Cockfighters spread Asian killer bird flu

March 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2004:

BANGKOK, BEIJING–Cockfighters, cock
breeders, and public officials kow-towing to
them tried to pass the blame for spreading the
deadly H5N1 avian flu virus throughout Southeast
Asia to pigeons, sparrows, and even open-billed
storks.
Bad vaccines took some of the rap, too.
An attempt was even made, as the death
toll increased on factory farms, to attribute
the epidemic to free range poultry producers.
But as the H5N1 “red zones” expanded in
at least eight nations, the evidence pointed
ever more directly at commerce in gamecocks–and
at the efforts of cockfighters and cock breeders
to protect their birds from the culls and disease
outbreaks that had already killed more than 100
million chickens who were raised to lay eggs and
be eaten, as well as 22 people, most of them
children.
The pattern of the H5N1 outbreak
paralleled the spread of exotic Newcastle disease
through southern California and into Arizona
between November 2002 and May 2003.
Approximately 3.7 million laying hens were killed
to contain the Newcastle epidemic, but USDA
investigators believe it began among backyard
fighting bird flocks, advancing as gamecocks
were transported between fights. It apparently
invaded commercial layer flocks through
contaminated clothing worn by workers who
participated in cockfighting.

G.I. pets banned as “biosecurity risk”

March 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2004:

BOSTON–Dogs and cats who help U.S. military personnel endure
the stress of serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are the latest urgent
biosecurity risk to the United States, according to some
bureaucrats, who are now trying to keep the troops from bringing
their companions home.
Comparisons are in order. Published accounts indicate that
U.S. troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan during the past two
years have brought home fewer than 100 dogs and cats in total. None
are known to have carried any serious disease.
Just a handful of dogs and cats are believed to have been
imported from Iraq after the 1991 Persian Gulf War. None of them
carried any serious disease, either.
Illegal imports of wildlife and wildlife parts into U.S.,
worth about $1 billion in 1991, are now worth $3 billion, estimates
the U.S. Department of Justice. Federal and state agencies have yet
to even visibly slow the clandestine wildlife traffic, every item of
which is an uninspected, untested potential biosecurity hazard.

Immunocontraception comes of age

January 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2003:

BILLINGS, RENO, WHITEHORSE–Immunocontraceptives for dogs,
cats, and deer are still not quite here yet, but widespread
applications and planned deployments involving bears, elephants,
wolves, and wild horses indicate that immunocontraception of
wildlife may at last be close to losing the qualifying adjective
“experimental”– at least in the species that are easiest to inject
and keep track of.
New Jersey Department of Environ-mental Protection
commissioner Bradley Campbell announced in November 2002 that his
agency hopes to test immunocontraceptives to control bears this
spring. The New Jersey bear population has increased from an
estimated 100 in 1970, when the state last opened a bear hunting
season, to as many as 2,500 according to much disputed official
figures. An attempt to resume bear hunting in 2000 was quashed by
adverse public opinion.

Free online vet help

January 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2003:

The Merck Veterinary Manual, considered the single most
comprehensive reference on animal care, is now accessible at no
charge c/o <www.merckvetmanual.com/mvm/index.jsp>.
Covering 12,000+ indexed topics, with more than 1,200
illustrations, the manual may be electronically searched by topic,
species, specialty, or disease.

Medicine

Bad-mouthed cats may have Bartonella bacteria

December 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2002:

Chronic gingivitis and stomatitis in cats, resulting in
tooth loss and inflamed gums, may be caused by Bartonella–the
bacteria that causes “cat scratch fever” in humans, after the
bacterium is transmitted into the bloodstream by cat claws that have
been licked by infected cats.
Cats can transmit Bartonella to other cats by scratching,
biting, spitting, hissing, sneezing, or even eye-licking in
connection with social grooming.

Wildlife agencies fight game ranchers to halt CWD

December 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2002:

MADISON, Wisconsin; PORTLAND, Oregon–Just a year ago
wildlife agencies thought the biggest threats to the future of
hunting were animal rights activism and the aging hunter population.
Hunting publications and web sites pushed right-to-hunt laws and
youth recruitment.
Discovered among captive-reared deer and elk in Colorado in
1966, after cervids and sheep were raised together for some time at
an agricultural research station, chronic wasting disease was barely
mentioned.

California blood bank bill helps to relegate pound seizure to history

November 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2002:

SACRAMENTO, California–The once ubiquitous and unrestrained
biomedical use of homeless dogs and cats acquired from public pounds
receded farther into history on October 3, as California Governor
Gray Davis signed into law SB 1345, by state senator Sheila Kuehl.
“Establishing the first-ever protections for animal blood
donors used by commercial blood banks in California,” according to
United Animal Nations spokesperson Pat Runquist, SB 1345 “was
supported by a broad coalition of veterinary groups, animal
protection organizations, and more than 300 individuals, many of
whom live near blood bank kennels in Butter and Glenn counties in
Northern California,” Runquist continued.

Women’s Health Initiative warning on estrogen therapy may help horses

September 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2002:

ATLANTA, WASHINGTON D.C., WINNIPEG–The beginning of the
end of keeping pregnant mares standing from October to March of each
year on urine production lines, and auctioning their foals to
slaughter, may have come with a July 9 scientific warning that, on
balance, estrogen supplements made from pregnant mare’s urine do
menopausal women more harm than good.
The Women’s Health Initiative, an unprecedentedly large
scientific investigation of the effects of taking hormonal
supplements, monitored the health of 16,000 women for nine years,
beginning in 1993.

Look at what sea otters & dogs eat

September 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2002:

SAN FRANCISCO, LONDON– Cats were accused of spreading
toxoplasmosis to California sea otters and dogs were accused of
spreading campylobacter bacteria throughout Britain in new studies
released in early July 2002–but while the allegations were quickly
amplified by mainstream news media and picked up by anti-feral cat
and anti-street dog activists, the research behind each study
overlooked key dietary factors in the transmission of the diseases.
Marine biologist Melissa Miller and colleagues with the
Wildlife Health Center at the Davis campus of the University of
California claimed in the July edition of the International Journal
for Parasitology to have traced an ongoing seven-year decline in the
population of endangered California sea otters to the fecal parasite
Toxoplasma gondi. They found the microscopic parasite in 66 of the
107 sea otter carcasses they examined.

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