Every winter, millions of migratory birds fly south to warmer locales, passing over California Central Valley dairies and poultry farms. Many of these wild waterfowl are carrying the virus that causes avian influenza, based on the U.S. Department of Agriculture's wild-bird surveillance, says Maurice Pitesky, University of California Cooperative Extension poultry specialist in the School of Veterinary Medicine at UC Davis.
Whale researchers dropped a mic into the seas off southeast Alaska and recorded a humpback making a “whup”-like noise, translated roughly as a humpback hello. The next day, they lowered a speaker into the water and played the recorded “whup” back as a pod of whales passed by. One whale, a middle-aged female named Twain, responded in kind. For 20 minutes, Twain and the scientists “whupped” back and forth, 36 times in a row. Researchers even varied the timing of their calls and Twain matched their tempo.
Adapted from an article by the Wildlife Conservation Society
Dr. Pranav Pandit, a veterinary epidemiologist with the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, helped launch a new Pandemic Prevention Leadership Initiative earlier this year. The program—a collaboration with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), and EpiEcos—was funded by the US Department of State’s Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation.
An assessment completed this week at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine determined that pneumonia caused the Oct. 23 death of Nox, the youngest member of UC Berkeley’s well-known falcon family.
The sounds of barking elephant seals are again in the air along the breeding grounds of Península Valdés, Argentina—but it’s quieter. Roughly a year after a massive outbreak of H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza killed more than 17,000 elephant seals, including about 97% of their pups, scientists estimate that only about a third of the elephant seals normally expected here returned.
Drones can be powerful tools in gathering important health data about wildlife, including marine species like the Salish Sea’s endangered killer whales.
A poultry expert at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine (SVM) has teamed up with a geographic information systems (GIS) expert at UC Agriculture and Natural Resources (ANR) and two wildlife health experts from the UC Davis SVM Wildlife Health Center (WHC) to create a map showing the spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) since 2021.
Skywalker gibbon couples wake up each morning and sing to each other, their voices echoing across the forest canopy of their home. The primate’s endearing love song helped scientists confirm what was formerly a strong hunch: Myanmar has the largest population of endangered Skywalker gibbons on Earth.
