A year after a deadly and highly contagious wildlife disease surfaced in Norway, the country is taking action. Chronic wasting disease (CWD), caused by misfolded proteins called prions, has already ravaged deer and elk in North America, costing rural economies millions in lost revenue from hunting. Its presence in Norway's reindeer and moose—the first cases in Europe—is "a very serious situation for the environment and for our culture and traditions," says Bjørnar Ytrehus, a veterinary researcher at the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research in Trondheim.
Last week, Norway's minister of agriculture and food gave the green light for hunters to kill off the entire herd in which three infected individuals were found, about 2000 reindeer, or nearly 6% of the country's wild population. "We have to take action now," says Karen Johanne Baalsrud, director of plant and animal health at the Norwegian Food Safety Authority in Oslo. The deer's habitat will be quarantined for at least 5 years to prevent reinfection. The odds of a successful eradication, experts say, will depend largely on how long CWD has been present in Norway.
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If you want to incorporate quality time with animals into your yoga practice, you have a lot of options these days. There's puppy yoga, cat yoga, and perhaps the most famous — goat yoga.
Now, in Fairbanks, Alaska, there's a new offering: a yoga class with fauna particular to the cold northern climes of the subarctic. Reindeer.
In a grassy pen at the Running Reindeer Ranch, adult and baby reindeer are milling around — grazing, nosing curiously at water bottles, and pawing yoga mats as people shake them out for class.
The air is buzzing with mosquitoes, and the sky is threatening rain, but a good two dozen or so people have shown up for this petting zoo and exercise experience.
"I've wanted to do goat yoga, but this is like one step up," says Tarah Hoxsie, one of the attendees. "This is like the ultimate, OK. So while everybody's doing goat yoga in the lower 48, we're doing reindeer yoga, which is way cooler."
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[Ed. Note: Yes, this story submission has nothing to do with STEM. But, it did give me a chuckle. And it reminded me of a quote by George Carlin “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” So it's good to be aware of what some people think is a "good idea(TM)" and have a good laugh once in a while, too.]
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @10:19AM
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(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @11:25AM (6 children)
Wait, this was first discovered on North American continent, and now in Scandinavia (actual order of appearance may be the other way around, so it does not matter), but how did the two populations isolated by stretches of sea or at best stretches of sea ice bearing no plants, communicate the prion?
Furthermore, how it jumps from one wild herbivore to another in same wild habitat when they don't eat brains of their brethren (or any brains at all)?
Could it be that they were fed "fortified food" by humans?
(Score: 2, Informative) by obfiscator on Wednesday April 05 2017, @12:12PM (4 children)
There is a link in the article which says that CWD was spread around the US due to elk from an infected farm being shipped to a dozen states. The full article is behind the Science paywall, though.
To answer one of your questions, from the article: "CWD is very contagious: Prions spread easily through saliva, urine, and feces, and can linger in the environment for years, which suggests that feeding stations and salt licks are hot spots of infection."
To address another one of your questions: "How the disease got to Norway is a mystery. Prions may have arrived in deer urine, which is bottled in the United States and sold as a lure, or perhaps they hitched a ride on hiking boots or hunting gear. But prion diseases can also start spontaneously, after proteins begin to misfold in a single individual, and Benestad’s hunch is that this is a more likely scenario. "
Summary: no one knows yet how it spread.
(Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Wednesday April 05 2017, @01:09PM
feeding stations and salt licks are hot spots of infection.
Now that it is established there this is the key to remember. Apart from killing the herd that is currently infected people need to quit making giant piles of bait and food for the critters. I don't know what Norway's rules are on feeding wildlife and baiting game are but hopefully they don't or shortly won't include these activities.
As far as where did it come from I would bet some infected cattle, sheep, goats, or possibly elk from a commercial farm somewhere and the patient 0 there may have come from the US or through some other country. The reindeer probably initially got infected eating at a food trough on that farm as that seems to be the common way it happens where I am.
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(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @01:40PM (2 children)
Um, the whole problematic opens up more questions than we have answers: Apparently prions have very high virulence, and there are no known mechanisms for self-cure of infected organism, no part of immune system is doing targeted molecule removal, especially if it is a relatively small molecule. But then, due to its nature and spontaneous generation, it certainly cannot be a new problem for evolution. How life have solved this problem over billions of years of its existence? Do we know of any past large-scale extinction event caused by a prion capable of affecting large sets of species? We know that molecular paths and biochemical mechanisms are very similar in all mammals, and even in all vertebrates. Prionic diseases have to be naturally checked by something, or else we wouldn't be having this discussion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @06:35PM
or else we wouldn't be having this discussion
Selective pressure is only as strong as it is able to prevent reproductive fitness. Prions typically take a long time to progress to disease, which give the host plenty of time to produce offspring.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @07:30PM
Prion basically means a protein/peptide that easily gets into a beta-sheet conformation and stacks together, forming the most energetically favorable structure it is possible for amino-acid chains to form. These are forming all the time in your cells, I guarantee it.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday April 05 2017, @02:20PM
TWA - Trans World Airways, even the Galapagos aren't islands anymore.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @03:20PM (1 child)
so NOW we know why wolves died out: they ate reindeer that were walking in circles, dragging their hind legs and generally not able to run away from the hungry wolf.
too bad the wolves got infected too .. or did they?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday April 05 2017, @05:47PM
The wolves eat the muscles and guts first. The highest odds of getting prions (in the CJD case) is by eating nerves and brain
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Wednesday April 05 2017, @05:17PM (1 child)
Is this just another variant of Mad Cow Disease?
Is killing the animals sufficient? In the UK, they built special high-temperature incinerators to dispose of the corpses (or perhaps parts of the corpses), because the prions survive normal incineration.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @06:39PM
Is this just another variant of Mad Cow Disease?
It is another example of a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy. Deer prions cannot convert human prion proteins to their pathogenic version, but they are able to convert the cow prions (which are able to convert the human prions).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmissible_spongiform_encephalopathy [wikipedia.org]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @05:46PM
they need to focus on exterminating the muslims that are ruining scandanavia.