An article released on January 10 in PLoS ONE entitled ‘Zoonotic Viruses Associated with Illegally Imported Wildlife Products’, from a collaborative study led by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), identified evidence of retroviruses and herpesviruses in illegally imported wildlife products confiscated at several U.S. international airports, including John F. Kennedy International Airport, George Bush Intercontinental-Houston and Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International.

The pilot program was initiated to establish surveillance and testing methods to uncover the potential public health risks from illegally imported wildlife products coming into the United States.  The preliminary results of the program clearly demonstrate the potential human health risk from the illegal wildlife trade at major international travel hubs as a pathway to disease emergence in animals and humans.

Lead author and Associate Director for Health and Policy at EcoHealth Alliance, Dr. Kristine Smith, stated “although the findings to date are from a small pilot study, they remind us of the potential public health risk posed by illegal importation of wildlife products – a risk we hope to better characterize through expanded surveillance at ports of entry around the country.”

“The increase in international travel and trade brings with it an increased risk of unmonitored pathogens via the illegal wildlife trade,” said Dr. Denise McAloose, chief pathologist for the Global Health Program of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).  The global trade of wildlife has largely contributed to the emergence of new diseases in livestock, native wildlife and humans worldwide.

Current research shows that 75 percent of emerging infectious diseases affecting people originate from contact with wildlife.  These wildlife-borne diseases can be transmitted through human-animal interactions inherent in the global wildlife trade.

Items confiscated as part of the study included raw to semi-cooked animal parts, identified by American Museum of Natural History’s Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics, Columbia University, and WCS as nonhuman primates, including baboon and chimpanzee, and various rodent species using advanced genetic barcoding technologies.

Pathogen analysis was conducted at the CDC National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention and Columbia University’s Center for Infection and Immunity.  Among the pathogens identified in the products were a zoonotic retrovirus, simian foamy viruses, and several nonhuman primate herpesviruses.

These results are the first to confirm evidence of pathogens in illegally imported bushmeat that may act as a conduit for pathogen spread, and suggest that implementation of disease surveillance of the illegal wildlife trade will help facilitate prevention of disease emergence.

“Exotic wildlife pets and bushmeat are Trojan horses that threaten humankind at sites where they are collected in the developing world as well as the U.S.  Our study underscores the importance of surveillance at ports, but we must also encourage efforts to reduce demand for products that drive the wildlife trade,” said W. Ian Lipkin of Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.

In fact, the U.S. is one of the largest consumers of imported wildlife products and wildlife.  A previous study by EcoHealth Alliance showed that over a six-year period (2000-2006) approximately 1.5 billion live wild animals were legally imported into the U.S. – with 90 percent slated for the pet trade.  Programs like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Healthy Pets, Healthy People and EcoHealth Alliance’sPetWatch encourage responsible exotic pet choices and ownership.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife records show that more than 55 million pounds of wildlife products enter the country each year, with New York City the most common port of entry followed by Miami, and Los Angeles.

Beyond the public health risks of the live and non-live wildlife trade are risk of disease introduction to native wildlife and agricultural species, proliferation of non-native wildlife causing damage to U.S. ecosystems, as well as the protection of threatened and endangered species identified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

“These important research results highlight the value of using new DNA barcoding identification technologies to accurately monitor the wildlife trade, important for both disease surveillance and the conservation of endangered species,” stated Dr. George Amato from the Sackler Institute of Comparative Genomics at American Museum of Natural History.

The pilot study is the first to establish port surveillance methodology to test for diseases associated with wildlife products.  Through better surveillance of illegal wildlife product shipments entering ports around the country, authorities will have a better chance at preventing new disease emergence before it occurs.

The pilot project involved a collaboration of scientists from the American Museum of Natural History, Columbia University, EcoHealth Alliance, the USGS National Wildlife Health Center, and the Wildlife Conservation Society.

The article Tracking Diseases Associated With Illegal Wildlife Trade appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

On January 10, 2012, beekeepers from across the country gathered at a national conference, with environmental organizations at their side, to draw attention to the growing plight facing their industry –the decline of honey bees – a problem that has far reaching implications for the U.S. economy.

“Bees and other pollinators are the underpinnings of a successful agricultural economy,” said Brett Adee, Co-Chair of the National Honey Bee Advisory Board and owner of Adee Honey Farms. “Without healthy, successful pollinators, billions of dollars are at stake.”

Many family-owned beekeeping operations are migratory, with beekeepers traveling the country from state-to-state during different months of the year to provide pollination services and harvest honey and wax. Bees in particular are responsible for pollinating many high-value crops, including pumpkins, cherries, cranberries, almonds, apples, watermelons, and blueberries. So any decline in bee populations’ health and productivity can have especially large impacts on the agricultural economy.

Honey bees are the most economically important pollinators in the world, according to a recent United Nations report on the global decline of pollinator populations.

On Tuesday, commercial beekeepers shared first-hand accounts of the value of beekeeping and of the dramatic impact of bee declines. Beekeepers estimate that one single bee kill from a pesticide exposure incident, representing 200 bee colonies, is responsible for an estimated $5 million of value to the agricultural economy. David Hackenberg, Co-Chair of the National Honey Bee Advisory Board and owner of Hackenberg Apiaries, estimates that his colonies alone generate $5 million in value over 6 months: $500,000 from California almonds in January, $800,000 from Georgia blueberries in March, $2 million from Pennsylvania apples and cherries in April, $500,000 from Maine blueberries in May, and $1 million from Pennsylvania pumpkins in June.

“If you think about it, bees and other pollinators are Mother Nature’s ultimate economic stimulus,” said Hackenberg. “Economists quantify pollination as an ‘ecosystem service’, although these figures are often unaccounted for in the traditional measures, like the GDP.”

In 2000, the last official study, the value of pollination was estimated at $14.6 million. Beekeepers suggest the number under-calculates the value of their services. They suggest the real value of their operations is $50 billion, based on retail value of food and crop grown from seed that relies upon bee pollination.

Beekeepers have survived the economic recession only to find their operations are still threatened.  Recent, catastrophic declines in honey bee populations, termed “Colony Collapse Disorder”, have been linked to a wide variety of factors, including parasites, habitat loss, and pesticides.

“The threats facing pollinators should raise concerns, as sub-lethal impacts on bees are more serious than we had initially thought,” said Dr. Jim Frazier, professor of Entomology at Penn State University. “Every time someone looks, they find something new.”

Beekeepers also noted they are partnering with environmental organizations, highlighting the threat of pesticides to the continued success of the profession and the agricultural economy. They raise special concerns with neonicotinoids, a class of systemic pesticides that is taken up a plant and expressed through the plants through which bees then forage and pollinate.

Research released last week in the journal, ‘PLoS ONE’, underscores the threat of these pesticides through a previously undocumented exposure route – planter exhaust – the talc and air mix expelled into the environment as automated planters place neonicotinoid-treated seeds into the ground during spring planting.

“Independent research links pollinator declines, especially honey bees, to a wide range of problems with industrial agriculture, especially pesticides,” said Paul Towers, spokesperson for Pesticide Action Network.

Threats to pollinators, especially commercial honey bees, concern the entire food system.  With one in three bites of food reliant on pollination, beekeepers and environmental organizations alike call out the wide-scale problem.

“Because EPA has not adequately regulated certain pesticides, the food system, including many of the foods we enjoy eating most, are at risk,” said John Kepner, Project Director for Beyond Pesticides. “We can’t afford not to take action to protect pollinators – for wallets and dinner tables alike.”

Image Courtesy of  http://www.flickr.com/photos/wohack/

The article The Economy Needs Beekeepers appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.