Daily Grist: west nile virus

[Guest guest]

At 12:45 PM 5/18/07, you wrote:

>The Beak In Review

>West Nile virus hitting bird populations hard, says new study

>

>The West Nile virus soldiers on, declares a report published yesterday in

>Nature. Eight years after the virus left the West Nile and made its way to

>the U.S. Northeast, chickadee populations in the region have dropped 53

>percent, while Eastern bluebird populations have been diminished by 44

>percent. American crows have been hit the hardest, being wiped out

>entirely in some small regions. According to ecologist Carsten Rahbek, the

>trend " suggests that West Nile virus could potentially change the

>composition of bird communities across the entire continent " -- which, of

>course, could affect not just birds, but the whole food chain. The virus

>has sickened more than 23,000 Americans and killed nearly 1,000 since

>1999. And speaking of that, a different study published recently in Nature

>suggests that depletion of ecosystems increases the likelihood that

>diseases like West Nile and Ebola could jump from animals to humans. Guess

>we'll just have to stop depleting ecosystems. How hard could it be?

>

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>

>straight to the source: The Washington Post, Rick Weiss, 17 May 2007

>

>straight to the source: Chicago Tribune, Jeremy Manier, 17 May 2007

>

>straight to the source: The Standard-Times, Autumn Spanne, 17 May 2007

>

>straight to the source: LiveScience.com, Andrea Thompson, 16 May 2007

 

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