Animal
Planet's Jeff Corwin is currently in Australia filming HERG team members
for an upcoming episode of ‘The Jeff Corwin Experience’. Jeff and the crew
are reporting on the Queensland Department of Primary Industries disease
surveillance of flying fox populations in south-east Queensland. The trip
included filming a trapping session at 3 am at an island in the Brisbane
River. Jeff offered valuable help during the capture of flying foxes,
assisting team members in removing captured flying foxes from the mist net
as well as assisting in the anaesthesia and sample collection of the flying
foxes. Photo: C. Smith.
Following
the trapping session, the crew visited the Animal Research Institute at
Yeerongpilly in Brisbane where the samples underwent an ELISA (Enzyme-linked
immunosorbent assay) to detect antibodies to Hendra virus. Dr Hume Field,
Principal Investigator, and Jeff then discussed the results and the
significance that 30% of the flying foxes sampled had previously been
exposed to Hendra virus. ‘Although approximately 30% of flying foxes have
previously been exposed to Hendra virus, the infection of either horses or
humans from a spillover event is rare’. Photo: C. Smith
Jeff
has completed graduate work on the ecology of Central American bats through
the Department of Natural Resource Conservation at the University of
Massachusetts at Amherst. Photo: C. Smith.
Author: H. Field, C. de Jong & C. Smith.