance and died, with no further consequences?
  
  "It could go either way," Ip said. "All Europe is playing in this giant experiment."
  
  Ip also questions whether an Asian strain of bird flu is capable of becoming a long-term problem in the Americas. "Historically there's been a clear genetic separation between North American avian influenza viruses and those in Europe and Asia," he said. To a geneticist, "it's almost like a fingerprint. You can tell them apart."
  
  If they mixed regularly, they would be indistinguishable, Ip argues.
  
  The government's surveillance work in Alaska may resolve the issue. Nearly 30 species have been targeted - mostly waterfowl and shore birds, from the Aleutian cackling goose to Steller's eider and the sharp-tailed sandpiper.
  
  "It's clearly the largest effort to capture and sample migratory birds I'm familiar with," Derksen said.
  
  State and federal officials will also sample birds killed by indigenous hunters and sportsmen. Ip's lab will watch for the virus among the thousands of wild birds and other animals whose carcasses are sent there routinely for testing each year.
  
  But the Alaska Science Center teams will focus on live, wild migratory birds, Derksen said.
  
  Waterfowl such as emperor geese and Pacific black brant ducks will be herded into "drive nets" erected in estuaries and on lake shores where the birds molt. The molting renders the birds flightless for a time, and sampling teams, in boats or on foot, will simply herd them into the nets.
  
  After they measure and band each bird, team members will pass a swab into its cloaca - the single opening through which a bird's urinary and intestinal tracts empty. Then they'll release each bird, pack the swabs in ice and send them to Ip's lab.
  
  For perching birds, the teams will use barely visible "mist nets," designed to snare them as they fly through woods or across open tundra. Scientists say they aren't injured and fly off as soon as they're released.
  
  For marine waterfowl, mist nets will go up in the open ocean, strung between anchored buoys and surrounded by decoys. On land, spring-loaded "bow traps" will capture birds where they're nesting. "The birds released typically return right to the nest," Derksen said.
  
  Of particular interest is the Steller's eider. Listed as threatened in Alaska, it breeds in Alaska's Yukon Delta, near Barrow on the northern coast of Alaska, and in northeastern Russia. All the populations migrate south across the Chukchi Sea and the Bering Sea to winter on the Alaskan Peninsula.
  
  "So the opportunities for mixing of birds from Russia, where the H5N1 virus has been isolated, and birds from Alaska are considerable," Derksen said. "Other birds use these same habitats in this estuary at the same time."
  
  What public health officials fear most is that wild birds will eventually spread the virus to huge poultry flocks and rural backyard coops. If that happens, poultry deaths from infection, or from culling to stop the spread of the disease, will exact a heavy toll on the food industry.
  
  A spreading H5N1 epidemic among poultry would also bring the virus into contact with more people, increasing the risk that it would swap genes with an ordinary human flu virus and launch a deadly pandemic.
  
  The discovery that a domestic cat in Germany was killed by the H5N1 virus has renewed worry that the avian virus may already be acquiring the ability to infect and spread among the mammals people live with.
  
  Tigers and leopards at the Bangkok Zoo died after they were fed infected chickens during a 2003-2004 bird flu outbreak.
  
  A recent study by Dutch scientists Thijs Kuiken and Albert Osterhaus, of Erasmus University in Rotterdam, found that lab cats infected with the H5N1 virus excreted the virus in their urine, feces and saliva before they died.
  
  That led to fatal infections among the healthy cats they lived with - proof that the virus can cause cat-to-cat transmission, according to a paper published in January's American Journal of Pathology.
  
  More recently, a news story in the journal Nature reported that Thai scientists tested 740 village dogs and cats and found that 25 percent of the dogs and 7 percent of the cats had antibodies to the H5N1 virus - evidence they had at least been exposed.
  
  But Schaffner isn't worried about a threat to humans from their pets. "We can take it as a general theme that ... this bird flu virus can get into mammals. But it isn't really transmitted," he said.
  
  The cat-to-cat transmission in the Dutch experiments is "instructive," he said. But virologists know that lab findings don't always translate to the real world.
  
  "There is one sort of animal we ought to keep our eye on," he said. It's pigs, whose cells can harbor both avian and human flu viruses, and where the feared viral recombination might well occur.
  
  Even with all the H5N1 outbreaks in Asia, where poultry and pigs frequently live in proximity, Schaffner said, "we have seen no pig die-off."
  
  But "many of us are walking around with fingers crossed that these recombinant events have not taken place already."
  
  frank.roylance@baltsun.com

• 02/17/2006:  Bird Markets Pose Possible Risk for Avian Flu, Voice of America (Radio)
  
  (Link to the original article)
  

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  YOUNG: From the Jennifer and Ted Stanley studios in Somerville, Massachusetts, this is Living on Earth. I'm Jeff Young, sitting in for Steve Curwood.
  
  The deadly strain of avian flu that first arose in East Asia is on the move. Wild birds in Europe and poultry in Africa have tested positive for the H5N1 strain. That virus has killed at least 91 people who apparently caught it from poultry. Scientists fear the virus could mutate and pass from person to person, perhaps bringing a pandemic flu.
  
  The virus has not been detected in North America, and US wildlife and agriculture officials want to keep it that way. With help from the poultry industry, state and federal agencies have stepped up efforts to detect and stop avian flu strains that might infect livestock or people. It's an enormous undertaking, stretching from bird breeding grounds in Alaska to southern poultry farms, and even this simple market in New York city's Spanish Harlem.
  
  BIRD SOUNDS
  
  YOUNG: Dozens of stacked metal cages line the hall of Manhattan Live Chicken Market, filled with red soup birds, white broilers, turkeys and ducks, pheasants and pigeons. Employee Nabil Mohsen carries by the feet two chickens a customer hand-picked. At a blood splattered counter, he bends back a bird's neck and draws a long knife along its throat.
  
  BIRD SQUAWKING
  
  
  
  (Courtesy of National Chicken Council)
  
  YOUNG: Quick work
  
  MOHSEN: Yeah, real quick.
  
  MARKET SOUNDS
  
  YOUNG: He puts the bird upside down in a tube built into the counter to let its blood drain. A machine plucks the feathers, then Mohsen guts the carcass.
  
  MOHSEN: It's a little bit messy, but whenever we get rid of the customers we start cleaning the whole store.
  
  YOUNG: He'll chop the bird and bag it.
  
  MOHSEN: Most of the customers here are old fashioned. They're from different parts of the world, not born and raised in America. So usually that's how they buy their chickens. I heard it makes you healthy, more healthy, and you live longer. That's what they say.
  
  YOUNG: But live bird markets can also pose health risks. Public health officials are concerned that the 90 or so markets in New York, and others around the country, could be weak links in the defense against bird flu. Nine years ago, in Hong Kong, the H5N1 strain killed six people; some of whom had visited live bird markets.
  
  In the US, other strains of bird flu are common. They do not threaten people, but can be disastrous to poultry. And several farm outbreaks have been linked to live markets. Ron DeHaven directs the US Department of Agriculture's animal and plant health inspection service. DeHaven says live markets let viruses move around.
  
  DEHAVEN: Indeed, that is a pathway when you have birds coming into those markets from a variety of sources and equipment and people accompanying those birds, then leaving those markets and going back home, you have a perfect pathway to spread disease.
  
  YOUNG: This is not a new concern. DeHaven says there is a yearly flu season for poultry just as there is for people. What's new is the scale of the effort and the sense of urgency. In New York, for example, they've increased market inspections and testing at farms. Delivery trucks must wash cages between each stop. And markets must close briefly every three months to thoroughly disinfect. DeHaven says it's starting to pay off.
  
  DEHAVEN: We've seen the remarkable decrease in the number of those samples that actually find some virus present. So, we're making progress, but we're not entirely there yet.
  
  YOUNG: Major US poultry producers have no connection to live markets the risk of infection is too great. The industry, too, is increasing safeguards. National Chicken Council spokesperson Richard Lobb says last month poultry companies enhanced their testing for the more dangerous flu strains.
  
  LOBB: So the upshot is that no broiler flock in the country will go to market, will enter the food chain, without a clean test for avian influenza. So we will be able to assure our customers that all the products we are selling them are made from flocks that have tested clear for avian influenza.
  
  BIRDS PEEPING
  
  YOUNG: About 23,000 young chickens will spend most of their lives in this sealed, climate-controlled birdhouse. Valley Pike Farm in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley has four of these houses, and produces nearly 600,000 broilers in a year. Father and son farmers Gary and Matt Lohr let my recorder in the chicken house, but not me. Gary says tight bio-security prohibits visitors.
  
  G. LOHR: You don't let anybody in on your farm. You always disinfect feet and everything before you go in a house, and try to be as careful as you can.
  
  YOUNG: Despite all that care, the Lohr farm was among 200 in the valley hit by avian flu four years ago.
  
  BIRD SOUNDS
  
  YOUNG: The Lohrs' entire flock was destroyed
  
  The interior of one of the Lohrs' chicken houses. (Courtesy of National Chicken Council)
  
  
  
  G. LOHR: Well it made you sick. There's your whole lost income, and you worked all that hard, and one bird tested positive so they put everything down. Which, in the long run, that was the thing to do. But it was really hard to accept.
  
  YOUNG: The outbreak cost farms and companies around $150 million. The government paid about half that to bail out poultry growers. The Lohrs still don't know the source of the infection. And they worry about what might happen if there is another amid the heightened public concern about the deadly H5N1 strain.
  
  M. LOHR: The fear that I have is that when people hear about bird flu, if we were to ever have another outbreak of our bird flu, it would just be hysteria. People would automatically think that this is the Asian bird flu that is going to wipe out all of civilization. So, I think that we have to do a good job of educating people that there are different strands.
  
  G. LOHR: And we hope people don't stop eating chicken because of this. It's healthy, it's good for ya, it doesn't hurt you. So don't panic and stop eating chicken. That's our livelihood.
  
  YOUNG: Public health officials stress that even if the H5N1 strain arrives, consumers could still safely eat chicken, so long as they safely handle and cook the birds. But some critics question whether an industry with so many birds so sensitive to flu can be protected.
  
  BARNARD: Americans eat a million chickens per hour. You don't get that enormous scale of poultry production without huge interactions between poultry workers and birds. And that is the problem.
  
  YOUNG: That's Dr. Neal Barnard of the group Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. Barnard says the live markets are an unacceptable risk.
  
  BARNARD: Live bird markets should have been shut down a long time ago.
  
  YOUNG: So far, federal and state officials say there's no need for that.
  
  LIVE BIRD MARKET SOUNDS
  
  YOUNG: The folks at Manhattan Live Chicken Market say they've lost a few customers since bird flu hit the headlines. But even on the day of a record snowstorm there's steady business. Frances Torres has come for three red hens for soup.
  
  TORRES: I'm not afraid. When I come to this place I know they're gonna care for our health and they not gonna give us chickens that are sick.
  
  YOUNG: Torres grew up on a farm in Puerto Rico's mountains. For her, buying live birds is a link to home, and an important part of her traditional cooking.
  
  TORRES: You don't put tomato sauce, you just put the Spanish vegetables, the onion, and you just eat it fresh. A drop of salt, garlic. That's the way I grew up. I wouldn't change it. Some people forget their culture when they come here, some of us. But I'm very, very the old fashioned way.
  
  YOUNG: You're making me hungry.
  
  TORRES: Stop by later on, maybe by 6 o'clock and have some soup. (Laughs)
  
  YOUNG: Markets and farms aren't the only places under increased scrutiny. Immigration and customs officers watch ports and boarders for illegal poultry trafficking. And wildlife scientists recently launched a nation-wide system to monitor migrating birds. Scientists don't know exactly how the H5N91 virus moves. Dr. Hon Ip hopes to find out and stop it.
  
  Ip is a virologist with the US Geological Survey's National Wildlife Center. And he joins us now from Madison, Wisconsin. Dr. Ip, welcome to Living On Earth.
  
  IP: Thank you for having me.
  
  YOUNG: What is the possible scenario by which this deadly strain of the virus might come to North America?
  
  IP: We think that there's going to be three possible routes. And they are potentially a sick person traveling to an infected area and coming back from it; the legal and illegal import of poultry and poultry products; and then, thirdly, you know, possibility from migratory birds being infected and then flying back to North America.
  
  YOUNG: Which route of migration are we most interested in here? I think Alaska is getting a lot of focus. Why Alaska?
  
  IP: The major group of birds that are current suspects are birds that are wintering in the area where H5N1 currently is, and possibly flying directly back to North America up towards Alaska. And then there are other birds that are sort of like intermediary relay groups, where birds from the Asian continent will move up to Siberia and the Russian Far East, mingle with other birds that can possibly bring it over to North America.
  
  YOUNG: So how do we find out if it has reached North America?
  
  IP: Well, the US Geological Survey, along with other federal and state government agencies, have put together this national plan for early surveillance in order to detect H5N1 coming to North America. What we've done is to look through the species of birds that are known to have this contact between the two continents; look at where they are, when they come back, where they come to when they come back. And we have plans to go out and sample a significant number of them in order to look for the presence of H5N1 virus.
  
  YOUNG: If you find this deadly strain of the virus in wild birds, is there any sort of contingency plan to eliminate the threat by eliminating those birds?
  
  IP: Eliminating wild birds is not a practice that is recommended. Wild birds play a role in maintaining a healthy ecosystem. You can't go out and willy-nilly, you know, abate whole species; that causes other ecological problems. So culling wild birds, you might actually, if you don't do it right, you might actually disperse the birds into a wider area just the opposite of what you're trying to do.
  
  YOUNG: You know, not to be unnecessarily scary about this, but is this an issue that causes you concern? Is this one you've maybe had some sleepless nights about?
  
  IP: It is a concern in terms of what the virus does to birds. I would say that the number of human cases, although very sad, is actually very surprisingly low. And so at the current time this Asian H5N1, it's threat to humans are really incidental. However, the virus is highly lethal certainly to domestic poultry, especially chickens, and it has had dramatic die-offs of Bar Headed Geese in Quinghai, maybe a lot of swans in Europe. And so what that virus might do to North American birds? It's a worry.
  
  YOUNG: Dr. Hon Ip is a virologist with the US Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center. Thanks very much for talking with us.
  
  IP: Thank you.

• 01/26/2006:  Migratory Birds to be Monitored for Avian Influenza, Kansas City Info Zine
  
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  HealthBy Elaine Marsilio - A collaborative effort among government agencies has been created to prevent the avian influenza, or bird flu, recently found in Asia, from entering North America, the agencies announced Friday.
  
  Washington, D.C. - Scripps Howard Foundation Wire - infoZine - The U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have teamed up to protect Americans through strategies such as monitoring and testing migratory birds.
  
  "In our view, our surveillance serves as a bio-security for the nation and its poultry," said H. Dale Hall, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
  
  Hall spoke along with Ron DeHaven, administrator of USDA's animal and plant health inspection service, and Susan Haseltine, associate director for biology at the USGS. They briefed congressional staff and reporters about the strategies each agency plans to use to detect avian influenza if it ever enters the country through one of North America's four flyways, the major routes that birds use.
  
  They are four roughly vertical strips: the Pacific Flyway along the West Coast to Alaska, the Central Flyway along the Rockies and Great Plains, the Mississippi Flyway from the Gulf Coast to the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Flyway along the East Coast.
  
  Haseltine said people are most likely to become infected through domesticated birds. Waterfowl birds serve as reservoirs for the particular strain, while domestic birds show more symptoms, she said.
  
  The disease has spread across Asia, reaching Turkey, China and parts of Europe. The disease emerged in China in 1996 and started to spread across that region in 2004, she said.
  
  "There's a potential for a pandemic," Haseltine said. "That's the ultimate concern."
  
  The agencies plan to start testing and monitoring 30 species of migratory birds this spring in Alaska and the Pacific Flyway. These two locations are at the highest risk of being exposed to the disease, Hall said, because birds may carry the virus to nesting grounds from Southern Asia. The will set up at least 46 stations will to test birds, Hall said. Birds that are found to be infected will be killed.
  
  The program also aims to protect public and employee health in national parks and reserves, regulate the trade of wildlife and wildlife products and increase law enforcement at points of entry to prevent smuggling of birds and products.
  
  Sampling will also occur during hunting seasons in areas where birds migrate, and the agencies will work with hunters to ensure dead wildlife does not carry the disease, Hall said.
  
  "Early detection of the virus is a key part of preparedness for the country," Hall said.
  
  DeHaven said it is safe for Americans to consume poultry in the United States if proper cooking hygiene is observed and birds are cooked thoroughly, which would kill any virus.
  
  The USDA has received $91 million for domestic efforts against avian influenza, $73 million of which will go specifically toward enhancing surveillance and diagnostics and developing anti-smuggling tactics.
  
  The Fish and Wildlife Service received $7.4 million for the project, the U.S. Department of the Interior received $11.3 million and the USGS received more than $3 million.
  
  USDA has been working with Asian experts. The agency plans to impose import restrictions, quarantine all live birds coming into the United States, remain vigilant to find birds smuggled into this country and maintain a supply of an avian influenza vaccine against infected poultry, DeHaven said.
  
  The vaccine, he said, has been tested against the H5N1 virus and has provided adequate protection.
  
  Haseltine said the USGS will work with its National Wildlife Health Center, to survey bird migratory patterns.
  
  "We have a lot to learn about how these organisms are emerging in our environment," Haseltine said.

• 01/21/2006:  Alaska, feds join in hunt for avian flu, Anchorage Daily News
  
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  State is a crossroads and could be disease's landing point.
  
  By ANN POTEMPA
  
  Anchorage Daily News
  
  (Published: January 20, 2006)
  
  Government agencies will study thousands of birds throughout Alaska this year in search of avian influenza, particularly the deadly H5N1 strain that's been transmitted to people, state and federal officials said Thursday.
  
  According to the World Health Organization, 148 cases of H5N1 influenza in people have been reported from six Asian and European countries since December 2003, resulting in 79 deaths.
  
  Rick Kearney, the wildlife program coordinator for the U.S. Geological Survey, spoke about bird flu alongside state health leaders Thursday at a downtown luncheon for Commonwealth North, a local civic group. While surveillance for flu viruses in birds is not new in Alaska, a partnership of state and federal agencies will step up efforts this year because Alaska is a place where several migratory pathways meet.
  
  "Alaska could be that place where the virus arrives in North America," Kearney said.
  
  Kearney said a new, faster test for the H5N1 strain will be able to look through hundreds of samples and return results within a week.
  
  Last year, the U.S. Department of the Interior studied more than 1,000 live birds throughout the state, Kearney said. The University of Alaska also has studied thousands of birds in recent years.
  
  "We have not detected H5N1 in wild birds in Alaska. Period," said Douglas Causey, vice provost of research and graduate studies for the University of Alaska Anchorage.
  
  Birds can carry more than 100 kinds of flu, Causey said. Some of these flu viruses have been found in Alaska birds, but unlike H5N1, most of them are not dangerous and are less likely to make people sick, said Kearney and Causey.
  
  "We have a lot of influenza in birds here in Alaska," Causey said. "We always have had, and we always will have."
  
  In 2006, a partnership of state and federal agencies, along with the University of Alaska, will conduct surveillance for bird flu. Kearney said the partnership will study up to 6,000 live waterfowl and shorebirds that migrate between Alaska and Asia. That research will begin this spring when birds start arriving. The National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis., will test the samples.
  
  Another project will test about 4,000 birds killed by subsistence hunters here this spring, and about 3,000 more birds killed during the fall hunt, Kearney said. The federal government also will collect samples of bird feces to look for the virus.
  
  Daily News reporter Ann Potempa can be reached at 257-4581 or apotempa@adn.com.

• 01/15/2006:  Madison lab monitors bird flu, Associated Press
  
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  MADISON, Wis. - Scientists at a little-known laboratory on the city's west side are preparing for their largest ever project: They're helping lead the nation's effort to watch for bird flu.
  
  Hon Ip and other workers at the National Wildlife Health Center already are testing some samples taken from live birds in Alaska.
  
  So far, the deadly and virulent H5N1 strain of bird flu that has swept through Asia and recently reached Eastern Europe hasn't been found in the United States. Authorities warn it could enter the country through an airplane passenger or exotic pet.
  
  They also point to another possible way - birds in Alaska, which fly over from Asia each spring and mingle with other birds that migrate to inland states.
  
  "Birds could pass on the virus like a relay team," said Ip, who oversees the center's diagnostic virology lab.
  
  The virus has killed more than 75 people in the past two years, and scientists worry it would kill many more if it becomes easily transmissible in humans.
  
  At the National Wildlife Health Center, Ip is overseeing a plan to quickly detect bird flu in wild birds. The Department of the Interior is funding the $11 million effort as part of President Bush's $3.8 billion bird flu readiness plan.
  
  Ip and a handful of lab workers plan to test 20,000 samples from birds, mostly from Alaska but also from other areas, with most of the samples coming this fall.
  
  The center also expects to receive dead birds from around the country to study for signs of bird flu, Ip said. Other parts of the plan include asking hunters for samples from birds they kill and testing lakes and swamps for the virus.
  
  Now Ip is ordering new lab equipment, hiring more workers and setting up training programs to get ready for the project this year.
  
  "I'm trying to get all my ducks in a row, as it were," he said.

• 01/13/2006:  Avian cholera suspected in deaths of 1,500 geese, ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
  
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  BY KATHERINE MARKS
  
  As many as 1,500 geese have died in the remote Bald Knob National Wildlife Refuge in a suspected outbreak of avian cholera, wildlife officials said Wednesday.
  
  Refuge staff found dead and dying birds Monday in a sanctuary that is closed to the public, and a wildlife pathologist from the U.S. Geological Surveys National Wildlife Health Center on Wednesday concluded the birds most likely died from avian cholera, a bacterial infection prevalent in waterfowl.
  
  Some of the dead geese will be sent to the center in Madison, Wis., for necropsies, a standard procedure used to check the pathologists field diagnosis, a news release from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said. The Fish and Wildlife Service manages the National Wildlife Refuge System.
  
  While the outbreak is the first at the refuge, it was not unexpected, said Dennis Widner, project leader for the Bald Knob, Cache River, Big Lake and Wapanocca national wildlife refuges.
  
  A wetlands-reducing severe drought has concentrated migrating waterfowl in smaller areas and sped the transmission of the disease, Widner said. Last year was the second-driest on record for Arkansas, according to the National Weather Service.
  
  Infected birds typically die within six to 12 hours, according to information on the National Wildlife Health Centers Web site. Dead birds show little signs of the disease, and its rare to see sick birds, although in later stages birds may have convulsions or swim in circles. The disease affects more than 100 species of water birds, the Web site stated.
  
  Widner said employees will bury the dead birds, numbering between 1,300 and 1,500, away from wetlands and other birds to prevent contamination, although he said the bacteria live only a short time.
  
  We are doing everything possible to contain the disease outbreak here at the refuge by not disturbing the rest of the flock, Widner said. We want this to run its course right where its at.
  
  The disease cannot be transmitted to humans, but as a general rule wildlife experts caution against touching wildlife or picking up dead or sick wildlife.
  
  The outbreak at the Bald Knob refuge was confined to snow geese and Ross geese.
  
  In the last two decades, snow geese populations have soared, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service, and waterfowl biologists have grown concerned that the geeses increasing numbers are destroying nesting habitats for other birds in Canadas Hudson Bay.
  
  The number of snow geese wintering in Arkansas and other states has grown yearly as well, and biologists say that could be contributing to the deaths. The Fish and Wildlife Service has loosened snow geese hunting regulations to help reduce the fowls populations.
  
  Outbreaks of avian cholera occur fairly often, particularly in California, Texas and Oklahoma, the release from the Fish and Wildlife Service stated. In the past six months, 66 outbreaks have occurred, said Tom MacKenzie, a Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman.
  
  This story was published Friday, January 13, 2006

• 10/01/2005:  Controlling chronic wasting disease remains a work in progress., Wisonsin Natural Resources Magazine
  
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  By Robert E. Rolley
  
  Extended hunting seasons and sharpshooters try to further reduce the deer herd in areas where CWD has been detected. DNR Photo
  
  Wisconsins CWD management plan
  
  Results to date
  
  Human health issues
  
  Research and public discussions
  
  Containing disease spread
  
  Changes at game farms
  
  Be prepared for a long-term commitment
  
  The discovery of chronic wasting disease in southern Wisconsin back in February 2002 was a significant moment and a serious threat to our state white-tailed deer population and our deer hunting culture. Here, all things deer remain a favored pastime and a big business. Wisconsins more than 700,000 deer hunters annually harvested an average of 460,000 deer during the last decade. The deer hunt provides more than seven million days of outdoor recreation each year and boosts the state economy with more than $500 million in retail sales each year and nearly $1 billion for the state businesses when travel, lodging, food, clothing, equipment and deer processing are added to the economic mix. Whitetails are also important to nonhunters who enjoy seeing deer. In 2001, an estimated 2.2 million residents watched wildlife and nearly 300,000 visitors made trips here to observe wildlife, especially deer.
  
  We know now that chronic wasting disease (CWD) is not a wildlife disease that will simply run its course and die. Wildlife disease experts have concluded that CWD will not naturally burn itself out if left alone. The abnormal proteins (prions) we believe cause the disease persist in the environment. Currently there are no proven treatments or vaccines for prion diseases and all infections are believed to be fatal. CWD will most likely increase in prevalence and distribution without management intervention. Further, there is no evidence of genetic resistance to CWD in white-tailed deer or mule deer. Computer models that simulate how diseases spread suggest if the disease were left unmanaged over the next 10-30 years that it would spread widely and might infect more than 40 percent of adult deer.
  
  Though there are no instances of CWD infecting people, many hunters remained concerned because of similarities between CWD and mad cow disease (BSE). If CWD infections are found more often and over a more widespread area, the disease could surely decrease interest in hunting and in eating venison. Hunters who have been surveyed told us that if CWD infects more than half the herd, more than half the current hunters would stop hunting. Those numbers would drop even more if scientists ever confirm a link between CWD and human disease.
  
  Wisconsins CWD management plan
  
  Given so many scientific uncertainties about the basic biology and ecology of CWD, our efforts to manage the disease are experimental by nature. There just arent established protocols and proven solutions for stopping this disease, but we need to do what we can to contain it and we cant wait for new research before we act. Since CWD behaves in a manner thats similar to other infectious diseases, its reasonable that some of the techniques used to manage these other chronic diseases may work for combating the spread of CWD. Well keep trying new strategies that look promising, but well also keep evaluating the effectiveness of controls by a very practical test is the disease infecting more animals or fewer animals, and can we slow its spread into new geographic areas? Thats why intensive surveillance for the disease remains an important tool.
  
  When chronic wasting disease was verified in Wisconsin whitetails, we quickly realized that wed need a plan that looked at wild animals, domestic animals, human health and wed need research in all of these areas. We developed an interagency partnership among the departments of Natural Resources; Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection; and Health and Family Services; together with the University of Wisconsin; U.S. Department of Agriculture; and the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center and Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit.
  
  Our aim is to minimize consequences for wild deer and elk, captive herds, hunters, landowners and others whose livelihoods depend on these herds. Our strategy to take steps to eradicate CWD in southern Wisconsin was endorsed as sound and laudable, though ambitious by an independent panel of wildlife disease experts in April 2003. That stance was reaffirmed this last July at a worldwide CWD summit held in Madison.
  
  Managing a disease in a free-ranging wild deer herd will remain controversial, difficult and expensive controversial because it depends on reducing the deer herd significantly. Were not sure if its possible and some landowners in the Eradication Zone remain unconvinced of the need; difficult because deer are spread over a wide area, they continue to breed and control efforts may have to continue for decades; expensive because the only reliable way to evaluate disease spread is to test large numbers of deer, and tests are both time-consuming and costly.
  
  Results to date
  
  Surveillance for CWD in Wisconsin started in 1999 upon the discovery that infected elk from game farms in the western U.S. had been transported to other states. Through the fall of 2001, about 1,100 deer bagged by state hunters tested negative for the disease. Three positive samples from western Dane County were harvested during the November 2001 hunt and disease was confirmed in test results reported in February 2002. That warranted more intensive testing in March and April 2002. Some 516 deer were collected within a 12-mile radius of the three positive samples. Fifteen of those deer also tested positive for CWD. More extensive testing has continued since that time. As of last April, 470 wild deer have tested positive for CWD; 445 of those in southwestern Wisconsin, 24 in three counties nearer the Illinois border, and one in eastern Dane County between the two outbreaks. Just south of the border in adjacent areas of Illinois, another 96 deer have tested positive for the disease.
  
  Recent late winter aerial surveys monitor deer population changes in the Disease Eradication Zone (DEZ). DNR Photo
  
  Recent late winter aerial surveys monitor deer population changes in the Disease Eradication Zone (DEZ).
  
  DNR Photo
  
  The disease outbreak in southwestern Wisconsin is tightly clustered and not random. More than 80 percent of the infected deer detected were found in a 126-square-mile area bounded by Spring Green, Mazomanie, Black Earth, Mount Horeb and Ridgeway. In that core, 4-5 percent of the deer have tested positive for CWD, at the center of the core in a few sections of land, 8-12 percent tested positive. The infection rate appears higher in bucks than among does and is higher in older animals than in younger ones.
  
  Human health issues
  
  Theres no evidence that CWD has ever caused illness in people. As a caution, health experts do not recommend eating known CWD-infected animals, especially those tissues like brain, spinal and lymph nodes where prions are shown to accumulate.
  
  The departments of agriculture and natural resources continue to work closely with meat processors to revise butchering procedures to remove tissues where prions accumulate. Hunters also have easy access to guidelines for processing their venison to minimize risk of CWD exposure.
  
  Hunters in the disease eradication zone of CWD-affected areas can also request to have their deer tested free of charge. A simple system alerts hunters of those test results. When deer have tested positive, the hunter will receive a phone call; for negative tests, hunters receive a post card. Results are also quickly posted on a website. Elsewhere in the state, hunters can have their deer analyzed for CWD with the help of veterinarians and diagnostic labs.
  
  Systems for disposing of deer carcasses and butchering wastes have also been developed to minimize disease exposure. Research shows that sanitary landfills can adequately contain these wastes, yet, due to concerns from landfill operators and municipal waste managers, more stringent disposal options have been taken for the past three years. Awaiting test results, DNR wildlife managers store these deer in refrigerated semi-trailers. Animals that test positive and butchering wastes are incinerated or chemically digested.
  
  Last year another option made better use of animals harvested by hunters who did not choose to keep them for their own use. Over 2,200 deer that tested negative for CWD were processed by Wisconsin meat packers into one-pound packs of ground venison and were donated to food pantries. Through this cautious approach, hunters are now keeping or donating better than 85 percent of the deer harvested.
  
  Research and public discussions
  
  Thirty-four CWD studies are underway in Wisconsin and were collaborating on another 12 studies nationwide to answer questions about how the disease, deer and people interact in the environment. Others are testing tools for diagnosing the disease and determining any human health consequences from CWD exposure. There are lots of practical questions to answer about how the disease is transmitted; how prions react in soil; determining which animal species are most susceptible to the disease; and evaluating how hunters, landowners and others react to CWD news. Research on diagnostic tests for CWD have already led to new screening tests that significantly shorten the testing notification time for hunters who harvest deer.
  
  Public outreach to notify people about CWD investigations has also gotten more sophisticated. Wildlife managers use a mix of public meetings, newspaper articles, maps, public opinion polling, personal visits, toll-free information lines, individual mailings, web pages, publications and contacts at registration stations to share information. A majority of hunters surveyed believe they are receiving enough information about chronic wasting disease to make sound decisions about disease exposure and about two-thirds believe the agency provides opportunities to listen to their concerns and opinions about the disease. Moreover, communications among the Department of Natural Resources, other state and federal agencies, researchers, landowners, hunters, municipalities, lawmakers and other residents in areas where CWD is being investigated is critical in taking collaborative actions to control the disease spread.
  
  Containing disease spread
  
  Removing as many deer as possible from CWD-infected areas provides our best opportunity to control the disease. Since there are no effective CWD vaccines nor proven treatments for infected animals, a key strategy remains reducing the deer herd size and changing its composition. Increasing the harvest, especially of does, will eventually produce smaller herds of younger animals. Thats important because we know that younger animals are less likely to transmit the disease; deer over three years old have the highest infection rates. As the population size drops and fewer deer disperse, disease transmission would also be expected to drop.
  
  Were coupling that with other strategies to reduce disease spread. Within counties where CWD has been identified, sick, injured and orphaned deer cannot be rehabilitated. The sale and movement of farm-raised game is carefully monitored. All deer harvested or dying on game farms must be tested for signs of the disease. And butchering wastes and carcasses are carefully managed as previously described. Baiting and deer feeding within CWD areas is prohibited to lessen the likelihood that deer will congregate and potentially spread disease. In areas where CWD has been detected, extended hunting seasons and bag limits will remain much more liberal and additional permits will allow landowners to hunt deer outside of established seasons. Some landowners have allowed government sharpshooters to remove additional animals in late fall and winter months.
  
  A partnership with Whitetails Unlimited in 2003 and 2004 offered rewards to hunters and landowners who harvested deer that subsequently tested positive in CWD affected areas. Hunters and landowners split $400 payments when positive deer were detected and all hunters who registered deer taken in the disease eradication zone (DEZ) were eligible for $20 payments drawn on a lottery basis. An estimated $250,000 was paid out each year under this incentive program.
  
  These combined programs are slowly reducing herd numbers in infected areas as hoped. In 2002-3 more than 9,200 deer were removed from the eradication zone, nearly 13,700 deer in the 2003-4 season and approximately 16,000 in the 2004-5 season. Between 65-70 percent of these animals were antlerless deer (does and fawns). A survey of hunters in the DEZ following the 2003 season found they hunted an average of four days longer and harvested twice as many deer as hunters outside of the CWD management zones. Still, the goal of reducing the deer densities in CWD affected areas remains daunting. Researchers believe they will need to reduce and sustain the herd levels to about five animals per square mile of deer habitat to control the disease. Winter aerial surveys estimate cumulative efforts since 2001 have reduced the herd 40 percent from 48 to 28 deer per square mile in Deer Management Unit 70A that is entirely within the DEZ. A similar Herd Reduction Zone sets a 40-mile radius ring around the DEZ in southwestern Wisconsin within which managers provide hunting opportunities to reduce deer populations to 10 deer per square mile. Between 73-75 percent of the deer harvested in this zone were antlerless deer in the last three years.
  
  Changes at game farms
  
  Nearly 720 deer and elk farms in Wisconsin contain about 30,500 animals mainly whitetails and elk with smaller numbers of several other deer species. Since the discovery of CWD these farms have been subject to more recent inspection and more rigid bookkeeping requirements. Theyve had to beef up their fencing and testing programs. Orphaned and injured deer from the wild can no longer be accepted at game farms. All farms selling live animals must census their animals, mark each with identifying marks and file annual reports detailing where each animal came from or was shipped. Any animal imported into Wisconsin needs a permit from the State Veterinarian, certified inspection, proof that it is free of tuberculosis and brucellosis and documentation that it came from a herd that has had no evidence of CWD for at least five years.
  
  DNR audits of 550 farms in 2002 found the majority complied with existing state laws, though 77 game farms had fencing violations. Audits showed that during the lifetime of those game farm operations more than 400 animals had escaped from more than 182 farms.
  
  Currently 544 of the 720 captive herds are enrolled in the monitoring program. The remainder are small hobby farms or hunting preserves that do not ship live animals. All captive animals 16 months or older that die or are slaughtered must be tested for CWD. As of last February, 29 farm-raised white-tailed deer and one elk have tested positive for CWD from seven different Wisconsin farms. All the animals from five of these seven herds have been destroyed and the owners indemnified. One owner is contesting the court order and the animals in question remain under quarantine.
  
  Be prepared for a long-term commitment
  
  Public support to eliminate or contain the spread of CWD remains strong among hunters and landowners. Support for the particular strategies the Department of Natural Resources is pursuing is not as strong, but most give the DNR good grades for the efforts to date. Commitment from the general public and legislature will be critical to bolster the $20 million (largely from hunting fees) spent in Wisconsin since 2002 on CWD surveillance, management and eradication efforts. We believe the average $5 million spent annually on CWD management is a sound investment to protect the health of our deer herd, given deer hunting's nearly $1 billion impact on the state's economy and its value as prized recreation.
  
  We cant accurately predict how many years it may take to determine if CWD control programs in Wisconsin are effective in reducing the incidence of disease and the size of the area affected. However, our nations experiences in controlling other animal diseases are instructive. U.S. programs to eradicate brucellosis in the nations beef herd began in 1934. The infection level was reduced from 11 percent in the 1930s to five percent in the 1940s to less than one percent in the 1970s. The Australian programs to eradicate bovine tuberculosis and brucellosis required over 20 years. Michigans program to eradicate bovine tuberculosis from its free-ranging deer herd has been underway for 10 years and may require another 10-20 years as well.
  
  During these first three years of dealing with this disease weve conducted extensive tests to determine the extent of the disease. Weve made significant progress reducing free-ranging deer populations where disease has been detected. Weve taken further steps to reduce its transmission including banning baiting and feeding of deer in these areas, and tracking and controlling CWD spread on game farms. Weve also made significant headway in describing the realistic risks of disease exposure to people, setting up systems to test harvested animals, sharing those results, safely disposing of deer that test positive, and making good use of deer that are not infected.
  
  Given how much we have to learn about this most unusual disease, its too early to predict whether our management program can eradicate CWD, but that is clearly our aim. Stopping any wildlife disease, especially one that is caused by abnormal proteins, is a difficult challenge. Our management approach is very similar to that which is making headway in Michigan to control bovine tuberculosis. Controlling CWD in one of our most popular and widespread wildlife species will test our resolve, our financial commitment, our staff and volunteer commitment, and our scientific abilities to limit its spread. This effort will also require sustained cooperation and communication among natural resource and agricultural agencies, researchers, volunteers, hunters, landowners, and captive deer/elk producers.
  
  Robert E. Rolley is a wildlife researcher with DNRs Bureau of Integrated Science Services. This article is distilled from his recent publication CE-461, "Controlling Chronic Wasting Disease in Wisconsin, A Progress Report and Look Toward the Future." Copies of the full report are also available from Alan Crossley, 3911 Fish Hatchery Rd., Fitchburg, WI 53711 and can be downloaded online at