Over the past decade, there has been a world-wide increase in the number of farm-raised ratites. The focus of ostrich production remains in South Africa, but other countries are initiating production of this bird in addition to the emu and rhea. Ostriches, emus and rheas are being produced commercially outside their native habitat, resulting in new and unique disease presentations. The authors ...

Bird-facilitated introduction of ticks and associated pathogens is postulated to promote invasion of tick-borne zoonotic diseases into urban areas. Results of a longitudinal study conducted in suburban Chicago, Illinois, USA, during 2005-2010 show that 1.6% of 6,180 wild birds captured in mist nets harbored ticks. Tick species in order of abundance were Haemaphysalis leporispalustris, Ixodes de...

Islands host a high percentage of endemic species due to their ecosystems having evolved in isolation [1]. In the absence of natural predators and resistance to alien diseases, the flora and fauna of islands are considered more fragile than mainland species and prone to impacts from non-native species [2]. The ecosystems of the Hawaiian Islands, one of the world’s most isolated archipelagos, ha...

Emerging infectious diseases are a concern for wildlife and human health. To understand, prevent, and control infectious diseases, it can be helpful to use mathematical models. West Nile virus is a new infectious disease in North America. The virus is transmitted back and forth continually between mosquitoes and birds, and occasionally is transmitted from mosquitoes to humans. We developed a ma...

Borna disease (BD), caused by the neurotropic RNA virus, Borna Disease virus, is an affliction ranging from asymptomatic to fatal meningoencephalitis across naturally and experimentally infected warmblooded (mammalian and bird) species. More than 100 years after the first clinical descriptions of Borna disease in horses and studies beginning in the 1980's linking Borna disease virus to human ne...