The Wildlife News

Wildlife Disease

  • Cat-to-rat-and-back parasite directly changes human brain chemistry

    Ralph Maughan

    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…

  • Close elk feeding grounds, make elk migrate, avoid disease disaster

    Ken Cole

    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…

  • Deadly Atlantic Salmon Virus Found in Wild British Columbia Salmon

    Ken Cole

    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…

  • Bighorn sheep reintroduced to Nevada’s, Virginia Range

    Ralph Maughan

    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…

  • Brucellosis Zone Could Expand Beyond Yellowstone

    Brian Ertz

    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.…

  • A new, sometimes lethal, tick bite infection spreads

    Ralph Maughan

    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…

  • Cats pass Toxoplasmosis to Wildlife

    Ralph Maughan

    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.…

  • Dangerous snow: Is foot rot taking hold at the National Elk Refuge?

    Ralph Maughan

    Rot is caused by freeze-thaw cycles in unsanitary snow- We just have to keep pointing out that persistant winter feeding of elk breeds disease. Now 23 elk have been put down for what is thought to be foot rot. No doubt more will die. Foot rot suspected in elk deaths on refuge. By Cory Hatch.…

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‎”At some point we must draw a line across the ground of our home and our being, drive a spear into the land and say to the bulldozers, earthmovers, government and corporations, “thus far and no further.” If we do not, we shall later feel, instead of pride, the regret of Thoreau, that good but overly-bookish man, who wrote, near the end of his life, “If I repent of anything it is likely to be my good behaviour.”

Edward Abbey

“The continued existence of wildlife and wilderness is important to the quality of life of humans.”

Jim Fowler

“Our forests offer much more than just beautiful landscapes and wildlife. Each one has a different story to tell.”

Raveena Tandon

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