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blizzard warnings - 13:52 , 03 October 2013

heelerless - 21:32 , 18 August 2013

Red Coat Inn in Fort McLeod - 11:38 , 23 June 2013

rushing into the waters - 09:53 , 21 June 2013

choosing a spot - 17:43 , 27 April 2013

01 July 2008 - 23:58

disease training

The first screen of three hours' worth of powerpoint presentations?

"Once a disease becomes established in free-ranging wildlife, you're screwed."

Which, except for the one exception of one species of parasitic worm, has apparently always been true.

The thirteen diseases the experts would update us on this morning were not exceptions. These are all diseases we may hope to control, and will certainly have to learn to live with. But they're never going away.

Like rabies, which has records going back over two thousand years. And bubonic plague, the medieval Black Death. They're both still here, found regularly if you look.

So, to save gas they changed this wildlife diseases training session into two video-conferences, almost at the last minute. A couple didn't get the email, and traveled anyway. Us, we found that instead of driving 115 miles to Central City for a workshop, we instead drove...

One hundred and fifteen miles to Central City to access the video-conference. Yeah, saved other people a lot of driving, but not those of us on the Divide.

Twenty-four in our room. Only five female (but one of them was the only one who knew how to run the video equipment, and she therefore had the remote). I could name less than a third of the people.

There were similar numbers in the other three cities linked in, so the presentations were overrun by random noises of people shifting chairs, doors opening and closing, etc. After the break, the moderator reminded us "Everyone turn off your microphones, please."

The speaker than asked, "Can you hear me now?"

Ummm, yeah. But we'd have to yell awfully loud for you to know that with the microphones turned off.

Much of what they went through was review. But there are always a few new things. I now know a lot more than I want, or need, to know about High Pathology Avian Influenza type H5N1. Even though, if it comes, we'll probably be one of the last places on the North American continent to see it.

Did you know they took a bunch of the Pasteurella bacteria and put them in a new genus, Mannheimia?

No, me neither. Don't think the name has anything to do with the orchestra.

Most everybody knows rats and prairie dogs are good vectors for getting exposed to the plague. But did you know mountain lions are, too?

And most everybody knows West Nile virus is hard on corvids, sage grouse and horses. But it really hits mountain goats, too.

One indicator for a particular dangerous disease? A "high index of suspicion". No, really. Turns out it is really likely to be that disease if that's what you suspect it is.

Got that?

One expert expects the steady spread of chronic wasting disease to slow when it hits the Yellowstone country, instead of spreading faster like most others expect. The local "cure" he anticipates?

Wolves.

Kinda hard to spread disease to other deer and elk if you're in somebody's belly.

In his talk on sample preparations, the laboratory expert reminded us to "keep tissue samples clean. Don't drop them in the dirt, or rumen."

"And do not throw them at each other."

With this crowd, he probably wasn't kidding.

At this meeting, I discovered one of my photos has shown up in an outside publication. Without accreditation.

It's a good environmental group's publication, so I'm not sure how I feel about that.

On the drive up, I also noticed an unusual method of taking notes in my warden's truck.

Written on the windshield in dry-erase marker.

Apparently a lot of the wardens are doing it. Not only does this keep the note fresh in your mind, and prevent one from scrambling for paper to write stuff down while driving, but once it's erased...

It's not subject to a subpoena.

Unless, of course, some fool records it for posterity in a photo.

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