All things wildlife disease

In this episode of the Wildtalk Podcast, Eric and guest host Melinda Cosgrove start off the show with a brief history of the wildlife disease laboratory. That's followed up with a chat about wildlife diseases affecting birds, before finally talking about wildlife diseases that affect mammals. 

Episode Hosts: Melinda Cosgrove and Eric Hilliard
Producer/editor: Eric Hilliard

• All things habitat
  • Wildlife disease laboratory
• All things feathers
  • Wildlife Disease Manual
  • Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza
  • West Nile Virus
  • Botulism
  • Report diseased wildlife
• All things fur
  • Rabies
  • Public health directory for rabies testing
  • Canine and feline distemper
  • Bovine tuberculosis

Questions or comments about the show? Contact the DNR Wildlife Division at 517-284-9453 (WILD) or email dnr-wildlife@michigan.gov.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

You know what that sound means. It's time for the Michigan DNR's Wild Talk Podcast. Welcome to the Wild Talk Podcast, where representatives from the DNR's Wildlife Division chew the fat and shoot the scat about all things habitat, feathers, and fur. With insights, interviews, and your questions answered on the air, you'll get a better picture of what's happening in the world of wildlife here in the great state of Michigan.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Hello and welcome to the Wild Talk Podcast. I'm Melinda Cosgrove, and I'll be your guest host this month. And I'm here with my co-host, Eric Hilliard.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

You're here with your co-host, Eric the Frog, because I've got a bit of a frog in my throat. So if I sound a little uh rougher than normal, I think the seasonal allergies are just kind of getting to me a little bit. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

It's that time of year.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

So I I will I will say, Melinda, super stoked to have you here. It's always fun working with you folks out at the lab, particularly in the past with cutting lymph nodes out of deerheads, which I tell you what, for our listeners, it is insane the number of deer heads that get processed out at the disease lab, both for chronic wasting disease and bovine TB. But it is, it's an insane number of deer heads. How many did you all process this last year?

SPEAKER_00 1:19

This last year, it was probably close to 6,000, which is more reasonable. In past years, we've done a lot more than that. And the one of the years you were probably out there, we were probably over 30,000. And it was probably our busy year. It's it is very physical. So your you know, description of not being able to bend over, our staff do feel that, yeah, especially after hours and hours down there and years and years of doing it. So we've tried to reduce that number back to what do we actually need to do to find out the information we need without overtaxing our system and overusing our staff and our resources for extra. And so we've designed other ways that hunters can still get testing done without all of those having to come through that same process and make testing available still statewide.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

Yeah. And I'm I'm guessing we're gonna talk about that in more in this segment. You're kind of hijacking things a little bit for the lab this episode, aren't you? Which is fascinating. I think our listeners are really gonna enjoy this.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Yeah, great. You know, you were talking about, you know, working with us over the years and stuff. And I wanted to tell you something really cool. On June 1st, the date of the drop for this podcast is my anniversary with an apartment. I will have been here 27 years.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

I I was just thinking how cool it was that after all this time, I'm still getting getting to do very new things on the job. So, you know, my first time on a podcast, definitely the first time hosting one. So I thought it was really neat to have it happen right on my anniversary date.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

So yeah, I'm honestly kind of surprised we haven't had you on the podcast in the past. I remember, you know, Dan O'Brien hosted one episode a number of years ago with me. And then we had the the round table panel uh discussing why people should leave wildlife in the wild. And that was a really interesting episode. But I think you might have provided maybe some background information for the folks that were. But it's nice to finally have you on here.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

I appreciate it. So it's good to be here.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

Obviously, we're gonna talk about the lab a little bit, but what else do you have lined up for today?

SPEAKER_00 3:15

All right, yeah. So I'm taking some liberties today on this month's podcast and doing a little bit of a wildlife health takeover. So I know that normally it's all things habitat, all things fur, and all things feather. But for the first segment, I'm gonna talk about what is my habitat, which is the lab. And I'm gonna give you a history of the lab and talk about some of the work that we do there. In the all things fur and feather segment, I'll talk about a few of the wildlife health concerns that we see in each of those groups of animals, ones that people might often have questions about or come in contact with this time of year.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

Excellent. And you mentioned that you've been with us for 27 years. What exactly is your role out at the lab, just to kind of give people a little more background about you?

SPEAKER_00 3:56

Absolutely. So I'm currently the lab manager there. And I have I started as a lab technician. I did that for a number of years, and I actually went back, got my master's degree while I was working at the lab on a bovine tuberculosis project, and and then moved into a lab scientist role. And then I've been a lab manager now for about eight years, I think. And and so I supervise a few staff. I I manage the logistics and day-to-day operations at the lab, coordinate with our field staff and work on disease surveillance plans and just a variety of things.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

So well, I I I think our listeners are are in for a real treat. Some people are gonna like this, and some people are gonna be like, this is really gross. Yeah. I think some of feces. Yeah, I think some of our listeners are definitely gonna like this. Some might think it's a little gross. I mean, we've already talked about cutting lymph nodes out of deer heads, but there is a reason for that. And our listeners get to get to hear a little bit more about the important role that the that the lab plays here here in the wildlife division.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

Our work definitely is not glamorous, but it gives us a lot of information, and it's important to safeguard the health of wildlife through the work we do. And someone's got to do it, and that's us. But before we get into all of that, let's hear a word from our warblers.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

Hey, Michigan drivers, the little bird told me your license plate can do more than just tag your car. The wildlife habitat plate featuring the iconic Kirtlands warbler helps protect Michigan's non-game fish and wildlife through the non-game fish and wildlife trust fund. But hurry, this plate is changing soon. Want to keep the warbler flying? You can even get one as a collector's item, no car required. Support Michigan's Wildlife and get your plate before this bird flies away. Visit Michigan.gov slash SOS, all right, Eric.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

So as I mentioned in this first segment today, I'm going to talk a little bit about our wildlife health section. Now, the wildlife health section is a unique part of the wildlife division, and we're responsible for monitoring the health of wildlife across the state of Michigan.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

So just a small job. Nothing. Yeah, just a small job across the entire state. Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:08

That's right. So we are involved in cause of death diagnosis of wildlife, disease surveillance. We've also been involved in public outreach and education efforts about wildlife disease and species recovery efforts over the years as well. But you'll also hear us called the wildlife disease lab. That's what we were solely known as for many years until we became our own section. And a lot of times those terms get used interchangeably. The disease lab itself kind of describes our physical location. And but you'll hear me mostly refer to it as a lab throughout today.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Yeah. I mean, that's kind of how most of us in the other sections throughout, you know, in units. I'm in the design and communications unit, obviously. But if we're talking about anything wildlife disease related, we're always like, oh yeah, let me go uh give Melinda a call out at the lab or let me talk to Julie out at the lab.

SPEAKER_00 6:57

Yes, yes. So yeah. So while we're on we are our own section, we, you know, our physical space is a lab. So that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

Yeah, and it's a cool lab too.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

It is, and it's pretty neat. So we're gonna talk more about that right now. But first we'll go back in time a little bit and look all the way back to the 1920s. And and during that time, both Michigan State University and the University of Michigan had some really great lab facilities, but they didn't really have a direct connection with what was then the Department of Conservation. It's what we know now as the Department of Natural Resources. And there were some wildlife division staff, which were game division staff at that time, that did some wildlife health surveys. There are records that date back to 1933, but it wasn't until 1935 that a lab was actually established. And that was in Giltner Hall on MSU's campus. And this was when they first hired a veterinary pathologist. So it was the first actually staff that were hired on just for this particular work. The lab was dedicated to investigating parasites and diseases and even nutrition of wildlife at that time. Here's a cool thing Michigan was actually the first state agency in the country to establish a wildlife disease laboratory and hire a veterinary pathologist. So it is the history of where wildlife health programs and disease investigations across the nation actually began, right here in Michigan. So a year after the lab opened, the division actually purchased a trailer and they converted that into a mobile lab. And so this allowed staff then to travel around the state and really do examinations of wildlife, mainly game animals at that time, game birds, game mammals. And it allowed staff to really just go where the people in the wildlife were. Pretty sure, probably back in those days, that shipping samples to the lab took a lot longer than it does in today's world. So this really just expanded the their ability to get their hands on more samples and do more investigations across the state.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

So was this just like a, I don't know, like a covered trailer like you might see nowadays, kind of converted into a makeshift lab, or was it something a little bit fancier?

SPEAKER_00 8:56

Yeah, it looks like a little camping trailer, basically. Okay. Yeah, we have pictures of it. It's it's pretty neat to see. So that they did that. So then during 1937 to 38, they actually opened a museum within the lab.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

I don't know how big this was, but they had basically a museum for a lab that just started seems a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 9:14

But they had study skins in there and gay animal amounts and parasites they had documented. And they really just used it for education and research purposes.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

And so that's kind of so kind of like we do now where we're where we will take pelts and things like that to trade shows and different events.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

Yes, yeah. They had them all just in you know a museum setting for for that purpose. So yeah. Uh so it was a little tidbit that I learned uh after working there that I thought was interesting.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

So that that would almost be uh really almost a precursor, a very uh you know, ancient precursor to the outdoor adventure center in in Detroit.

SPEAKER_00 9:49

Absolutely, yes, yes. It's probably a smaller scale, but yeah, very similar.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

Exactly. Yeah, so so that was the first outdoor adventure center. There you go. But mostly focused on parasites and disease.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

Yes, exactly. The lab also provided diagnostic services to hunters. So if a hunter harvested an animal and noticed something abnormal, they could submit it and get some information back on on what it was. And and obviously that helped the the state keep an eye on you know any health issues that were occurring or emerging in Michigan as well. And we still offer that service today. So that's something that we've continued to do, you know, coming up in over 90 years now. So but then World War II began and that really kind of depleted lab staff. So according to some old department records, the space became more limited that we had available. And because of military service and then deaths from the war, we really were depleted in in terms of staff. And and so from about 1943 to 46, there was really very minimal research being done. However, the war ended and the veterinary pathologist came back and additional employee was hired. So space and and staff were still limited for a few years there. But in 1951, they actually moved into a new location. And this was still within Giltner Hall, but it gave them a little bit more space to expand on some work they were doing and hire some additional staff. However, at the same time, MSU was also expanding their work and needing more lab space. So in 1956, the lab then moved out to the Rose Lake property. And that's out in Clinton County, it's kind of east of East Lansing, I guess, for those that aren't familiar with the area there.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

Yeah, and that building has since been demolished, correct?

SPEAKER_00 11:28

Well, they weren't in that building yet. So they were in the barn out there at this time. So if you can imagine a lab moving into the barn, didn't really have all of your needs met. So I think a few staff still worked on campus that could.

SPEAKER_01 11:40

Uh, but they were in probably a little bit more room than in the trailer, though, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:44

Correct. Yes, yes, absolutely, absolutely. And you can convert, you know, areas and barns to meet your needs too. So they only worked in the barn, though, for about three years. And that's when the building out at Rose Lake was built and completed. You know, the the lab had now been in existence for about 20 years, and they were just doing a variety of investigations and research. Uh, a lot of new things were being learned about the health of wildlife. So the 1950s is really when work began to flourish. So we had things like canine distemper in raccoons, D or epizootic hemorrhagic disease in deer, meningial worm, which is a brain worm that we find in elk, as well as pesticide poisonings from DDT, which I'm sure people are familiar with. Those were all being first identified during the 1950s. And so it was a really busy time, and that's when the importance of the health of wildlife and those impacts were really starting to become recognized worldwide.

SPEAKER_01 12:35

Especially with the DDT. I mean, that had such an impact on migratory birds. Absolutely. It took a long time for them to recover.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

Yes, yes. So very important things being all you know figured out during that time. So because of all of this and you know, recognizing the need for this work to continue, that's when the Roselake Research Center was built out on the Roselake property. And that opened up in 1959 and it had office space, it had a necropsy floor, it had lab spaces with bench tops in there for work. It also had some animal holding pens out back. So it was really kind of at the time, probably a state-of-the-art facility for the purpose that they were needing it to use it for. Over the next few decades, the name would change a few times. So it had been when it first opened, I don't know if I mentioned this, was the game division lab or game lab was all it was called. And then the name would change a few times over the decades until it finally landed on the wildlife disease lab in 1984. And so that's where we became that. And so through the decades, though, the that work still continued to expand. And in addition to the things I have already mentioned, there were things like raccoon brownworm lead poisoning in waterfall, which is which eventually led to the ban of lead shot for waterfowl hunting. And also there were significant die-offs of waterfall from botulism. And all of these were being identified for the first time here in Michigan. And so still a lot of great work happening over the next few decades. And the lab remained in the space at Rose Lake for the next 45 years. And this is actually where I started my career. And so a really cool place to be, a beautiful place to have. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

It was yeah, right there on the lake. It was very nice. Yeah.

unknown 14:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

So it was a great place for me to start. You know, I I worked a few temp jobs out there before, you know, getting lucky enough to get a job with the lab. And my because the space was becoming outdated and had been around for a while, my lab, my office, my desk at least, was actually in a converted space in one of the benchtop labs. And so the space was starting to become a little small for increasing needs again. And particularly with the discovery of bovine tuberculosis and wild deer, our work was increasing. We were hiring more staff. And because of this, we returned to MSU. So now we've come for full circle back to MSU. But this time it was a lab built with the purpose of our work in mind as well as diagnostic work and collaborative work. So in 2004, the Diagnostic Center for Population and Animal Health, which is that's a mouthful. It is. So now it's just called the Veterinary Diagnostic Lab. So the name has been shortened and a little easier to say. That was completed on the south end of MSU's campus. And this is the building that it is run by MSU, but the DNR actually has dedicated space within this building. And we have office and lab space. We have a biosafety level three necropsy floor, which is probably where you were when you came in there.

SPEAKER_01 15:22

Yeah, it's very interesting to have to put on disposable underwear and like different socks and everything else. Yeah, it's like, oh, I'm putting on completely different clothes when I come to work here.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Yes, and it is a shower out facility. So this facility was really built with safety protocols in mind as well because we're working on infectious diseases. So all of those things were improvements over, you know, an old building at Roselake, which at one time probably was like really state of the dark, but you know, had aged and and had surpassed its usefulness for us.

SPEAKER_01 15:51

Yeah, it's really interesting when you think about people who will take wildlife into their home or and sort of adopt it. And a lot of times we, particularly in social media, people will be upset when the DNR removes a wild animal from somebody's home. But when you go to work and you have to put on disposable underwear and shower completely before leaving a facility, and while you're in there, you've got ventilator equipment on and everything else. It puts things in a different perspective when you realize that yes, there are infectious diseases that animals have that can jump to humans and can then be even transmitted from those humans to other humans and they, you know, mutating viruses and everything else. Yeah, you get what when you go to work out there, you have a different perspective on human and wildlife interactions and the importance of giving wildlife their distance.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

Absolutely. And you know, we know most of the time that those people, you know, they have a good heart about health.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

Yes, good intentions.

SPEAKER_00 17:01

There's good intentions there, but there definitely are human health and safety concerns around some of these animals. And it doesn't mean that every wildlife that's out there is carrying disease, but you don't always know which ones are. And that's where you take precautions just to make sure that you're not incidentally infecting yourself or your family by these, you know, just trying to do a good thing. And then there are people that are professionals that are trained to handle this and you know, take care of those animals in a proper way in in a proper environment where those safety pre precautions can be put in place.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

Yeah, and Dan O'Brien, who I mentioned earlier, who's who's retired now, I seem to remember him saying there was one case of a human that got ovine tuberculosis, and they were able to track track through the genetics of the virus and it basically tracked it back to this deer that a you know, a fawn that a family had quote unquote rescued, right?

SPEAKER_00 17:56

Yes, yes. That is the person was was not a hunter, did not have any background in the agricultural industry. So you're the where we would see it in animals, they had no connection to any of that, but they did have a family home or cabin up in the area where we see TB. And as a child, they had videos of the kids hand feeding deer and uh someone, a neighbor taking care of a fawn, and they believe that at some point in one of those interactions is where this person became infected.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

Yeah. I can be especially what you're talking about, you know, hand feeding deer, saliva. Kids aren't always the greatest at washing their hands. Yeah, so yep, could definitely see how how that would occur.

SPEAKER_00 18:39

Sure, yes. So so that's one. And we'll talk about some other ones too today that will kind of some, I guess, highlight the reasons of of why we really need to be careful with with some of these animals and and not handling them if they're sick or especially if they're they're acting abnormal. So soon after we the lab moved into this space, that's when we were recognized as our own health section. So this is where the wildlife health section name came in. We so most people probably aren't familiar that the division's broken down into further regions, sections, and units. And formerly we had been part of the research section, but due to the recognized importance of the work we were doing and the increasing workload that we had, we were finally became recognized as our own section. And it's now been 22 years that we have been housed in the veterinary diagnostic lab. It's really allowed for some great partnerships and collaborations. Uh, they do a lot of our diagnostic work. So if we have samples that we need to submit for further testing, and if you have cases that you need to discuss, they're just right down the hall and it's easy to have those conversations. And so it really makes for great collaborative workspace. So we went from probably a 10 by 10 kind of necropsy floor out at Rose Lake to having space needed to do disease surveillance on diseases like bovine tuberculosis, as we mentioned, and chronic wasting disease, among many others. And so also, as I mentioned, it was just built with the protocols and safety in mind to handle these things.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

Um got lots of room for 30,000 deer heads.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

Yes. Well, not really.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

Not all at once, anyways.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

No, no, and that is the thing. We we were not prepared for that, but to do more reasonable, it's definitely we have the space for that now. So I guess there you have over 90 years of history boiled down into maybe 10 minutes or so. There have been a lot of great people who have actually worked out at the lab over the years, and there have been some leaders in wildlife health that have spent their careers there. And and I feel very fortunate to have cross path and worked with a lot of those as well. So beyond deer heads, I know a lot of people have interest in deer. We do work on a lot of other things at our lab. And so we're gonna talk about that a bit more in the next segment. And we're gonna start off with highly pathogenic avian influenza.

SPEAKER_01 20:43

Pure Michigan Hunt applications are on sale now. If you want your shot of what is considered Michigan's ultimate hunt, pick up a $5 application or two. There's no limit to the number you can buy. If you're one of the three lucky winners, you'll get a hunting prize package worth thousands, as well as licenses for elk, bear, spring and fall turkey, and little deer, and first pick the managed waterfowl area for a reserved hunt. Purchase anywhere hunting licenses are sold or online at Michigan.com slash PMA.

SPEAKER_00 21:38

So there are a lot of things I could cover today, and it's more than we have time for, obviously. So if you're interested in more, either on the ones that I'm talking about today or on other ones that I don't talk about today, we do have on our website what we call our wildlife disease manual. And it has detailed chapters on each of these diseases that I'll talk about, plus more. And you can find that on our webpage at michigan.gov. Slash wildlife disease.

SPEAKER_01 22:01

And we will also link to that in our show notes.

SPEAKER_00 22:04

So the first one I want to talk about a little bit today, Eric, is highly pathogenic avian influenza. Now, this one's been in the news in recent years, so people are probably more familiar with it because of that. It is caused by a virus. It's an influenza A virus, and it occurs naturally in wild waterfall. But domestic poultry are very susceptible to this virus. The virus gets classified, and you'll hear, you know, if you hear something like H5N1, because it's classified into different combinations by the groups of proteins. And so there are H proteins, which are your hemaglutinin proteins, and N proteins, which are your neurominidase proteins. And there are nine H proteins, 16 N proteins. So they can combine together in any form, which makes 144 different possible combinations that could be out there.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

Oh, wow. Yeah. Just 144 different variations.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

But there are a few that are more concerning. And these also get classified further into either a low pathogenic strain or a high pathogenic strain. And that really is determined by the amount of disease they can cause in poultry. So low pathogenic strains really don't have any ill effects on wildlife. They can cause mild disease in poultry. However, it's when they mutate into these high pathogenic strains that they really can wreak havoc. And we can see waterfall or other wildlife die-offs from the high pathogenic strains as well as severe mortality in poultry. So it can move through poultry pretty quickly.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

And that's those are the ones that we tend to be concerned about jumping from the wildlife or from like wildlife to poultry, from poultry to humans, right?

SPEAKER_00 23:39

Exactly. Yes. That's right. So besides waterfall, uh waterbirds, other water birds, scavengers, and raptors are species that are pretty susceptible. And that would include like your eagles, hawks, falcons, vultures. And then we've also found that wild mammals are also susceptible to this in this most recent outbreak. And that's mostly from scavenging on infected bird carcasses. There have been, I guess, recently two cases in cattle that were has happened in most recent years too, where we found that cattle could also become infected with highly pathogenic avian influenza. And there have been a few human cases in the US, but most of those have been farm workers who are working with infected poultry or cattle. Transmission of the virus can happen through nasal secretions and feces, other bodily fluids. So, you know, it can not that humans are passing colds necessarily through feces, but it can be passed in similar ways, right? So coughing and sneezing and then anything saliva left behind on a surface.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

Make sure you're washing your hands, people.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

Correct. And so it's when maybe an uninfected animal comes in contact with an infected animal or those secretions that are left behind in the environment. So that virus is in those and it's in the environment. And you know, it can last in the environment for a different period of time, and it really depends on the material and the temperature. So it does really well at surviving in kind of wet or cooler temperatures and that kind of environment. But when it gets warmer, or when I'd say like over 80 degrees, it starts to dive pretty quickly and maybe only lasts a couple days in the environment at that point. So that's why we typically see spikes in cases in the spring. So you have the migrations happening. So migratory birds are moving across and carrying the virus with them. And then also the conditions in the environment are also better for survival of the virus. And then it tends to slow a little bit in the summer. And then we'll see a smaller spike in the fall when that reverse migration takes place. But there are a lot of birds that can be asymptomatic, which means they won't show symptoms at all. So you may not know that they're sick and you may find them dead later. But if you do notice waterfall, we've had ones that are swimming in circles, showing tremors, and you know, just not able to hold themselves upright. Those are usually signs. And we've seen that in geese a lot or in water birds that are are more highly affected, and you can see those kind of symptoms. Other animals, I think it, especially raptors, it might cause mortality a lot more quickly. And uh you might just find those lying dead near your property.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

We had a lot of bald eagles that were high mortality among them, one of these, you know, a season or two ago, right?

SPEAKER_00 26:24

Yeah, we did. And a lot of times they would be found dead just on the ground underneath their nest. And that's how people are identifying those and not necessarily seeing symptoms beforehand. And so those are ones I would say that we would look into single birds. So sometimes, you know, overall, usually we're looking at population health. That's really our goal for wildlife. But there are certain animals, right, that are maybe species of concern or are, you know, smaller in numbers that we would be interested in individual animals in in rafters and eagles. Birds like that would be ones that we would probably want to look at if they were found dead, or if you notice them acting ill and it wasn't a large die-off. But with water birds or waterfall, that's where we start looking for. If you notice that there are six or more, is usually kind of a threshold we give that you notice that are sick or dying. Then that's when we'd like to know about that and investigate those.

SPEAKER_01 27:14

Yeah, I seem to remember too, because it's not always even sometimes you'll see what appears to be a large die-off, and you're like, oh, this must be some sort of disease. I remember case, I think it was last year, maybe the year before, where there was a large number of waterfowl that were dead in the same spot, but it was because they were hitting like a power line or something like that that was as they were coming in for a landing, they just didn't see it or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 27:41

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 27:41

And they were basically clotheslining themselves for lack of a better term on this wire and dying. But when you look at it, you're like, oh, here's a bunch of dead birds. It must be a disease. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 27:53

We have people saying birds are falling from the sky, you know, and so it's kind of scary if you see that. But yeah, there are a lot of other things, obviously, that can cause that as well. And and this is just one of the things that we look for. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:04

And not that we wouldn't want to know about that as well, because we don't know until we check and see, but that's why the lab is so valuable, right? Yes. Because you guys can look at these and say, oh no, this is obviously a trauma-induced death. There's no, you know, disease here to worry about.

SPEAKER_00 28:20

Right.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:21

So we do have a form online that people can go to to report any sick or dead wildlife that they do find. And in some instances, we may reach out and want to investigate it, particularly if it's something that is maybe sounds suspicious or is like for avia influenza, if it's just starting to appear for the year, you know, we try to confirm it in areas to know that that's what's circulating. And then from then on, we really just monitor the reports, especially if we've already confirmed it in an area, just to keep eyes on it and just to keep track of maybe the impact it's having on wildlife. And so a lot of people think sometimes if they don't hear from us and they report something that we're not using their information, but we we are. We we do track that. And it is very helpful to let us know where the disease is occurring and the impact it's having. And so we do appreciate any reports that people submit.

unknown 29:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:11

And sometimes a large die-off might be something like botulism too, right?

SPEAKER_00 29:15

And we're gonna talk about that in a few minutes. But before we go there, I want to talk about just briefly about West Nile virus, because this is another one that will start showing up about this time of year. And I'm I won't go into as many details about this one, but it is another virus that West Nile virus. So see, with the name, you can tell it's a virus. And it is, while it's caused by a virus and it can cause bird mortality. This is typically in corbids, which includes your blue jays, crows, and ravens. And so those are kind of our sentinel species that we look at for this disease. And raptors can also be pretty susceptible to this as well. So that's another thing if you see a single raptor, right? It could be multiple things. And here we have two diseases right here, that it could be either one of those. And so any bird or mammal can be affected by West Nile virus, but this one is transmitted through the bite of mosquito. So, unlike AI, where it can be direct transmission from animal to animal or in the environment, this one's only transmitted through the bite of a mosquito. So a mosquito bites an infected animal and then bites and carries the virus with them and bites a non-infected animal, and that's how the virus gets transmitted. So obviously, people can get bit by mosquitoes as well. So they are at risk for this disease as well. And obviously, it's the same, you know, recommendation to give for, you know, just protecting yourself against mosquitoes in general, um, and you know, wearing spray or staying indoors, you know, during prime time of mosquito activity.

SPEAKER_01 30:39

Yeah, even if there's no risk of West Nile virus, you don't really like to be hit by mosquitoes, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:45

So this is just kind of an extra, extra saving there. So with this disease, noticeable symptoms might be before death, might be weakness, uncoordinated movement. They might seem pretty lethargic and unable to hold their head upright. We've seen that in in raptors in particular, where they just kind of seem like their head's bobbing and they can't hold it upright.

SPEAKER_01 31:05

Um that sounds pretty similar to like lead poisoning, too, almost.

SPEAKER_00 31:09

So a lot of these things have overlapping symptoms, yes. So it is why you know we we have to look at things to be able to properly diagnose what's really going on with the animal. So, as I mentioned, corvids are used as the sentinel species due to their high susceptibility and die-offs of corbids usually are indicated that the virus is circulating. So we we will try and keep a closer eye on those birds, particularly, you know, during the spring and summer when mosquito activity is high. And so if you notice sick or dead corvids in your area, these are great to report to us as well through that same online reporting form that I mentioned. And we do try to test birds from each county to confirm that the virus is circulating. And then again, after that, we'll just monitor reports to assess the impacts. In addition, we work with our human health colleagues to help with early human health warnings as well. So they'll put out notices once it's been detected just to give people a heads up.

SPEAKER_01 31:59

Yeah, gotta love that interdepartmental coordination.

SPEAKER_00 32:03

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 32:04

Keeping everybody safe.

SPEAKER_00 32:05

So yeah, as you mentioned like earlier on in the podcast, this, you know, a lot of these diseases move from animals to humans, and we call that zoonotic disease, right? So a lot of these things that we do work with are zoonotic and and these are why we work together with our human health colleagues and and trying to, you know, we do our job and monitoring it in wildlife. It helps them do their job and helping keep people safe. So earlier you mentioned botulism. Botulism is actually a toxin, and then this is caused by a bacteria, Clostridium botulinum.

SPEAKER_01 32:34

So we're not dealing with viruses anymore.

SPEAKER_00 32:35

Yeah, this one is not a virus. So, you know, viruses really do cause the majority of infectious disease, but bacteria come in second place. And so this one is a bacteria, and it is found, this bacteria is found in soils throughout North America, and it causes an intoxication rather than infectious disease. So in Michigan, we actually have two forms. We have one called type C and one called type E. Type C is really associated with bottom sediments in aquatic environments, and so it typically affects waterfall and other birds like shorebirds that are living and feeding on invertebrates in these environments. And then we have type E, which is associated with the consumption of dead or decaying fish. Um, it also can include feeding on lusts and if there are infected birds that are dead in the area too, but it affects mainly fish-eating birds. So it would include your loons, gulls, grees, eagles, so your ducks and merganzers as well.

SPEAKER_01 33:30

And so when you say this has an it's an intoxicating bacteria, does so is it almost like I mean, this is a crude example, but like binge drinking, like binge drinking too much to where like the liver gets poisoned, or like how does this break down exactly?

SPEAKER_00 33:48

That's a perfect question because actually what I was gonna tell you next is it's more like a food poisoning. So they come, you know, I guess it could you could compare it to what you're saying, but it it is like a toxin in the food. So if you got food poisoning, it'd be kind of similar except for this is causing neurological symptoms as well. So and it really what how this starts with, well, I'll give an example for type C is it starts with those aquatic invertebrates. So they will pick up that bacteria in the sediments, and then the birds, you know, in late summer, the water levels and the water temperatures, so the water levels go down, water temperatures rise, and those invertebrates can die off because of that. And they become really a good medium for that bacteria to grow and produce toxin. And then the birds come in and they feed off of those invertebrates, and then they, you know, get sick from that and ingest that toxin and die. Then, and and this probably won't be appetizing to many people, but when you have dead bird carcasses around, you often get maggots on those, and those will ingest the toxin from those dead bird carcasses, and they are a food source for other birds, so other birds will come in, eat the maggots, and also ingest the toxin. So that just amplifies that cycle and the increases the mortality event on those. So and then type B is similar, except for the well, sorry. The type B is similar. The bacteria for these really thrive in those late summer anaerobic water conditions.

SPEAKER_01 35:07

When you say anaerobic, what do you mean by that?

SPEAKER_00 35:10

So that's when you have like lower oxygen levels in the water. So again, you're getting high water temperatures and low water levels, and so you have lower oxygen levels and things tend to die off in in those environments, right?

SPEAKER_01 35:21

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 35:21

And so the bacteria there is not only ingested by those aquatic invertebrates, but it also can be ingested by fish, and the fish can do it either directly from the sediments or by eating those invertebrates. And then the fish in the cycle then become that medium for that bacteria to grow and produce toxin. So the dead fish then get consumed by fish eating water birds and subsequently become poisoned from that.

SPEAKER_01 35:44

Yeah. It's interesting. It's a whole circle of life thing, right? Everything is trying to replicate itself and kill other things to continue to replicate itself.

SPEAKER_00 35:53

Yes, yes, yes. And I think about these animals, I thought it's like kind of like, you know, I'm not a big fan of buffets, but I think of it like these animals show up and like, wow, look at this, all this food to eat, and then they get sick afterwards.

SPEAKER_01 36:04

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of buffets either. You know, the I've always found them a little bit, especially after COVID and everything else. I just I have a really hard time just I look and I'm thinking to myself, yeah, this just looks like a petri dish of not good things here.

SPEAKER_00 36:22

Yes, it does. So for this disease, birds that are seen ill prior to death, they might seem paralyzed, their wings might droop, so they would have difficulty flying. And again, just unable to kind of hold themselves or their heads upright. But a lot of times botulism is really just noted by a sudden presence of dead birds. Um, so you'll see them along the shoreline typically. So larger lakes like Lake Michigan, we tend to get those late summer almost every year. We get some die-offs up there from that. Type E then is also associated with a lot of dead fish washing ashore, too. Uh so given that these are really associated more with low, low lake levels and high temperatures, there's really not a lot of practical management or prevention for it. But cleaning up, you know, dead fish.

SPEAKER_01 37:05

So we can't just like drag a garden hose to the lake and you know, fresh water.

SPEAKER_00 37:09

No, that wouldn't work. But, you know, I, you know, talking about this cycle and kind of the replication of it, you know, one of the things that can be done, and there are groups that actually, conservation groups that do this, we'll go and clean up the shoreline. So pick up the the birds to remove them from the shore, the dead fish as well to try and break that cycle.

SPEAKER_01 37:26

Yeah, they're at least minimizing the damage a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 37:28

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And again, uh you can report these through our website. You know, I'll I'll tell you this over and over because if every one of these diseases, you know, a lot of them come with die-offs, and those are the ones that we want to see reported back to us so that we can keep an eye on when this starts to occur.

SPEAKER_01 37:44

Yeah, we can put a link directly to that form in the show notes, but otherwise, if you go to Michigan.gov slash wildlife disease, you will see a button for it right up at the top of the page to report your sacred disease wildlife.

SPEAKER_00 38:47

And first off, I want to talk a little bit about rabies. So, rabies is another disease caused by what is it, Eric? A virus. Yes. And it's actually probably one of the oldest infectious diseases being reported in Asia as early as 2000 BC. And it was likely brought to North America in probably the 1700s by the early settlers with dogs that they brought over with them. And there are distinct strains of rabies. They are named by the species that primarily maintains them, although they're not limited to only affecting those species. So the most common strain we have in Michigan is the bat strain rabies, followed by skunk strain rabies. But due to some strong wildlife vaccination efforts of our neighboring states like Ohio's, we haven't yet had a case of raccoon strain rabies here in Michigan.

SPEAKER_01 39:34

Yeah, and those bat strains are certainly a concern from a public health standpoint. I think it was, if my memory is correct, 2013 we had a death of a person who was bit by a bat. And and I and that's coming from an interview that Dan and I did with a representative from Department of Health and Human Services. Okay. And the only reason why they know that or why they figure it was a bat is because that individual had told somebody that he was bit by a bat.

SPEAKER_00 40:06

And didn't seek treatment.

SPEAKER_01 40:07

And didn't seek treatment and and ended up with you know dying of rabies as a result. And we haven't had anything since then. So, you know, obviously with the bats, get that bat tested if it's in the if it's in your house. But one that surprises me, you know, you bring up the skunk strain, like you know, people who will have outdoor house cats or you know, indoor outdoor house cats and they send them out, you know, those cats will sometimes get into a tussle with skunks. And if that skunk has rabies, you know, people don't tend to they don't think about it, they don't usually get their cat vaccinated for rabies, right? Like it's not very common. So just something to keep in mind if you if you have a cat, the lifespan of indoor cats is far longer than the lifespan of of outdoor cats. And as much as your cat might want to go outside, these are the things that you have to keep in mind if if that cat's out there.

SPEAKER_00 41:01

Yeah, we definitely recommend keeping your cat indoors for a variety of wildlife reasons. And so that but that is a good point there too. So you're right, you know, we think about this with dogs getting a rabies vaccination, but not typically cats. And but if your cat did, you know, get entangled with a skunk and get bitten or scratch, it would be important to follow up with your veterinarian on that.

SPEAKER_01 41:21

Yeah. Good the good thing is most of the time you can tell if your cat's gotten into a tangle with a skunk because you can smell it.

SPEAKER_00 41:29

Yes. Yeah, that's true. Yes. I mean, all mammals can really become infected with rabies. So even though these species are maintaining the virus, you know, any, you know, kind of mammal that they might bite or scratch can become infected with rabies.

SPEAKER_01 41:44

Including us.

SPEAKER_00 41:45

Including people, yes. And, you know, we think of bats and raccoons, skunks, and fox usually as being like these what we call rabies vector species. So they're the ones carrying it. But, you know, if you or your pet, you know, encounters one of these animals, is particularly if it's acting abnormal, but you know, sometimes even if it's not, it's it's really important first to make sure, you know, like we said, your dogs are up on your rabies vaccination. But if any of your pets, you know, happen to get bitter scratched to follow up with their veterinarian, they can recommend vaccination or a booster dose if it's your dog that is already vaccinated. For a person you would want to follow up with your local health department and they can help you with post-exposure treatment. You know, there are, you know, when you are exposed to the virus through a bite or a scratch, there's this time called the incubation period. And it's when the virus has, you know, entered your body, but hasn't yet kind of started taking over your nervous system. Then that's really the most important time to seek treatment because once symptoms start to occur, this disease is nearly almost fatal. So it's not really something to take lightly if you are exposed to one of these animals. And it was we mentioned, you know, that transmission occurs through the bite or the scratch. There are a few cases where there has been aerosolization of the virus. I think that's a little bit more rare though. So for most of the time, you know, you're going to want to be interested in, I guess if you had bats in your your attic, you know, you know, that would be like a large colony or something like that. And, you know, a lot of times people will say, well, they were they were in the attic, and you know, oh, I found one in the house one time, but I don't think it was bitten. But I know there are cases of people being bitten in the middle of night and not knowing it. You know, bats have really small teeth. And if you're a heavy sleeper, you may not really know that you were bitten by one. So if you do find them in the house, it's, you know, if you can get that, even the animal tested. So a lot of times if there's an exposure, it's important to also test the animal that was involved in it. If it's a sick acting animal, um, obviously this means that it either has died from illness or has to be euthanized prior to testing, um, but it gives you a more definitive, you know, knowledge about whether or not that animal actually was infected with rabies.

SPEAKER_01 43:41

Yeah, and I believe the Department of Health and Human Services has some instructions on their website as far as like how to capture a bat in the event that you don't know if you were if you were bit or scratched, or if you know that you were bit or scratched, and how you can submit that animal for for testing. And we'll link to that in our in our show notes.

SPEAKER_00 44:02

Yeah, great. Yes. Some of the symptoms, I think, if you know, to help recognize this disease too, you know, animals will kind of exhibit signs of restlessness or vicious and aggressive behavior, probably things that people would typically think about, right? An aggressive animal, you know, oh, it's rabid. But a lot of the times this, those symptoms will eventually subside and they'll have con convulsions and paralysis prior to dying. Um, but not all animals infected with rabies will show those symptoms. So sometimes symptoms will go straight to just convulsions and paralysis and then death afterwards. So so again, you know, these are general symptoms, but there's always exceptions to everything. So it better be safe than sorry.

SPEAKER_01 44:40

And I certainly don't want convulsions, paralysis leading to death from rabies. So I'm gonna keep my eyes open and try to pay attention.

SPEAKER_00 44:49

It's a good idea. Yeah, it is uh it is 100% fatal in wildlife, and there's only a handful of people in the in the world that have actually survived actually infection. So this is after symptoms occurred, and and usually that comes with long-term neurological problems. So but definitely, so be cautious and and and follow up if if you have those exposures. Yeah. So the next one that I want to talk about is canine distemper virus. Again, another virus. And this one affects uh canids, so that's animals of the dog family, but raccoons are also highly susceptible to this disease. And the reason I bring this one up is because a lot of times it is mistaken for rabies. And so I think it's an important one to talk about as well. People might notice raccoons out in the in the middle of the day and think that they have a rabid raccoon, and there's no way to really know without diagnostic testing. And so those are why those are important to get tested. The virus can also affect a group of animals called mastelid. So that would include skunks again, um, but also weasels and otter and other animals as well in that group. But in Michigan, raccoons are the most affected by canine distemper, followed by the gray fox. And this transmission usually happens through respiratory. So this would be kind of, you know, aerosol droplets that have the virus in them are inhaled by an uninfected individual and then they become infected with this. And the symptoms are similar sometimes to rabies. So they can show some lack of fear, inaggression, disorientation, but they also can show excessive thirst and diarrhea and vomiting. And they'll have oftentimes discharge coming from those eyes. So on raccoons, a lot of times we'll see the ones that come in have like their eyes are crusted over from that discharge as well. So that's kind of a telltale sign of distemper. So these, again, it's important to have your dog up to date on its distemper vaccine to protect them from the virus because they are really susceptible to this virus. If you notice animals, you know, in your yard or on your property showing any of these signs, obviously for both diseases, it's important just to keep your pets out of that area to protect them. And then this virus doesn't infect people. So people are safe from this one, but because it can present like rabies, and we won't know for sure what it is without diagnostic testing, it's still good to take precautions around animals showing these symptoms.

SPEAKER_01 47:04

Yeah, I had a dog when I was young, probably around seven or eight years old, that got canine distemper and expensive vet bills. It did survive, you know, things, but it was in rough shape for for a while.

SPEAKER_00 47:17

Yeah, yeah, it's a rough one. It can take its toll on an animal's body. I guess if, you know, and to on these, and I haven't mentioned yet, but a lot of times if you have these animals that you know you've seen the acting sick and have collected them, and and you know, besides reporting, if you would like to get you know animal tested for canine distemper or rabies that maybe wasn't an exposure, but was acting sick on your property, you can always contact your local health or wildlife field office and they'll help get those specimens to our laboratory for diagnostic testing.

SPEAKER_01 47:47

Yep. And if you call 517-284-9453, Heidi, Perry, or Emily are happy to get you to the wildlife field office that is closest to you for that help.

SPEAKER_00 47:58

So there's one final disease that we'll discuss today to finish up, and that is bovine tuberculosis. So now I will call it TB or BTB as well, and that is caused by a bacteria. So we'll talk about one more bacteria today. And the bacteria is Mycobacterium bovis, and it's very closely related to Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which is the type of TB that humans are normally infected with. But Mycobacterium bovis, on the other hand, was originally named for cattle because they were the primary host of this disease, but it can infect any mammal. In the early 1900s, there were really high TB rates really across the US, but particularly here in Michigan. And it's estimated that sometime in the 1930s or 40s, that it likely spilled over into our white-tailed deer population up in the northeast part of our lower peninsula. And through the national TB eradication program in the late 70s, they actually declared it eradicated in cattle through in Michigan. And so, you know, big celebration. We've gotten rid of TB. And in the 70s, there had been one hunter-harvested deer that was submitted that had kind of like little lesions caused by TB. It's a respiratory disease.

SPEAKER_01 49:08

So it's like you're talking like bumps in the cavity or or on the lungs.

SPEAKER_00 49:12

Yeah. So bumps in the on the lungs that a hunter noticed they turned in to have tested and turned out to be TB. Because the cattle program was going well and there weren't really any cases showing up, you kind of thought, oh, this is just an anomaly and it wasn't that much of a concern. And it wasn't until the mid-90s that a second hunter harvested a deer with the same condition, turned it in. And now it had supposedly been eradicated in the state for 15 years. And this one also had TB. So a little bit more of an eyebrow rise on that one of what was going on. So some surveys were taken and we found that it was established up in the northeast part of the lower peninsula. So it's rare that it actually establishes in wildlife. It really takes a lot of conditions to come together in the right form for this to happen. Normally, you know, you can spill over to animal or something, but it can die out on its own. But with deer, obviously they, you know, they do kind of herd up sometimes into family groups or they have different contact with one another. But in addition, we also have when we have high wildlife densities or congregation in ways that increase congregation. So this would typically be kind of food piles that increase congregation. So these deer that maybe aren't normally in contact with one another now are, or they have increased contact that they wouldn't normally have because they're coming into these really focal feeding sites together as well. So yes, deer do naturally congregate, but this just increases that increases that congregation to a degree that helps increase disease spread.

SPEAKER_01 50:42

Yeah, and really there's it kind of goes back a little bit to when we were talking about botulism earlier, right? It's not like removing those carcasses from the beach is going to stop the botulism altogether. But by removing those, you minimize its impact a lot more. And it's kind of the same thing with deer. Like, yeah, they're still gonna get together, but you're not gonna create a condition to where that disease is going to spread more easily and be more prevalent than than what it is.

SPEAKER_00 51:15

Exactly. Yes. Any steps that you can take to reduce the you know amount of disease that's being transmitted is is a step in the right direction. So so you know, in Michigan, then deer are really what's considered a reservoir horse host now. Now it is also in cattle in the state. So soon after it was discovered that it was in deer, they went back and said, hey, maybe we should test some cattle again and and found it in cattle in the 90s as well. And so since then, we have routinely test deer as well as cattle in that area. And so we see spill back from deer into cattle, but transmission can have happen both ways. So that can happen, you know, they share feeding grounds, or if deer have access to the farm where the feed and water are available for the cattle and deer can get access to that. Obviously, transmission can happen there. And it can happen both directly and indirectly, right? So animals can pass this disease to one another. So coughing, sneezing, sliba, these things we've talked about before, or they can leave the bacteria in the environment on foodstuffs, or, you know, you know, it might be a bale of hay, or it could be, you know, a pile of corn that somebody put out, uh, and they leave that bacteria behind, and then another animal comes in behind them and eats off of that same food pile and ingests the bacteria and and subsequently becomes infected. So that can happen in two different ways. So we've had other animals in Michigan as well that have been infected with TB. Uh, these are mainly just spillover from deer too. So we've had a few elk that have tested positive for TB. Early on in the early 2000s, we tested some different species just to see what was going on. And this would include bear, coyotes, raccoons. A lot of those were scavenging uninfected carcasses that, you know, they had found animals that had died and and really they don't maintain the disease themselves in in their populations. TD is really a chronic disease, so it actually takes a long time. It develops pretty slowly. And so infected animals can live with you for years without showing any symptoms. And during this time, they can still be infectious, which means they're capable of spreading disease. And the bacteria really just replicates in the body and then slowly starts to spread. And so eventually, you know, you might just see loss of appetite, a loss of body condition, and then you see that coughing and sneezing that comes along with it as well. And so once the disease progresses, we get to what we call an advanced stage of disease, and that's when you start to see it in the lungs and the chest cavity. But only about actually less than 40% of the infected deer we see show signs in the chest cavity that a hunter would recognize. So why that's why we collect the heads off the animal to check lymph nodes, because that's where infection typically starts first. And so we're looking at the lymph nodes and the head for signs of infection. I talk to many hunters who are surprised when they, you know, find out that their harvested deer was positive because they know often to look in the chest cavity and they don't see anything. And so it's a good time to have a conversation about that and that that's a more advanced stage and it's not a definitive way to tell that the animal's infected. And it is why we encourage hunters to turn their head in for testing. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:16

And so now when you're looking at those lymph nodes at the lab, you know, what are the telltale signs where you get down to the lymph nodes and you look and you're like, oh, this looks like it's probably got some TB.

SPEAKER_00 54:26

Yeah, so that's it's really it's a lesion in the lymph node, which is what you would think of as an abscess. So you would cut into it the lymph node and you would see this abscess material, and it can be small, most like pinpoint pockets of abscess material, or the lymph node can be enlarged, you know, three times its size and just full of an abscess. And so different degrees of what you would see, it's not the same every time. But anything that looks like an abscess, now there are other types of non-TB bacteria that could cause that. So if deer have other things going on, they can get this. And so we will send those in just to rule out TB. So just because we send a lymph node on doesn't necessarily mean it means it will be TB, but we want to, you know, rule that out if it's not and make sure that we're giving the right diagnosis. And so I typically send a letter to hunters, and in that letter, it'll either tell them that the initial tests were negative, but we're going to continue testing that animal to make sure that this is the correct test result. So it has to go through what's called a culture where they try to regrow that bacteria and it's a slow-growing bacteria. So the test takes like six to eight weeks to complete. But in the end, if they can't regrow that TV bacteria, then they would say that it was not detected. Um, and then on the other hand, if I think it looks like a lot of times I can tell by looking at the lymph node, yeah, this looked like a pretty good suspect. And we wait for those initial test results to come back. And in the letter, we will tell the hunter then that the at least one of the initial tests came back positive. But you know, we've got to wait for the final results to make the call on it. So if you if you hunt in the Northeast Lower Peninsula, we do encourage you to get your harvested deer tested. But we also do accept deer statewide for TB testing because this is, again, a zoonotic disease, meaning it can infect humans. Um, if you are interested in having your deer examined for TB, we will accept it from anywhere in the state. And if you do harvest a positive deer and get a letter from me that states that it was positive, it will be recommended that you get a screening and you can do that, a TB screening yourself. And you can do that through your local health department or by talking to your physician. And it's really important because usually when someone's first infected, they have what's called latent TB, which means it's just dormant in your body. You don't have active disease. And this is an important time to find out about it because there is treatment that will almost eliminate the chances of ever developing active disease later in life.

SPEAKER_01 56:42

So this is kind of like the deer when you f the hunters being surprised the deer didn't look like it had TB. And you yourself, it's like, oh, I don't look like I have TB. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 56:52

So, you know, the case you mentioned earlier on today about the person who as a child, you know, we were talking about hand feeding and deer and you know, maybe having contact with a sick fawn that was being rehabilitated, they didn't find out they were infected until later in life and they went for a pre-employment TB screening. And that's how they found out and you know, completely by surprise, right? That not something you would expect. And so in that case, obviously she didn't have any ex exposure that she knew of or thought of at the time. But as a hunter, if it is important, like if you've had contact with this deer, you know, it's it's a pretty painless step. You can either get a little tiny injection in their skin or just get a quick blood draw, and that's how there's two ways to do it. And then you can, you know, have that peace of mind that you weren't exposed because you know there is treatment after the disease sets in, but it's a lot harsher. And then you're going through all the symptoms of disease as well. So it's it's good to get notified early on and get it taken care of. So with that, I just want to remind you again that you can read more about these diseases and more on our website at Michigan.gov slash wildlife disease. And at any time, if you see sick or dead wildlife you'd like to report to us, you can use that online reporting form.

SPEAKER_01 58:00

There are many camping and lodging opportunities available in Michigan state parks. When you choose state park campgrounds, you get more than just a campsite. State parks offer a diverse range of recreational opportunities, including hands-on instructional classes, nature programs, places to fish, boat launches, family-friendly events, and much more. Reservations can be made six months in advance, so why wait? Visit MIDNRreservations.com or call 1-800-44 Parks to make a reservation.

SPEAKER_00 58:40

Now is your opportunity to win a Wild Talk Podcast mug. As a thank you to our listeners, we'll be giving away a mug or two every episode. Our May mug winners are Colleen Brissett and Joe Nadiffer. Check your email as we'll be getting in touch with you soon. They answered the question: Michigan's elk were extirpated in the late 1800s and reintroduced in 1918. How many elk were used in that original reintroduction? And what national park did they come from? The answer was seven elk and from Yellowstone National Park.

SPEAKER_01 59:15

Yellowstone.

SPEAKER_00 59:16

To be entered into the drawing this month, test your wildlife knowledge and answer our wildlife quiz question. This month's question is What species of bird is not affected by ingesting the botulism toxin due to its unique intestinal microbiota and specialized highly acidic digestive system that is able to neutralize the toxin?

SPEAKER_01 59:39

I love the the word microbiota.

SPEAKER_00 59:42

Email your name and answer to us at dinr-wildlife at Michigan.gov to be entered for a chance to win a mug. Be sure to include the subject line as mug me and submit your answers by June 15th. We'll announce winners and the answer on next month's podcast. So be sure to listen in to see if you've won and for the next quiz question. Good luck, everyone.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:03

Michigan conservation officers are working hard to protect and keep the outdoors safe for current and future generations. If you witness a natural resources violation, you can call or text the Report All Poaching Hotline 24 hours a day at 1-800-292-7800 or fill out the complaint form available at Michigan.gov slash wrap. If you would like more information on becoming a conservation officer, click on Become a CO at Michigan.gov slash conservation officers.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:33

Thanks for joining us on this June edition of the Wild Talk Podcast. Remember, if you have questions about wildlife or hunting, you can call 517-284-9453 or email DNR-wildlife at Michigan.gov. We'll see you back here in July.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:51

This has been the Wild Talk Podcast, your monthly podcast airing the first of each month and offering insights into the world of wildlife across the state of Michigan. You can reach the Wildlife Division at 517-284-9453 or DNR-wildlife at Michigan.gov.