disease

A herd of bighorn sheep northeast of Lovell is experiencing a disease outbreak. Forty bighorn sheep in the Devil’s Canyon herd have died since Oct. 14.

As Colorado's big-game rifle season approaches, state wildlife officials are ramping up monitoring of chronic wasting disease, which continues to spread in deer and elk populations around the state.

The Monkeypox vaccine is available in Wyoming on a targeted and limited basis. Monkeypox is rare disease that is rarely fatal but can be unpleasant, painful and cause serious illness in some people.

A recent paper out of Colorado State University suggests the loss of bats due white-nose syndrome costs U.S. agriculture up to $495 million a year.

A CDC report shows the number of babies born with syphilis in the U.S. has surged. Some Mountain West states had the highest rates during the first year of the pandemic.

This year’s strain of the bird flu is still killing birds in our region, from poultry to hawks. Officials hope the virus dies out later this summer, but until then, they urge bird owners to use good hygiene practices and to protect the birds from other wild species. To report sick or dead livestock, contact agriculture officials. To report sick or dead wild birds, contact your state wildlife officials.

The first case of avian influenza was confirmed in Wyoming last week. The highly deadly disease was found in Johnson County in a non-poultry backyard flock. Since then it has also been confirmed in Park County. A raptor program in Cody is taking precautions so their 12 birds don't get infected.

Chronic Wasting Disease is a deadly neurological disease that affects deer, elk, and moose. It's caused by infectious proteins known as prions and spreads from animal to animal through bodily fluids and tissues. It's been detected in much of Wyoming. And new research from the University of Wyoming has found that this widespread disease is actually changing the genetics of the state's mule deer.

In the United States, most diseases are reported where they're diagnosed, not where they're acquired. This can make people think that there's a greater risk of catching a disease in places where it's actually quite rare to find it. For example, Lyme disease is a bacterial disease that's transmitted by ticks. The bacteria that causes it has been found in ticks in Colorado, but not in Wyoming. And even then, they're not likely to spread the disease to humans.

Outdoor recreation is a popular pastime in Wyoming. But when people spend time outside, they run the risk of being bitten by ticks that carry a variety of diseases. But the types of ticks, and the diseases they carry, changes across the country. To learn more, Wyoming Public Radio's Ivy Engel spoke with Dr. Will Reeves, a medical and veterinary entomologist with the CP Gillette Museum of Arthropod Diversity in Colorado.