Who Let the Dogs out?

Beach managers and scientist have been battling seagull droppings and the possibility of disease for a long time. Seagull feces can carry disease-causing microbes like Escherichia coli and Enterococcus. This can contaminate beaches and water, leading to human infections.

   

Several methods have been tested, such as beach workers grooming the sands daily to remove the seagull droppings; oiling the seagull eggs to prevent hatching; and now canine patrol. Dog handlers are using border collies to chase the birds off the beach from sunup to sunset. Early results show that the dogs are having a significant impact on controlling the bacteria.

The dogs are trained to leave endangered species alone, and the handlers pick up the dog feces daily. Some see this as seagull harassment, while others see it as a more humane method of seagull control. Read the full article here.

Here are some articles related to birds and diseases. (Please note that you may have to be logged into the FAU network for the links to be functional; or use the citations below. Also note that any Wikipedia references are not refereed and may not be appropriate for coursework).

1.      Human infections associated with wild birds. Link here.

2.      Bird's eye view of emerging zoonoses.  Link here.

3.      First Detection of Bacillus anthracis in Feces of Free-ranging Raptors

from Central Argentina. Link here.

References:

 Sotirios Tsiodras, Theodoros Kelesidis, Iosif Kelesidis, Ulf Bauchinger, Matthew E. Falagas

 Human infections associated with wild birds

 Journal of Infection, Volume 56, Issue 2, February 2008, Pages 83–98

 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jinf.2007.11.001

Lubick, Naomi, Science Magazine, August 31, 2012. Online.

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/08/microbe-free-beaches-thanks-to.html?ref=hp

Bird's eye view of emerging zoonoses. Polyxeni Potter. Emerging Infectious Diseases. 16.2 (Feb. 2010) p369. Word Count: 1336.

http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?action=interpret&id=GALE|A221918691&v=2.1&u=gale15691&it=r&p=ITOF&sw=w&authCount=1

Miguel D. Saggese,  Ramo´n  P. Noseda, Marcela M. Uhart,  Sharon L. Deem, Hebe Ferreyra,

Marcelo C. Romano,6 Marı´a C. Ferreyra-Armas,7 and Martin Hugh-Jones. First Detection of Bacillus anthracis in Feces of Free-ranging Raptors from Central Argentina.  Journal of Wildlife Diseases, 43(1), 2007, pp. 136–141.

http://www.jwildlifedis.org/content/43/1/136.full.pdf+html

image credit:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Seagull_in_flight_by_Jiyang_Chen.jpg