Chicago Tribune (June 21) – Though disease-causing agents like fungi and viruses normally appear in the environment, “more fungal diseases recently have been showing up in wildlife,” said Matt Allender, director of the wildlife epidemiology lab at the University of Illinois Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory.
Karen Terio, chief of the University of Illinois Zoological Pathology Program, said biologists are wondering, “Why are we now all of sudden starting to see a number of these different fungi popping up? All of them have come out in the last couple of decades.”
The reasons could include climate change and degraded ecosystems, and humans are responsible, Terio said. “It’s our obligation to do all we can to help the wild creatures affected by these changes,” she said.