Between now and March 2016, highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) surveillance in wild birds will increase as biologists with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services (WS) program and its State partners collect approximately 41,000 samples from apparently healthy wild birds from targeted areas throughout the United States. Samples will be collected primarily from live-captured and hunter-harvested dabbling ducks, such as American black duck, American green-winged teal, mallard, and Northern pintail. Additionally, environmental fecal samples from waterfowl and samples from morbidity and mortality events of all wild bird species will also be collected. Results from the surveillance effort will be incorporated into national risk assessments, and preparedness and response planning efforts to reduce HPAI risks to commercial poultry, backyard poultry, game bird farms, wild birds, wild bird rehabilitation facilities, falconry birds, and captive bird collections in zoos/aviaries.

“The early detection of avian influenza remains key to controlling its spread and minimizing its effects,” states Dr. Tom Gidlewski, program manager for WS National Wildlife Disease Program. “Surveillance helps warn us of any re-assortments or changes in low or highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses in wild birds which may be detrimental to our country’s domestic flocks.”

Since December 2014, the USDA has confirmed cases of HPAI H5 in the Pacific, Central, and Mississippi flyways. The disease has been found in wild birds, as well as in more than 200 backyard and commercial poultry flocks. While wild dabbling ducks appear to have no ill effects from the virus, HPAI H5 is lethal to raptors and its impacts to other wild birds are unknown. HPAI H5 can cause severe disease and death in domestic birds. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) considers the risk to people from these HPAI H5 infections to be low. No human cases of these HPAI H5 viruses have been detected in the United States, Canada, or internationally.

Recently, USDA and its partners released two updated interagency plans related to the surveillance of HPAI in wild birds. The first updated plan— U.S. Interagency Strategic Plan for Early Detection and Monitoring for Avian Influenzas of Significance in Wild Birds—describes a unified national system for migratory wild bird sampling involving Federal, State, university and non-governmental organizations. The second updated plan— 2015 Surveillance Plan for Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza in Waterfowl in the United States— outlines specific wild bird surveillance efforts for 2015-2016. These efforts were led by the Interagency Steering Committee for Surveillance for HPAI in Wild Birds.  This committee is comprised of experts from USDA Wildlife Services and Veterinary Services, the Department of the Interior’s U.S. Geological Survey and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the CDC and Prevention and the National Flyway Council.

Wildlife Services is a Strategic Partner of TWS.

A traditional Native American basket-making practice can be helpful in killing an invasive insect that devastates forests and habitat for a wide range of wildlife, according to a newly published study.

The emerald ash borer (Agrilus planipennis) — an invasive beetle from Asia — was first discovered in North America in 2002 in Detroit, Mich. The insect species traveled along with imported goods from China inside wood packing material and started laying their eggs in nearby trees. While the insects may be small and a pretty green color, they infest all species of ash trees that wildlife such as birds feed on, including the black ash tree — a species Native Americans rely on for their traditional practice of basket making.

Tina Ciaramitaro, a U.S. Forest Service technician and Tom Baweja, a U.S. Forest Service biological aide toss logs into the Red Cedar River near Okemos, Mich. In a recent study, researchers found that by using a traditional Native American practice of submerging logs to preserve them for basket making, they can also kill invasive emerald ash borers.
Image Credit: Therese Poland, U.S. Forest Service

In a recent study published in the journal Agriculture and Forest Entomology, researchers with the U.S. Forest Service worked with members of the Match-e-be-nash-she-wish Band of Potawatomi Indians near Gun Lake, Mich. to test if the traditional practice of submerging black ash logs to preserve them for basket-making also kills emerald ash borers.

“Native tribes are concerned that ash trees are dying,” said Therese Poland, a research entomologist with U.S. Forest Service and the lead author of the study. “They wonder how they will continue their cultural tradition. We wanted to help them by using their traditional practices as a method to kill emerald ash borers.”

Traditionally, Native American basket weavers put the logs in fresh, running water, completely submerging them before using them to weave their baskets, in order to keep the logs from drying out and becoming too brittle to use. Using this practice, the researchers tested how long the logs had to be submerged before all of the emerald ash borers were killed, while still staying fresh for weaving baskets.

First, Poland and her team cut down logs of black ash trees that they knew were infested with emerald ash borers. They then created a control group of logs in which they determined the density of emerald ash borers inside of them when they weren’t submerged in water. The researchers tested different lengths of treatments by tying cinder blocks to the logs and submerging them in the Red Cedar River. After removing them from the water, they peeled and separated the wood to see if the quality was still good for basket making and to see how many adult emerald ash borers emerged from the wood.

“What we found was that submerging the logs does kill some of the larvae,” Poland said, adding that the larvae are the reason that the trees are destroyed. When adults lay eggs in the wood, the larvae then chew the thin layer inside the tree called phloem tissue that is responsible for transporting nutrients to the tree.

Poland said they found that in the winter, the logs had to be submerged for 18 weeks before all of the insects died, and it took 14 weeks in the spring. The insects are dormant in the winter, which may explain why it took them longer to become saturated and ultimately drown. After both 14 and 18 weeks, the wood remained creamy and white and ready to be used for weaving.

The team also left some of the logs submerged for 18 months and found that the all the emerald ash borers died. Although the outer ring of the wood became slightly rotted and crumbly, the inner rings remained usable for weaving. “You don’t have to submerge the wood that long [to kill the emerald ash borers], but the wood is still beautiful, fresh and has no odor if you do,” Poland said.

While Poland said this isn’t a long-term strategy for managing emerald ash borers, it will definitely help Native Americans preserve this traditional practice. “Emerald ash borers are going to stick around, and they are not going to be eradicated,” Poland said.

As for long-term management strategies, Poland said the U.S. Forest Service has some projects in the works. They are releasing parasitic wasps that kill emerald ash borer, using insecticides on trees and trying to breed ash trees that are resistant to the insects. “With these long-term strategies, we’re hoping to control emerald ash borers and to save ash trees,” she said.

Just a little over a month after the first case of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in a free-ranging deer in Michigan was confirmed, a second infected free-ranging deer was detected less than a mile from the initial case.

The fatal neurological disease that affects white-tailed deer, mule deer, elk and moose was confirmed in the two-year-old male white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) last week in Meridian Township in Ingham County, Michigan. CWD has now been found in free-ranging and captive deer in 23 states in the United States and two Canadian provinces. The disease is established in free-ranging deer in 17 other states including Colorado and Wyoming.

“Given the fact that the first deer confirmed to have CWD was symptomatic, it was clear that it had CWD for a long time,” said Chad Stewart, the deer management specialist at the Michigan Department of Natural resources. “With the number of deer in that area, we expected to find a couple more cases. We certainly did expect to find another that tested positive.”

While the first case was confirmed last month after a homeowner observed a deer exhibiting signs of CWD and then reported it to the Meridian State Police Department, the second case was detected as a result of intensive surveillance efforts on the part of the Michigan departments of Natural Resources (DNR) and Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD). These efforts include harvesting of deer by sharpshooters and then testing them for the disease, according to Stewart. This deer was not symptomatic, and results of genetic tests to determine if the two positive deer are related to one another are not final.

After the first CWD case in free-ranging deer in Michigan was detected in June, the DNR created a Core CWD Area of nine townships surrounding the area where the initial case was detected. These areas include Lansing, Meridian, Williamstown, Delhi, Alaiedon and Wheatfield townships in Ingham County; Dewitt and Bath townships in Clinton County; and Woodhull Township in Shiawassee County. In these areas, feeding and baiting deer are prohibited and there will be mandatory checking of deer during hunting seasons. Further, in the core area the antlerless deer license quota is unlimited and deer licenses or deer combo licenses, which allow both hunting and fishing, can be used to harvest deer during firearm and muzzleloading seasons. There also will be restrictions on movement of carcasses and taking parts of deer.

The DNR also created a CWD Management Zone, which is bigger than the Core CWD Area and includes three counties including Clinton, Ingham and Shiawassee counties. Here, there will also be baiting and feeding bans as well as voluntary deer-check stations for hunters. “The reason that there’s a scaled down version and a broader version [of management areas] is that we know that one animal has the disease, but we don’t know how prevalent and geographically spread the disease is,” Stewart said. “We’re taking as much care as we can on a larger scale to prevent the potential spread of the disease without limiting or impacting hunter participation too much. We want to limit the potential spread if it is broader than we know already.”

Eradicating the Disease

For now, the DNR plans to continue intensive surveillance until hunting season begins in September, Stewart said. So far, 304 deer have been tested in the Core CWD Area and only these two cases have tested positive for the disease. “We are continuing with the original plan, which is intensive surveillance until the hunting season basically starts,” Stewart said. “This includes sharpshooting in extreme core areas where we know where the disease is.”

Completely eradicating the disease will be a challenge, according to Stewart, but a challenge the DNR is willing to take on. “We won’t know what the possibility of eradicating the disease is until our surveillance effort is complete,” he said. “We will have a better idea when we test thousands of deer rather than the hundreds that we have tested.” Stewart added that this will be possible when more samples are sent in when hunting season begins.

In order to eradicate CWD, Stewart says it is important to have the support and help from hunters in the area as well citizens. The DNR urges the public to continue to report deer that are unusually thin or are exhibiting unusual behavior such as allowing humans to approach them. The DNR will also continue collecting roadkill in the Core CWD Area and urges individuals to call in any roadkill that they observe as well.

Although there is no evidence that CWD poses any risks to non-cervids including other wildlife or humans, whether it’s through handling contaminated venison or through contact with an infected animal, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization urge individuals not to consume the meat of infected animals as a precaution.

Importantly, Stewart said these cases act as a wakeup call that the disease can crop up anywhere. “I think one of the interesting things is that we first found this deer in a suburban area with a densely populated deer population,” Stewart said. “I think it’s a cause for alarm that this disease can spark up anywhere. It’s a wakeup call to keep deer numbers in check wherever they are. This disease can hit anywhere.”