Evaluating Red Wolf Scat to Deter Coyote Access to Urban Pastureland

Depredation of domestic livestock by wildlife is a leading source of human–wildlife conflict, often requiring intervention at the local level. Historically, these interventions have resulted in the use of lethal methods to remove the offending animal. In response to increased public opposition to lethal control methods, wildlife managers have sought to identify effective nonlethal biological options to mitigate wildlife depredations. In 2018, we tested the concept of a biological deterrent using red wolf (Canis rufus) scat that had historically been spread along fence lines to prevent depredation of lambs (Ovis aries) and kid goats (Capra aegagrus hircus) at the North Carolina State University College of Veterinary Medicine 32-ha Teaching Animal Unit (TAU), North Carolina, USA. To conduct the study, we deployed paired camera traps at 3 locations where we had previously observed coyotes (C. latrans) accessing the TAU. The study was conducted over a 94-day period alternating between no scat and freshly collected scat that was placed every 3 days from adult male red wolves. The study period overlapped lambing and kidding season. In addition to coyotes, the camera traps routinely detected red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) and raccoons (Procyon lotor). The red wolf scat we placed at the access point did not deter any of the mesocarnivores from entering the pasture

Is Open Access to One Health Equivalent Across Human, Environmental, and Animal Health?

Poste

Fructosamine: An Alternative to Serum Glucose Measurement in White-tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus)

We determined the relationship between fructosamine and serum glucose in free-ranging white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) harvested during two seasonally stressful periods for deer in coastal North Carolina, US: July 2008 represented the postparturition and lactation period, and March 2009 represented the late winter and pregreen-up period. Serum glucose and fructosamine concentrations were similar between time periods but were uncorrelated within each season. However, when serum glucose was separated into high and low categories based on the median blood glucose score within each time period, we detected statistically significant differences between July and March for serum glucose. Fructosamine was more stable than serum glucose for evaluating the white-tailed deer physiologic condition

Inhibitory Activity of Synthetic Peptide Antibiotics on Feline Immunodeficiency Virus Infectivity In Vitro

Natural peptide antibiotics are part of host innate immunity against a wide range of microbes, including some viruses. Synthetic peptides modeled after natural peptide antibiotics interfere with microbial membranes and are termed peptidyl membrane-interactive molecules (peptidyl-MIM [Demegen Inc, Pittsburgh, Pa.]). Sixteen peptidyl-MIM candidates were tested for activity against feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) on infected CrFK cells. Three of them (D4E1, DC1, and D1D6) showed potent anti-FIV activity in chronically infected CrFK cells as measured by decreased reverse transcriptase (RT) activity, having 50% inhibitory concentrations of 0.46, 0.75, and 0.94 μM, respectively, which were approximately 10 times lower than their direct cytotoxic concentrations. Treatment of chronically infected CrFK cells with 2 μM D4E1 for 3 days completely reversed virus-induced cytopathic effect. Immunofluorescence revealed reduced p26 staining in these cells. Treatment of chronically infected CrFK cells with 2 μM D4E1 suppressed virus production (∼50%) for up to 7 days, The virions from the D4E1-treated culture had impaired infectivity, as measured by the 50% tissue culture infectious dose and nested PCR analysis of proviral DNA. However, these noninfectious virions were able to bind and internalize, suggesting a defect at some postentry step. After chronically infected CrFK cells were treated with D4E1 for 24 h, increased cell-associated mature p26 Gag and decreased extracellular virus-associated p26 Gag were observed by Western blot analysis, suggesting that virus assembly and/or release may be blocked by D4E1 treatment, whereas virus binding, penetration, RNA synthesis, and protein synthesis appear to be unaffected. Synthetic peptide antibiotics may be useful tools in the search for antiviral drugs having a wide therapeutic window for host cells

Access to human, animal, and environmental journals is still limited for the One Health community

Objective: ‘‘One Health’’ is an interdisciplinary approach to evaluating and managing the health and well-being of humans, animals, and the environments they share that relies on knowledge from the domains of human health, animal health, and the environmental sciences. The authors’ objective was to evaluate the extent of open access (OA) to journal articles in a sample of literature from these domains. We hypothesized that OA to articles in human health or environmental journals was greater than access to animal health literature. Methods: A One Health seminar series provided fifteen topics. One librarian translated each topic into a search strategy and searched four databases for articles from 2011 to 2012. Two independent investigators assigned each article to human health, the environment, animal health, all, other, or combined categories. Article and journal-level OA were determined. Each journal was also assigned a subject category and its indexing evaluated. Results: Searches retrieved 2,651 unique articles from 1,138 journals; 1,919 (72%) articles came from 406 journals that contributed more than 1 article. Seventy-seven (7%) journals dealt with all 3 One Health domains; the remaining journals represented human health 487 (43%), environment 172 (15%), animal health 141 (12%), and other/combined categories 261 (23%). The proportion of OA journals in animal health (40%) differed significantly from journals categorized as human (28%), environment (28%), and more than 1 category (29%). The proportion of OA for articles by subject categories ranged from 25%–34%; only the difference between human (34%) and environment (25%) was significant. Conclusions: OA to human health literature is more comparable to animal health than hypothesized. Environmental journals had less OA than anticipated

Monitoring Wildlife Interactions with Their Environment: an Interdisciplinary Approach *For Correspondence

ABSTRACT Objective: In a rapidly changing world, wildlife ecologists strive to correctly model and predict complex relationships between animals and their environment, which facilitates management decisions impacting public policy to conserve and protect delicate ecosystems. Recent advances in monitoring systems span scientific domains, including animal and weather monitoring devices and landscape classification mapping techniques. The current challenge is how to combine and use detailed output from various sources to address questions spanning multiple disciplines. Methods: WolfScout wildlife and weather tracking system is a software tool capable of filling this niche. WolfScout automates the integration of the latest technological advances in wildlife GPS collars, weather stations, drought conditions, and severe weather reports, and animal demographic information. The database stores a variety of classified landscape maps including natural and manmade features. Additionally, WolfScout's spatial database management system allows users to calculate distances between animals' location and landscape characteristics, which are linked to the best approximation of environmental conditions at the animal's location during the interaction. Results: The WolfScout system is an exemplary utility that provides researchers with an interdisciplinary approach to monitor wildlife interactions with their environment. To standardize information used in research projects, high quality data from multiple scientific fields is integrated and formatted for direct analysis. The animal, weather, and spatial calculations with landscape metadata can be extracted in various combinations through the web-interface dependent on the proposed hypotheses and desired mathematical models. Successful deployment at Fort Bragg Military Reserve resulted in management implications for wildlife-longleaf pine ecosystems