MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

By Frank Robson – “When a stranger rang Debbie Lee and her partner, Steve Hogno, to ask if they’d like to race their beloved quarter horses at a country club resort, the pair thought their dreams were finally coming true.

‘We said, ‘Oh boy, we sure would!” Lee recalls. ‘The guy who rang said he even knew of a property near the resort where we could keep our horses, and Steve and I couldn’t wait to check it out.’

The caller was Ian Howard, part of a consortium planning to restore the long-closed Kooralbyn Valley Resort near Beaudesert in south-east Queensland and set up regular quarter horse sprint races. Late last month, after meeting Howard and inspecting the proposed agistment block – “It seemed like the perfect spot” – Lee and Hogno moved 25 horses from land they rented in Toowoomba to the Kooralbyn Valley property.

But less than a fortnight after the healthy young horses were released to roam their picturesque new 81-hectare home – with three dams and a running stream – they began dying at an unprecedented rate. By Wednesday, six days after the first mysterious deaths on the unoccupied property were reported to the RSPCA by passers-by, all but four of the quarter horses, uninsured, were dead. And despite exhaustive testing by Biosecurity Queensland, the mass deaths continue to defy scientific explanation.

The most likely cause is thought to be paralysis ticks (up to 50 were found on each dead or stricken animal), especially rampant after last summer’s flooding, combined with the fact the prized horses came from a tick-free area and had no immunity to tick toxin.

‘No one told us about this danger,’ a devastated Lee said this week. ‘Steve and I loved these horses; we’d never have taken them there if we’d known about the killer ticks – it would have been like sticking a child who’d never been exposed to colds and flu in with a bunch of sick people.”

But horse trainer Hogno is far from convinced ticks are the real culprits. Employed as a mining supervisor in a remote part of Western Australia, Hogno flew back to Brisbane last week to inspect the dead and dying horses.

‘With tick poisoning, the paralysis always works forward from the hindquarters and tail,’ the veteran horseman said. ‘But in all of these cases the paralysis started from the head. Also, no one has ever heard of a case where so many animals have died so suddenly. Tick deaths occur over quite a prolonged period, yet many of these horses were dead within an hour or two of going down.'” Read more.

By The Canadian Press – “BARRIE, Ont. – Botulism is the likely cause of dead fish and wildlife showing up between Collingwood and Parry Sound in southeastern Georgian Bay.

John Cooper with the ministry of natural resources says the numbers have been especially high this year.

About 100 dead sturgeon have been reported along with other species of fish.

Up to 300 birds — including seagulls, ducks and loons — have also died.

Some have been sent away for testing just to ensure botulism, which is naturally occurring, is the cause.

Officials say it should be of little threat to human health.” Source.

Radio New Zealand News – “The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry says a bacterial disease never seen before in New Zealand is leaving behind hundreds of deformed and dead kanakana or lamprey in Southland’s Mataura river.

The jawless type of eel provides a valuable source of food for local Maori.

Last month, Hokonui Runanga chairman Rewi Alglem sent samples to MAF for testing, after finding kanakana with red- coloured fins and contusions on their bodies.

MAF’s biosecurity response acting manager, Glen Neal, says tests have found the fish to be infected by the bacterium Aeromonas salmonicida.

He says the disease can affect salmon, trout, eel and whitebait species including kokopu.

Mr Neal says MAF is moving quickly to establish the potential impact of the disease, which hasn’t been found before in New Zealand.” Source.

By Alex DeMarban – “A mysterious and potentially widespread disease is thought to have contributed to the deaths of dozens of ringed seals along Alaska’s Arctic coast. Scores more are sickened, some so ill that skin lesions bleed when touched.

The animals are an important subsistence food, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has proposed listing them as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act.

In July, biologists with the North Slope Borough’s Department of Wildlife Management began receiving reports of ringed seals hauled out on beaches, an unusual behavior since the animals usually prefer the water or ice. Since then, they’ve found at least 100 seals with telltale mangy hair and skin lesions, mostly while traveling by four-wheeler along 30 miles of Beaufort and Chukchi sea coastline outside Barrow.

At least 46 of those seals have been found dead, and experts aren’t sure if the disease is killing them or if other infections and polar bears are proving fatal once the seals become feeble.

‘Right now we’re leaning toward it being a virus, and that could weaken their immune system,’ said Jason Herreman, a borough wildlife biologist studying seals and polar bears.

The Department of Wildlife Management has never documented a similar outbreak in the North Slope region, Herreman said. Scientists don’t know the scope of the problem because since ringed seals are difficult to track and haven’t been counted for decades. Hundreds of thousands are thought to live in the region.

Reports of nearly 150 other seals with the illness have come in from villages outside Barrow, population 4,200, as well as from Chukotka, Russia, and Tuktoyuktak, a village on the northwestern corner of Canada, Herreman said. North Slope biologists are trying to determine the magnitude of the problem in the other countries, he said. Borough biologists have sent numerous tissue samples, from dead seals and others still alive, to laboratories around the country. Still, they have no answer.” Read more.

By Steve Puterski – “A total of 2,356 birds have died as a result of an avian botulism outbreak at the Six Man Club south of Naval Air Station Fallon, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The botulism, which does not affect humans, emerged from one of the ponds at the private hunting club due to hot weather and stagnant water in August. Since then, the outbreak has spread to all 10 ponds at the club and has killed ducks, ibis and numerous other species including a red-tailed hawk.

According to Kyle Neill of the Nevada Department of Wildlife, 1,339 ducks and 755 coots have died as a result of the outbreak. He added 414 birds have died since Friday.

The outbreak has not spread to Stillwater National Wildlife Refuge or Carson Lake, according to the USFWS. According to state records, this could be one of the worst botulism outbreaks since 1949.

According to Mike Goodard of the USFWS, teams of individuals from the service and the Nevada Department of Wildlife have been on-site to clean up the dead birds. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and NDOW teams use air boats to roam the ponds and scoop of birds with fishing nets.” Read more.