In article ,
ess says...
Please provide the source of the info about parasites (other than mosquitos)
transmitting WNV in hawk populations. I believe there are 36 species of
mosquito in the US known to carry WNV but have not yet seen mention of other
parasites.

These two articles don't state that it is another
parasite, but it does make say hmmmmmm...I would think
close net lifestyle of crows would make it very possible
for lice or bird flea or even larger insects like
conenose bugs that will inhabit bird nests of ratures to
be a possibility as another vector.

From an article by a rapture rehabilitator
http://www.cah.com/library/wnvrapt.html

It's possible the virus has mutated, becoming more
likely to cause illness and death. Perhaps raptors in
the East and South were protected by exposure to another
virus closely related to West Nile. Or perhaps another
species of mosquito, or another insect entirely that
prefers to feed on raptors, has picked up the virus.
There has also been speculation that raptors are
not being infected by mosquitoes, but by exposure to the
flesh and blood of infected prey. That would seem
consistent with recent findings that the virus can be
transmitted between humans in donated organs and blood.
Redig said the experimental work has not been done
to prove it, but Gibson is convinced that mosquitoes are
not vital to the cycle of West Nile infection.
She says a crippled bald eagle she uses as a
foster parent to orphaned eagles became West Nile- -
positive after feeding infected younger birds. The large
flight room where they were kept was netted against
mosquitoes.
And when some of the 30 orphaned common terns she
was caring for began dying, she sent their organs off
for West Nile testing. All were negative at first.
But on Wednesday, her phone rang with word that the
single tern brain sent to the lab has tested positive
for West Nile.
"Damn!" Gibson says. "We gave the terns West
Nile." The terns, endangered in Wisconsin, had been kept
on a porch double-netted against mosquitoes. But Gibson
had been hand-feeding them, and she's convinced, despite
her infection control efforts, that she transmitted the
virus from the ailing raptors to the previously healthy
young terns.

From a press release from the US Geological Survey

http://www.cfe.cornell.edu/erap/WNV/WNV-LArchive/10-26-
00.html

Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey said
today that the West Nile Virus can be transmitted from
bird-to-bird in a confined laboratory setting. It had
been thought that the virus was only transmitted through
mosquito bites.

Scientists from the USGS National Wildlife Health Center
in Madison, Wisc., placed infected birds in the same
biocontainment (BL3) aviary as healthy birds. The
infected birds died five to eight days later. Most of
the healthy birds, the researchers found, also became
ill from the virus and died five to eight days after the
first infected bird died. ........
........"Now we're not sure how it moved: by mouth, by
preening, did the birds shed the virus in their feces?
We're not sure," he said. "But by keeping the infected
and healthy birds together in close contact, we really
maximized the potential that this bird-to-bird
transmission could take place. Now we know it did and we
want to figure out how."






--
A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock
will prevent you from rolling over and going back
to sleep.


Lar. (to e-mail, get rid of the BUGS!!