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Article: After West Nile virus: what will it do to the birds and beasts of North America?
- Article from:
- Science News
- Article date:
- March 29, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Science Service, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The alligators at Clabrook Farm were under the weather last fall. Some seemed depressed, others were wobbly, and a few crawled in circles. Within a few days of first showing such symptoms, alligators at the farm near Christmas, Fla., sank into neurological meltdown and died. During September and October, the farm lost about 300 of the 9,000 gators that it was raising for meat and hide.
In mid-October, one of the farm's baffled owners took three of his sick hatchlings, to reptile veterinarian Elliott R. Jacobson of the University of Florida in Gainesville. Recognizing that they had some kind of brain malady, Jacobson ordered tests for West Nile virus and several ...