Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study
Date of this Version
October 2006
Abstract
The final rule on Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) Herd Certification Program and Interstate Movement of Farmed or Captive Deer, Elk, and Moose was published in the Federal Register by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Animal Plant and Health Inspection Service (APHIS) on July 21, 2006 (SCWDS BRIEFS, Vol. 22, No. 2). SCWDS researchers recently received research support from the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for a project entitled “Avian Influenza Viruses in the Environment: What is the Probability of Human Contact and Transmission?” We have had a large number of isolations of bluetongue virus (BTV) and epizootic hemorrhagic disease virus (EHDV) of unusual diversity during 2006. On August 17, 2006, USDA-APHIS-VS-National Veterinary Services Laboratories in Ames, Iowa, confirmed vesicular stomatitis (VS) in a 10-yearold horse on a premise in Natrona County, Wyoming. On September 12, 2006, the USDA-Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) upgraded the brucellosis classification of Wyoming from Class A to Class Free. Yellowstone National Park (YNP) recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Montana State University and the University of California, Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine Wildlife Health Center to establish the Yellowstone Wildlife Health Program, focused on understanding and addressing priority wildlife disease and ecosystem health problems at Yellowstone National Park. Dr. Justin Brown recently lengthened the long list of SCWDS award winners (including himself) when he received the Wildlife Disease Association’s Wildlife Disease Graduate Student Research Recognition Award at the group’s annual meeting held in Storrs, Connecticut, in August 2006. One of Dr. Randy Davidson=s last efforts before he retired in November 2005 was to completely revise the SCWDS Field Manual of Wildlife Diseases in the Southeastern United States.