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Hunting Can Increase Wildlife Disease Epidemics
As per a research findings published the August 7 edition of the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, post-doctoral researcher Marc Choisy and Pejman Rohani, associate professor of ecology and UGA Biomedical and Health Sciences Institute researcher, create a detailed mathematical model that demonstrates how the combination of hunting and factors such as birth season and mating season influence disease outbreaks. Their results suggest that wildlife managers and health officials use caution when considering hunting or culling as a means to manage diseases as diverse as rabies, tuberculosis and even avian influenza. "One consequence of hunting that we show in this paper is that it can increase the probability of dying from the disease," Choisy said. "It can give you results that are contrary to what you expect". The reasoning behind killing wild animals to control disease outbreaks is simple: fewer animals should result in reduced transmission of disease. Hunting has been used to control badger populations in England, rabies in European foxes and chronic wasting disease in deer and elk populations in the American West. The scientists note that in each instance, disease outbreaks have worsened in response to the hunting......... Posted by: Kelly Permalink Source Free Bamboo
Help us free Bamboo from the confines of the zoo system, where she has endured tiny yards, periods of abuse and all-night chaining, and a very stressful failed transfer to another inadequate zoo in Tacoma. TES has agreed to transport and care for her, at its own expense, for the remainder of Bamboo's life, while WPZ refuses to commit to her long-term care. Enjoy a couple of hours with like-minded people and snack on Mighty-O doughnuts while joining the large-scale push to have Bamboo sent to wide open spaces in Tennessee! Several media outlets have expressed great interest in this momentous event, so we need all of you there!. Please express your concerns about Bamboo to: Deborah Jensen: deborah.jensen@zoo.org, (206)684-4880. Mayor Greg Nichols: web comment form, (206)684-4000. David Della: david.della@seattle.gov, (206)684-8806. Bamboo's Story Bamboo came to Seattle from Thailand as a frightened one-year-old baby Asian elephant in 1968. She grew into a gentle adult, docile enough to be walked on zoo grounds and touched by zoo visitors. In the late 80's, Bamboo became aggressive toward handlers, during a period of intense physical punishment and all-night chaining. After the birth of a baby elephant in 2001, Bamboo was put into indoor solitary confinement for weeks and began pacing in constant counter-clockwise circles and shaking her head neurotically. She was not trusted with the baby for the first few years after her birth. ........ Posted by: Kelly Permalink Source Bird Brains Shrink From Contaminants
"These residues have been persisting since the late 1960s--that's what is really disturbing," said Dr. Andrew Iwaniuk, a post-doctoral research fellow in the U of A's Department of Psychology. "It has been years since it has been used and still has this effect". The new research, published in Behavioural Brain Research, strongly suggests that exposure to environmental levels of DDT causes significant changes in the brains of songbirds. Prior studies have suggested that exposure to DDT residues affect the brain, but none have actually demonstrated it. The research team, including Iwaniuk's supervisor, psychology professor and Tier II Canada Research Chair Douglas Wong-Wylie, used American Robins to test the idea. Birds are more susceptible to the effects of pesticide residues and other contaminants in the environment than other animals. As well, American robins are often exposed to high levels of DDT and other chemicals because they rely heavily on earthworms as part of their diet. They specifically chose these birds in the Okanagan Valley because at that location they are exposed to high levels of DDT, but relatively low levels of other chemicals......... Posted by: Kelly Permalink Source How Spiders Invade New Territory
Credit: Rothamsted Research How do spiders fly to new territory with a single strand of thread? This question has long puzzled the scientists. Now researchers have developed a new model that explains how spiders are able to 'fly' or 'parachute' into new territory on single strands of silk - sometimes covering distances of hundreds of miles over open ocean. By casting a thread of silk into the breeze spiders are able to ride wind currents away from danger or to parachute into new areas. Often they travel a few metres but some spiders have been discovered hundreds of miles out to sea. Scientists have now found that in turbulent air the spiders' silk moulds to the eddies of the airflow to carry them further. The team at Rothamsted Research, a sponsored institute of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), realised that the existing 20 year old models to explain this phenomenon - known as 'ballooning' - failed to adequately deal with anything other than perfectly still air. Called Humphrey's model it made assumptions that the spider silk was rigid and straight and the spiders were just blobs hanging on the bottom. It could not explain why spiders were able to travel long distances over water, to colonise new volcanic islands or why they were found on ships. The new Rothamsted mathematical model allows for elasticity and flexibility of a ballooning spider's dragline - and when a dragline is caught in turbulent air the model shows how it can become highly contorted, preventing the spider from controlling the distance it travels and propelling it over potentially epic distances......... Posted by: Kelly Permalink Source Parasites Form The Thread Of Food Webs
This free-swimming stage of a parasite larva, a trematode cercaria, leaves an infected snail to encyst on a fish brain. View is 0.267 mm across.
Credit: Courtesy Todd Huspeni, University of California, Santa Barbara The results are from a study performed in Santa Barbara County at the Carpinteria Salt Marsh. This is one of several natural reserves set aside by the University of California for research and teaching. Food webs trace the flow of energy through an ecosystem. They extend the concept of food chains, those who-eats-whom sequences, to biological communities. Food webs rarely include parasites because of the difficulty in quantifying them by standard ecological methods. Parasites are small and invisible, hidden inside their hosts. However, parasites strongly affect food web structure and parasite links are necessary for measuring ecosystem stability, as per the study. "Food web theory is the framework for modern ecology," said Kevin Lafferty, a scientist with the USGS Western Ecological Research Center who is based at UC Santa Barbara and is lead author of the study. "Parasites have been missing from this framework and, as a result, we know relatively little about the role of parasites in ecosystems. It's like driving with a highway map, but with no knowledge of the smaller road network. To reach most destinations, you need a map with both"......... Posted by: Kelly Permalink Source Extinction Crisis For Amphibians
At least one-third of the world's known amphibians are threatened by the combination of attacks, and up to 122 species have become extinct within the past 25 years, the international team of specialists is reporting in today's edition of the journal Science. "Amphibian declines and extinctions are global and rapid," 50 of the world's leading specialists on water-dwelling animals declared in a joint report. At least 427 species are "critically endangered," they said. The effects are being felt in California's High Sierra, where Berkeley researchers found that the disease is rampant and killing yellow-legged frogs and Yosemite toads, whose populations already are being strained by development and pollution. While the spread of the disease is a major new threat to all amphibians, the researchers reported that the greatest current danger to every threatened species is still the loss of habitat as cities and suburbs expand, streams and ponds and wetlands give way to the needs of farmers, and forest lands are destroyed......... Posted by: Kelly Permalink Source Preserving a Wild West
Dr. Joel Berger, WCS senior scientist
Given the significant size of the pronghorn population-which numbers almost half a million in Wyoming alone-their plight has not inspired great sympathy. But this distinctly American species has become a casualty of one of the most provocative issues of our time: the national energy crisis. As Western lands become increasingly subject to development, the conservation of Rocky Mountain wildlife is losing ground-literally. Berger and his team in the WCS Teton Field Office, which includes researchers Dr. Kim Murray Berger and Dr. Jon Beckmann, are working on two projects to carve out a home for pronghorn in the face of the impending human footprint. One is the creation of a permanently protected migration corridor for the antelope. This ambitious project would conserve the most extensive trail of its kind in the Western Hemisphere, and one that has been in use since the end of the last Ice Age. The scientists' other project is a study on how natural gas development in the Rockies influences the pronghorn that winter there. Shell Exploration & Production Company, Ultra Resources, Inc., and other energy groups are funding this five-year investigation, an important collaboration between the industry and conservation sectors......... Posted by: Kelly Permalink Source Draw a forest bird and win a trip to Mombasa!
Since the availability and frequency of birds are an indicator of ecosystem health and socio-cultural norms and practices, it was hoped to raise awareness of the overall state of the forest. The project is managed by the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and funded by the European Union. In April 2006, the winner and the support team from Kuntai Primary School were taken to Mombasa to visit a greening programme undertaken by schools in Kwale District along the south coast of Kenya. For most of the participants, this was their first trip to Nairobi, the coast of Kenya, and to travel by train. Shortly after, the success of the project was demonstrated: based on the experience of the competition, the Kuntai Primary School has started a greening project amongst students. The aim of the Loita-Purko Naimina Enkiyio Integrated Forest Conservation and Development Project amongst the Maasai in Kenya was to work with the local communities to help them own and manage their sacred forest. By doing so, they contribute to maintaining biodiversity and environmental values that provide for their cultural, spiritual, and socio-economic needs......... Posted by: Kelly Permalink Source Mouse Rides Frog in India
Photographed Friday in the northern Indian city of Lucknow (India map), a mouse perches on a frog in waist-deep (for a frog, anyway) floodwaters-a small sign of the early arrival of annual summer monsoon rains. So far, more than 30 people have died in India as a result of this year's monsoon-driven landslides and floods. Last year's deluge killed some 1,000 people in the financial center of Mumbai (Bombay) alone. Today polluted, knee-deep waters are raising fears of a repeat disaster among the city's roughly 17 million inhabitants. In drought-stricken areas, too, frogs were playing the role of rescuer......... Posted by: Kelly Permalink Source Giant Catfish Protected
The largest freshwater fish in the world, the giant catfish can grow up to 10 feet (3 meters) long and weigh 650 pounds (300 kilograms). It is found only in the Mekong River system, which runs through China, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. More than 60 fishers made the pledge to stop catching the giant fish at a ceremony held last month in the northern city of Chiang Kong. It was one of several events to celebrate Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej's reign. Fishers in neighboring Laos have also vowed to stop hunting the giant fish......... Posted by: Kelly Permalink Source |
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