He thinks it\’s \’commonsense\’ that free range birds are more likely to contract the virus because they have more exposure to wild water birds.
\”If you have commercial poultry free ranging and they come into contact with these wild water fowl, wild ducks, invariably at some stage they will contaminate this commercial poultry, and, using simple terms, the virus hots up and it gets into these commercial poultry and you finish up like the current situation like we have, where we have significant mortalities and we need to quarantine the farms and unfortunately have to destroy the birds.\”
via Poultry vet agrees free range encourages bird flu – ABC Rural (Australian Broadcasting Corporation).
Like this:
Like Loading...
Russian authorities on Wednesday charged five Greenpeace activists – a Briton, a Brazilian, a Finn, a Russian and a US-Swedish citizen – with piracy for protesting against Arctic oil drilling. Another 25 Greenpeace protesters are awaiting charges.
via Russia charges five Greenpeace activists with piracy – RUSSIA – FRANCE 24.
Like this:
Like Loading...
|
Ringing the Warning Bell: Colistin-Resistant Klebsiella
|
In all the latest bad news about bacteria becoming highly resistant — through carbapenem resistance, or the “Indian supergene” NDM-1 — there has been one hopeful thread: All of the organisms have remained susceptible to one very old, little-used drug called colistin.
That might be about to change. Which would be very, very bad news.
|
To recap: A resistance factor is spreading that leaves very serious infections treatable by only a single remaining drug, one which is acknowledged not to be perfect. The more a drug is used, the faster resistance against it develops. Especially for Gram-negative infections, there are no new drugs in the pipeline.
Read more at www.wired.com |
Like this:
Like Loading...
|
Drug Resistance in Food — Coming from Aquaculture?
|
Salmonella Kentucky ST198, it is much more drug-resistant than the US Heidelberg outbreak, and it has been spreading since 2002 from Egypt and north Africa through Europe, and has now been identified in the United States. Its primary vector appears to be chicken meat.
|
The authors are especially concerned about farms that practice what’s called “integrated aquaculture,” in which chicken litter and manure are used to fertilize ponds in which fish are grown, and waste from the ponds is harvested and used as poultry feed.
Read more at www.wired.com |
Like this:
Like Loading...
|
Australia Pistachio Disaster Hints at Agricultural Breakdown
|
The culprit was anthracnose, a fungal disease best known for infecting mangoes. It raced through the industry, resulting in a harvest some 50 percent smaller than expected — and half of that was inedible.
|
“The wide cultivation of genetically uniform plant populations fosters rapid evolution among the pathogens,” said Scot Nelson, a plant pathologist at the University of Hawaii. “Because of this greed, new pathogens or newly reported host-pathogen combinations arise almost daily around the world.”
Read more at www.wired.com |
Like this:
Like Loading...
|
Sea Turtle Deaths Anger Mississippi Residents
|
Even 13 dead turtles is an unusually high number in March. In the past three years, NMFS reports no turtles were stranded in Mississippi until the beginning of April. The only other Gulf state to report a rise in on-shore turtle deaths this year is Texas with 48, more than twice the number counted in 2009–the year before the BP oil blowout. That year, the total number of on-shore turtle deaths in the Gulf shot up to 248, nearly five times the number from the previous year.
|
All five turtle species found in the gulf are endangered or threatened, including the Kemp Ridleys and the Loggerheads often seen near shore. |
“I’m really mad. I’m finding dead turtles, birds, giant fish and other animals all over the beach. No one comes by to clean them up right away and people come down here and let their kids play next to them. And the water looks like chicken broth.”
|
Like this:
Like Loading...
|
Infant dolphins dying in high numbers
|
GULFPORT — Baby dolphins, some barely three feet in length, are washing up along the Mississippi and Alabama coastlines at 10 times the normal rate of stillborn and infant deaths, researchers are finding.
Read more at www.sunherald.com |
Like this:
Like Loading...
Like this:
Like Loading...
Second Look Behind the Headlines – News you can use…
Ned Hamson's Second Line View of the News 