WBEZ | wildlife

'Devastating' bat disease reaches Illinois, scientists report

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 05:00:00 -0600

Scientists have confirmed the arrival of the fungus known for causing White-Nose Syndrome, a disease blamed for more than 5.7 million bat deaths since its discovery in 2006.

“It’s devastating news,” said Julia Kilgour, a bat ecologist with the Urban Wildlife Institute.

Its arrival was predicted years ago, in light of the disease's unrelenting march through bat populations as far west as Oklahoma and as far north as Québec. Some infected caves on the East Coast have lost 90 to 100 percent of their population of little brown bats, a species also common in Illinois.

Perhaps as troubling as the disease’s severity is how little scientists know about its pathology.

“This disease has come up so quickly and spread so rapidly that it’s very difficult for scientists to keep up with it,” Kilgour said.

The name White-Nose Syndrome describes the fuzzy white fungus that accumulates on the noses of infected bats, but also on their wings, ears and tails. One prevalent hypothesis for how it affects its host is that it interrupts the bat’s hibernation cycle. Irritated by the infection, bats rouse from their winter rest too frequently, burning up fat stores meant to carry them through lean winter months.

The disease also destroys skin tissue on the wings of infected bats, dehydrating the bats and leaving them with holes sometimes as large as an inch in diameter (the typical little brown bat wingspan is less than 10 inches). Scientists have not been able to determine whether the hibernation disruption, dehydration, or something else entirely is chiefly responsible for the disease’s massive mortality.

Bats flock together from hundreds of miles around to hibernate, potentially spreading the fungus across state lines. And while humans cannot contract the disease, they may unknowingly ferry it between hibernacula, the scientific term for hibernation locations. White-Nose Syndrome has prompted cave closures and outright bans on spelunking in some areas, and Kilgour said cavers should disinfect their gear with bleach solution or Lysol before entering a new cave.

The fungus Geomyces destructans was first found afflicting U.S. bats in Schoharie County, N.Y., near the state capital Albany. But G. destructans is native to Europe, where it does not seem to cause the disease. Bats that migrate to Mexico or the southern U.S. can escape the cold-loving fungus.

Bats are responsible for perhaps billions of dollars worth of agricultural services each year, by way of pest-control and pollination. Although research done in 2010 by New York state's Department of Health suggested antifungal drugs already used to treat people and animals, the logistical difficulties of treating millions of bats in the wild are prohibitive.

“Sterilizing nature is not really an option,” Kilgour said.

Although the fungus is here, widespread bat fatalities typically don’t happen until a year later.

Kilgour runs a project attempting to take stock of Chicago's bat population. Outbreaks like White-Nose Syndrome underscore the importance of wildlife monitoring programs, she said, because they provide a benchmark for future population losses.

“We’ll be listening this summer,” she said.

Chicago zoo helps vaccinate dogs in Tanzania

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 14:51:00 -0500

Officials with a Chicago zoo say they've vaccinated a million dogs in Tanzania as part of a project to eliminate rabies and save endangered carnivores in the Serengeti National Park.

The Lincoln Park Zoo says its project began in 2003 and the zoo's Serengeti Health Initiative team has worked in villages in northern Tanzania to administer the donated vaccines.

Zoo officials announced their one millionth vaccination in a news release Wednesday.

Steve Thompson is the zoo's vice president of conservation. He says the populations of already-endangered carnivores like lions and African wild dogs were declining as native species were contracting rabies from local domestic dogs.

Zoo officials estimate that the vaccinations have saved about 150 humans from rabies infections as well.

Swan linked to suburban Chicago man's drowning

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 10:02:16 -0500

Officials say an aggressive swan may have contributed to the death of a suburban Chicago kayaker who drowned.

Anthony Hensley of Villa Park was pulled from a pond at a Des Plaines area condominium complex Saturday morning. The medical examiner's office ruled his death an accident.

Cook County sheriff's spokesman Frank Bilecki says the 37-year-old, an experienced kayaker, may have paddled too close to a nesting swan as he checked on the birds.

Bilecki says a jogger reported seeing Hensley fall from the kayak into the water. No one saw any swans attack him, but witnesses said they saw two birds circling him after he fell into the water. He went under as he attempted to swim to shore.

JoJo the gorilla moves from Chicago zoo to 'burbs

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 14:34:00 -0500

JoJo the silverback gorilla is leaving Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo for a new home in the suburbs. And zoo officials hope he'll start a family once he's there.

The 31-year-old is being moved from the city's North Side to Brookfield Zoo in the western suburbs. There are female gorillas at Brookfield who zoo officials hope the 485-pound ape will mate with. Two female gorillas are also leaving Lincoln Park Zoo as part of a breeding program. They'll go to zoos in Kansas City and Columbus, Ohio.

A goodbye birthday party will be held for JoJo on April 10.

In more moves, two young male apes will arrive at Lincoln Park this summer to share a habitat with two other males who live there.

Sea lion dies at Chicago's Shedd Aquarium

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 15:14:00 -0600

Caretakers at Chicago's Shedd Aquarium say they have euthanized a 13-year-old male California sea lion named Otis.

Aquarium officials say they made the decision after the sea lion showed a rapid decline in health due to progressive urogenital cancer. Otis came to the Shedd Aquarium in 2009 as part of a program to relocate sea lions from the Bonneville Dam in Washington state. Dozens of sea lions were endangering fish stocks in the Columbia River.

Veterinarians say Otis started losing his appetite and showing signs of lethargy a few weeks ago. He was euthanized last week. Shedd Aquarium animal care and training vice president Ken Ramirez said euthanizing the sea lion was a "difficult but necessary decision."

Shedd has two other male California sea lions named Biff and Tyler.

Postcard: Scientists climb into bald eagle nests to measure health of the Great Lakes

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 14:00:00 -0500

Biologists with the National Park Service are in their sixth year of visiting eagle nests on Lake Superior for blood and feather samples that help them monitor the level of toxic pollutants in the lake

Feisty is good from WBEZ on Vimeo.

Jim Spickler is wearing an orange hardhat and hanging on a climbing rope 100 feet up in a white pine tree on Basswood Island in Lake Superior.

SLIDESHOW

J.W. Westcott,
Detroit's floating
post office

“Good morning, Mr. Eagle,” he says to a fuzzy brown bird sitting on the six-foot-wide jumble of sticks that serves as the eaglet’s nest. Spickler is a wildlife biologist and an expert climber from northern California where he works in giant redwood trees. It’s his job to gently stuff the eaglet into a sack and bring it to the ground for a quick checkup. The eaglet is only seven weeks old, but it’s already the size of a small goose, and it has formidable talons attached to its bright yellow feet.Waiting for Spickler on the ground is Bill Route, an ecologist with the National Park Service’s Inventory and Monitoring Program, which keeps tabs on the wellbeing of plants and animals on Park Service land. Route heads up this survey of eagle nests.“Eagles are a success story,” Route says. “Their numbers are increasing.”

Route says there were no eagles at all nesting on the Great Lakes in the late 1960s, thanks in part to the insecticide DDT, which left the eagle’s eggs perilously thin and nearly wiped the birds out. But DDT was banned in 1972, and eagles started to bounce back. They were removed from the Endangered Species List in 2007.

“We still find traces of DDT in eagles,” Route says. “It’s very persistent. And that’s what we’re worried about: persistent, toxic chemicals that accumulate up the food chain.”

Like some flame-retardant and stain resistant chemicals. The scientists will screen the eaglet’s blood for those, too.

“Eagles are a sentinel species,” Route says. “They get this magnification. Since bald eagles sit on top of the food chain, they get a lot of the contaminant because they eat other organisms that are also contaminated.”

As Route is talking, Jim Spickler descends the climbing rope with the eaglet. They draw a blood sample from the bird and make some measurements. The eaglet hisses at them and makes some klutzy attempts at biting their hands. In minutes, Spickler is on his way back up the rope to put the eaglet back on its nest.

Two adult eagles circle above the trees letting out a steady stream of cries. The sound is surprisingly thin and high-pitched for a bird with a seven-foot wingspan. The biologists say adult eagles can be noisy, but they rarely attack humans. The adults will be back on the nest soon after the humans leave.

A few minutes later, the eaglet is in its nest and Jim Spickler is on the ground.

“It’s a little bit of a feisty chick,” he says as he starts packing his climbing gear. “But that means that it’s well fed and it’s likely to survive. So, mission accomplished.”