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1. Tests continue on ducks to try for Minnesota bird flu answers [MN]
By Doug Smith - Special to the Star Tribune
Minneapolis Star Tribune
March 17, 2016
April Strzelczyk cradled the mallard in her arms and clipped a metal identification band on the duck's orange leg, while fellow wildlife technician Patrick Hagen took blood and other samples from the bird.
After the exam near a stream in Brooklyn Center, Strzelczyk released her grip, and the greenhead flew off.
The duck was among 432 that were captured and tested this winter in the Twin Cities in hopes of unraveling a mystery: how the highly pathogenic avian flu came to devastate Minnesota's domestic turkey operations last year, wiping out 5 million birds.
Wild waterfowl, known to be carriers of flu, were suspected as the source of the outbreak. Ducks and geese now are migrating back to the state, which means poultry producers will keep wary eyes on their flocks.
But despite extensive testing of waterfowl since the epidemic, the mystery remains - and has perhaps deepened. After sampling more than 6,000 wild waterfowl in Minnesota since last spring, officials have found none infected with the H5N2 bird flu, the strain that hammered the poultry industry here.
"It has everyone scratching their heads," said Tom Cooper, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service regional migratory bird chief.
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2. Payson Park Training Center Released from Quarantine [FL]
By Erica Larson, News Editor
TheHorse.com
March 17, 2016
Payson Park Thoroughbred Training Center, in Indiantown, Florida, was released March 16 from quarantine that was put in place after a horse residing there tested positive for equine herpesvirus-1 (EHV-1).
The Equine Disease Communication Center reported that "the quarantine was released after all horses in the high risk barns tested negative for the virus and no additional EHV-1 cases were detected during the quarantine period. The one affected horse remains in stable condition and will remain under quarantine for at least one additional week."
The affected horse tested positive for EHV-1 in late February and was placed in isolation. That horse had recently traveled to Florida from a Thoroughbred training center in Fauquier County, Virginia; that facility was also quarantined after the horse tested positive for the virus.
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3. CSU researchers team with federal agencies to find better ways of managing wild horse herds
By Rhea Maze
Source
March 17, 2016
A team led by researchers from Colorado State University's Animal Reproduction and Biotechnology Laboratory is trekking through the badlands of North Dakota this week to dart-deliver a contraceptive vaccine called GonaCon to a select group of mares. This marks the first time that revaccination with GonaCon has been studied in wild horses.
The project, in Theodore Roosevelt National Park, is one of two CSU studies underway that aim to provide safe and humane solutions to help rein in wild horse populations in the West and reduce the need for roundups, sales, and adoption programs.
Dan Baker, an affiliate faculty member in the Department of Biomedical Sciences, and Terry Nett, an ARBL professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences, were awarded a five-year Bureau of Land Management grant to find an optimum GonaCon revaccination schedule that would suppress fertility in wild horses long-term. The team has received about $160,000 in funding for the first two years.
The project stems from the team's success studying GonaCon in both captive elk and free-roaming elk in Rocky Mountain National Park in 2005. That sparked an interest to test GonaCon on horses at Theodore Roosevelt National Park.
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4. FDA Announces Final Rule on Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy
FDA Ctr. for Veterinary Medicine Constituent Update
March 17, 2016
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today issued a rule finalizing three previously-issued interim final rules designed to further reduce the potential risk of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), sometimes referred to as "mad cow disease," in human food.
The final rule provides definitions for prohibited cattle materials and prohibits their use in human food, dietary supplements, and cosmetics, to address the potential risk of BSE. These materials include:
Specified risk materials (SRMs ): brain, skull, eyes, trigeminal ganglia, spinal cord, vertebral column (excluding the vertebrae of the tail, the transverse processes of the thoracic and lumbar vertebrae, and the wings of the sacrum), and dorsal root ganglia (DRG) of cattle 30 months of age and older, and the tonsils and distal ileum of the small intestine from all cattle.
The small intestine from all cattle unless the distal ileum has been properly removed,
Material from nonambulatory disabled cattle,
Material from cattle not inspected and passed, or mechanically separated (MS) (Beef).
The rule additionally confirms that milk and milk products, hides and hide-derived products, tallow that contains no more than 0.15 percent insoluble impurities, and tallow derivatives are not prohibited cattle materials. The FDA also finalized the process for designating a country as not subject to BSE-related restrictions applicable to FDA regulated human food and cosmetics.
Finally, the rule provides a definition of gelatin and clarifies that gelatin is not considered a prohibited cattle material if it is manufactured using the customary industry processes specified. Gelatin was never considered a prohibited cattle material, but FDA had never specifically defined gelatin in past IFRs.
The FDA is taking this action to minimize human exposure to certain cattle material that could potentially contain the BSE agent. It is important to note that the U.S. has long had measures in place to prevent the introduction and spread of BSE, including those affirmed in this rule; therefore the risk of human exposure to the BSE agent from FDA-regulated human food and cosmetics is negligible.
This rule finalizes three interim rules from 2004, 2005, and 2008.
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5. World Veterinary Day promotes continuing education in one health
JAVMA News
March 16, 2016
On April 30, World Veterinary Day 2016 will promote continuing education for veterinarians in one health.
The World Veterinary Association created World Veterinary Day in 2000 as an annual celebration of the veterinary profession, falling on the last Saturday of April. Each year, the WVA and World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) choose a theme for the event.
"The recent Ebola epidemic as well as the too numerous human deaths caused each year by rabies, dreadfully remind us of the strong links existing between the health of people, animals and environment and consequently the need for multi-sectoral approaches illustrated through the 'One Health' concept," according to the announcement for World Veterinary Day 2016.
The announcement states that the theme for the year "focuses on how veterinarians continue their education efforts to increase their expertise on One Health topics, such as zoonotic diseases, food safety or antimicrobial resistance, and how they collaborate with the human health sector to tackle these issues."
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6. NIFA, NSF Announce $6 Million in Available Funding to Develop, Enable Breakthrough Technologies for Plant, Animal Phenomics and Microbiomes
USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture Bulletin
March 16, 2016
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) Biological Sciences Directorate (BIO) today announced $6 million in available funding to support the development of transformative plant and animal phenomics and microbiome technologies.
This USDA-NIFA, NSF-BIO Joint Activity is soliciting Early Concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGER) proposals that address the development of innovative approaches for phenotyping and microbiome characterizations, as well as for elucidating the role of microbiomes in plants and animals. This activity addresses critical gaps in tools available for characterizing plant and animal phenotypes and microbiomes, in part to more fully realize the potential of low-cost high throughput sequencing and genotyping technologies. Types of projects that might be appropriate include but are not limited to:
Technologies that increase the accuracy and throughput of existing phenotypic and microbiome data acquisition
Extending the diversity of phenotypes that can be measured
Automation or mechanization, including robotics and sensors, for phenotyping
Standardization of ontologies, interoperability of platforms and systems, and integration of datasets
Technologies that would identify the metabolic activities specific to particular microbes within a microbiome as well as facilitating elucidation of biochemical communication between microbes, and between microbes and their hosts
Novel modeling approaches that address problems in phenotyping or microbiome structure and function
Proposed studies should be potentially transformative and may be considered "high-risk, high-payoff", and be compatible with the budget and time limits ($300,000, 2 years) of the EAGER funding mechanism.
Summaries are due May 12. Please see the Dear Colleague Letter for more information. For more information on EAGERs, please review the NSF Grant Proposal Guide.
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