An undergraduate student of the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a member of the Novakofski & Mateus Chronic Wasting Disease research lab., Yi-Ying Tung, provides her experiences as a member of a multicultural and multidisciplinary research laboratory, in her article titled “Celebrating our diversity.” This article appears as part of the BEHIND THE SCENES stories published in September by the University of Illinois News Bureau. Read the whole story here.

Great Job Yi-Ying!!!

A recent graduate of the Department of Animal Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a member of the Novakofski & Mateus Chronic Wasting Disease research lab., Kelsey Martin, provides the need-to-know facts about the adverse effects of feeding wildlife in general, and deer in particular, in her article titled “The Damaging Effects of Feeding Wildlife.” This article appears in the Outdoors Illinois Wildlife Journal. Read the whole story here.

Excellent work Kelsey!!!

This article originally appeared in the Illinois Audubon Society’s quarterly magazine, available to members through annual membership. See illinoisaudubon.org for more information.

A senior student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a member of our laboratory, Shannon Callahan, provides the need-to-know facts about Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in Illinois in her article titled ” Zombie Deer in Illinois: Facts vs. Fiction.” This article appears in the Illinois Audubon Society’s quarterly magazine.

Great work Shannon!!!

Zombie Deer in Illinois – Shannon Callahan [pdf]

Evan London presented his research entitled “Variation in the Thrill Seeking Gene (DRD4) of White-tailed Deer (O. virginianus)”at the Annual Meeting of The Illinois Chapter of The Wildlife Society (ICTWS) showcase at the University of Illinois at Springfield, Student Union, in April 2019.

Evan has been working on designing and validating primers that can be used to study genetic variation of the gene coding for DRD4 in white-tailed deer. Genetic variation within DRD4 gene could potentially be an underlying factor in some behaviors of deer, such as automobile collision, migration patterns, the spread of Chronic Wasting Disease, urban habitation, etc. Great job Evan!

Congratulations to undergraduate students Kelsey Martin and Roshni Mathur who did an amazing job presenting posters at the Annual Meeting of The Illinois Chapter of The Wildlife Society (ICTWS) showcase at the University of Illinois at Springfield, Student Union.

Roshni Mathur presented results on the exposure of raccoons and opossums to seven Leptospira Spp., and their potential role as host reservoirs on her poster entitled “Do opossums and raccoons shed Leptospira?”

Kelsey Martin presented how to identify key differences between bovine and avian tuberculosis in white-tailed deer, focusing on how to detect signs of disease and how to mitigate transmission to humans during field dressing on her poster entitled “Differences between Bovine and Avian Tuberculosis in white-tailed deer”

Graduate student Noelle Thompson presented her research entitled “White-tailed deer hunting and habitat use in Allerton Park” at the Midwest Ecology and Evolution Conference in March 2017. Noelle has been investigating the impacts of the hunting program on the trends of habitat use by deer. Well done Noelle!

Two students in our lab recently presented posters at the Midwest Ecology and Evolution Conference that was held here at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in March 2017. Undergraduate student Mario Barenas presented a combination of laboratory procedures and subsequent research results entitled “Fetal data reveal reproductive trends in white-tailed deer (O. virginianus)”.  Great job Mario!

Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a prion disease similar to mad cow disease. CWD affects members of the deer, elk and moose families. Unfortunately, this disease is 100% fatal and it is easily transferred between individual deer and it remains in the environment for long periods of time. As the disease spreads, more and more states are faced with difficult decisions pertaining to an effective management strategy. Sharpshooting appears to be the most effective control method, but hunters become concerned with the method. Therefore, our team addressed some common misconceptions about CWD management in Illinois.

News reports Illinois is a good example for CWD management

Illinois has been managing chronic wasting disease for over 10 years.  The first case of chronic wasting disease was detected in 2002.  The state has been tireless in its efforts to slow the spread of the disease which is 100% fatal in white-tailed deer.  As the disease spreads to new states, like Michigan, managers are forced to select and deploy a management program in an effort to control the disease among their valuable herds of white-tailed deer.  Research that our team published in 2014 compared the effectiveness of Illinois’ disease management program to Wisconsin’s disease management program.  We found that when both states practiced similar management strategies, the prevalence of chronic wasting disease was similar at approximately 1%.  However, when Wisconsin modified their management, prevalence increased in the following years to 5%.  In contrast, the prevalence in Illinois remained stable at 1%.  Now as managers in states like Michigan make crucial decisions on how best to manage, they can look to Illinois as an example of success.  Our research provides the scientific evidence necessary to support their claim to success.

Read the news article here and access the research publication here.

River otters at a latrine

We recently completed a study to answer that question.  As it turns out, river otters do a lot at latrines. They groom themselves, they groom each other, sniff things, dig and wrestle.  Sometimes they visit in groups but more often they visit a latrine on their own.  We developed and used a behavioral ethogram to describe behaviors that river otters display at latrines.  We used trail cameras to capture river otter behavior and used that information to determine the most common behaviors, group size, time of day that otters prefer to visit latrines and visitation rates over the course of a year.

Check out the full study here!  Be sure to look at the supplementary information where you can view actual video footage of each river otter behavior type (for example, look at this video of river otters wrestling!).

A special thanks to our co-author, Katie Monick.  Katie completed all of the field work for this project as an undergraduate James Scholar in Animal Sciences.