Wildlife Disease
-
This morning the Idaho Statesman published the view of Margaret Soulen-Hinson, the President of the American Sheep Industry Association. The letter was a response to a letter submitted to the Idaho Statesman co-signed by John Gale, National Wildlife Federation; Rob Fraser, Idaho Wildlife Federation; Craig Gehrke, The Wilderness Society; John Robison, Idaho Conservation League; and…
-
Common human brain parasite Toxoplasma gondii doesn’t just make rats like cats- It works like this. The protozoan Toxoplasma comes to maturity inside a cat and the cysts are expelled in cat feces. Any cat that lives part of the time outside may be infected. The parasite doesn’t hurt the cat, however. A rat or…
-
Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) has been found in elk, deer, and moose in several areas of Wyoming and has been moving ever closer to the already brucellosis infected elk herds that use feeding grounds in northwest Wyoming. The feeding grounds long ago caused the elk to stop migrating to a unique area along the Continental…
-
A potentially devastating virus has been discovered for the first time in Pacific salmon stocks of British Columbia. The disease, infectious salmon anemia (ISA), has devastated Atlantic salmon and salmon farms in Chile, but how the virus will effect Pacific salmon is unknown. The fear is that it could be devastating all along the west…
-
Release of 32 bighorn underway- This release by the Nevada Department of Wildlife, Nevada Bighorns Unlimited and private individuals has taken 20 years to be accomplished. The stock for the release came from Nevada to the south around Stonewall Mountain near Tonapah. They are desert, not Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep. Bighorn are now back in…
-
The state of Montana is considering expanding the area around Yellowstone where livestock must be vaccinated and tested for the livestock disease brucellosis after several elk tested positive for the disease in the Ruby Mountains. Montana animal disease zone could expand – AP What this may mean for wildlife in the area is still uncertain.…
-
Babesiosis, spread by deer ticks, could come to rival Lyme disease- Ticks are an incredible reservoir of nasty diseases, and it seems like new ones are frequently discovered. Unfortunately, all too many are transmitted by the hard-to-see, small deer tick, which is much more common in the Eastern U.S. The larger, creepy-looking Rocky Mountain wood…
-
Here is a real threat- Although anti-wolf people try to scare us with the seldom caught Hydatid disease which is almost entirely spread, by dogs, fox, and coyotes, here is the latest on a very important threat from scat — domestic cat scat — toxoplasmosis gondii. I have mentioned T. gondii a number of times.…