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Mike Groll / AP, file
A female deer mouse has a monitor attached to her left ear at the Adirondack Ecological Center in Newcomb, N.Y. Yosemite National Park is trapping and killing the deer mice, which can carry the deadly hantavirus, after an outbreak there over the summer.
SAN FRANCISCO - Yosemite National Park has begun trapping and killing deer mice whose growing numbers may have helped create the conditions that led to a hantavirus outbreak that has infected eight park visitors, killing three, public health officials said Tuesday.
Yosemite officials in recent weeks have warned 22,000 people who stayed in the park in California over the summer that they may have been exposed to the rodent-borne lung disease, which kills over a third of those infected.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has also sounded a worldwide alert, saying visitors to the park's popular Curry Village lodging area between June and August may be at risk. Park officials have closed nearly 100 tent cabins in Curry Village infested with deer mice, which carry the virus.
"From an ecological perspective, it appears that there was an unnaturally high population of rodents in the area. We are being proactive and reducing the population," Danielle Buttke, a veterinary epidemiologist for the National Park Service, told Reuters.
California's Yosemite National Park is warning more than 20,000 past visitors they are at risk of exposure to the potentially deadly Hantavirus after it claimed another victim. Three people have died out of a total eight people infected after using cabins in the park this summer. NBC's Janet Shamlian reports.
Buttke said the mice were being trapped in several areas of the park for monitoring purposes but believed they were being killed only in the Curry Village area, using snap traps.
Seven of the eight people confirmed to have been infected are believed to have contracted the virus in the village, while one stayed elsewhere in the park.
Yosemite doubles scope of hantavirus warning to 22,000; third death confirmed
'Perfect storm'
Public health officials trapped three times as many deer mice in the park's Tuolumne Meadows last week than were caught in a 2008 period, indicating that the deer mice population has grown, said Dr. Vicki Kramer, chief of vector-borne diseases at the state Public Health Department.
Dr. Charles Chiu, an infectious disease specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, said the growing deer mice population might help explain the outbreak.
"This could be an explanation for why we're seeing this particular cluster," Chiu said. "What you may have is the perfect storm of conditions: Increasing prevalence of deer mice and campers with the same or common exposure to (lodging) infested with deer mice."
Officials are concerned that more Yosemite visitors could still get sick because the virus can incubate for up to six weeks after people breathe it in. There is no cure for the syndrome but early detection and hospital care increase survival rates.
The CDC warns that thousands of campers at Yosemite National Park could be at risk for the hantavirus. NBC's Miguel Almaguer reports.
The virus can cause severe breathing difficulties and death. Early flu-like symptoms include headache, fever, muscle aches, shortness of breath and coughing.
Mice's role in ecosystem
Last month, authorities began trapping rodents in Yosemite to examine whether deer mice there were more likely to be infected with the hantavirus than deer mice elsewhere, Buttke said, but found they were not.
When authorities first identified the Yosemite hantavirus outbreak, rangers balked at the idea of trying to exterminate the deer mice, arguing that the mice play an important role in the Yosemite ecosystem.
US officials sound worldwide alert for Yosemite hantavirus
But when they realized the deer mice population had swelled, they decided to thin it in an effort to rebalance the ecosystem, Buttke said. She theorized that weather combined with visitors bringing in food led to Yosemite's abundance of deer mice.
Deer mice release hantavirus in their urine and droppings. People can contract the virus when they breath contaminated air. Children rarely contract the virus, probably because it is often transmitted when adults sweep or vacuum droppings or cut and stack wood.
'Fortunate to be alive': Girl, 7, contracts bubonic plague at Colorado campground
People usually contract the virus in small, confined spaces with poor ventilation. They also can become infected by eating contaminated food, touching tainted surfaces or being bitten by infected rodents.
The disease has killed 65 Californians and some 600 Americans since hantavirus was identified in 1993, but it has never been known to be transmitted from one person to another.
More from NBCNews.com:
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Yosemite closes cabins after hantavirus outbreak
Hantavirus outbreak worries officials
Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.
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If you're going to kill the mice, it is your fault they were even born. You are giving them shelter and a huge sorce of food which makes animals breed like crazy. It's your fault so many are there. You need to at least destroy the cabins. I haven't been to Yosemite in a while so I don't know if it looks like some kind of tourist zoo like many other places do. People need to be a lot more respectful of things, people are one of the longer living animals that think the least.
The article says, "Last month, authorities began trapping rodents in Yosemite to examine whether deer mice there were more likely to be infected with the hantavirus than deer mice elsewhere, Buttke said, but found they were not." This population of mice are not carrying more hantavirus than other populations. There are more mice and perhaps the population needs to be reduced but is this really going to solve the problem? it just seems that there's something missing here, that this is just a visible easy thing to do but won't really be effective. I'm curious about the "shelf-life" of the virus- how long does it stay viable on a cloth or wooden surface? Also, are the tents ever cleaned/disinfected? I've never washed my tent but it is not for public use with many people using nightly for a season.
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That's it - upset the ecosystem even more than we already have by "culling" the culprits. Let's see, people going where the animals are supposed to live but we kill them for our own issues. Maybe if we aren't continually killing the predators, they mice wouldn't have gotten out of hand in the first place.
While the culling is perhaps a good idea to help alleviate the overpopulation of mice in the area, there are a few things that need to be remembered. Firstly, kill traps do not distinguish between types of mice or other small furries. Secondly it is climate conditions that not only contributed to the over population of mice but also the lack of natural foods which is causing them to enter dwellings on a larger scale; those conditions are probably not going to change any time soon. And lastly there are millions of mice in the wilds of Yellowstone. To even suggest that this culling will make the park safer is a disservice to those who are planning to visit. They will now go with a false sense of security.
The authorities should all be charge with involuntary manslaughter because they did not warn the visitors to my knowledge.
"When authorities first identified the Yosemite hantavirus outbreak, rangers balked at the idea of trying to exterminate the deer mice, arguing that the mice play an important role in the Yosemite ecosystem." From this statement I guess the rangers also think that losing a few human patrons to the park is just part of doing business too!!!!!!! Well... it was "tree-huggers" that allowed the mice problem to explode. And their solution is to just "thin" the population. I wonder what criteria they are using to determine WHICH mice live and which are thinned? Do they ask the entire mice population to out the ones infected or what?... LOL. This needs a deeper investigation immediately.
Send SEAL team six. Those mice don't have a chance.
"People can contract the virus when they breath contaminated air." Breath...really? That aside, this all sounds really scary...hoping a way to stop it is found soon.
Leave the mice alone. When you go camping you are going in to their territory. It's not like they were in some apartment building, college dorm, or some other urban setting. When you go out in the woods there are going to be mice along with the other wildlife.
Maybe instead of "thinning" the population we just simply "ask" them (the mice) to wear disposable diapers???... LOL.
This is really bad they are hurting these little animals. they did not do nothing wrong. They should be treated not killed. I have a family of mice living in my toolbox in by workshed and I feed them cheese every day. So nice is see a little animal that does not hurt anyone like humans do..........
Deer mice release hantavirus in their urine and droppings. This may be true HOWEVER unless youre touching areas of the forest floor landscape THIS IS NOT how people are acquiring this virus!!! People can contract the virus when they breath contaminated air. WRONG!!! Children rarely contract the virus "''probably" because it is transmitted to adults when they are sweeping or they vacuum droppings or cut and stack wood." WRONG AGAIN!!! JESUS!!! Have we as a species not learned ANYTHING from the past in regard to infectious diseases!!! Bubonic plague for example...spread when rats and mice who were the carriers of the organism were then bombarded with fleas. The fleas bit the mice and rats who then acquired the organism in their bodies. They (the fleas) in turn transmitted the bubonic plague organism to humans when rats and mice who were plentiful and living virtually everywhere at that time in the same living spaces as humans then had the fleas getting on them thus transmitting the bubonic plague to them through bites from fleas. This is THE SAME WAY the hantavirus is being transmitted to humans who are out in national parks taking part in the traditional summertime ritual of traditional tent and sleeping bag camping. You need to wipe out the mice and rat population (because rats live in the forests too not just in urban and suburban areas) if youre going to ever have a chance at wiping out the emergence of hantavirus. When youre camping youre constantly being bombarded and bitten by all types of insects...chiggers mites black flies noceeums deer flies horse flies fleas ect. you have no way of knowing when youre sleeping or otherwise occupied having outdoor fun ect. just whats biting you. WAKE UP SCIENTISTS!!!
NO. The Bubonic plague is a bacterial infection, while the Hantavirus is a virus. As my wife (an internal medicine physician) once told me, you cannot look at one disease as proof of how another disease works. So where did you get your medical degree?
Deer mice release hantavirus in their urine and droppings. This may be true HOWEVER unless youre touching areas of the forest floor landscape THIS IS NOT how people are acquiring this virus!!! People can contract the virus when they breath contaminated air. WRONG!!! Children rarely contract the virus "''probably" because it is transmitted to adults when they are sweeping or they vacuum droppings or cut and stack wood." WRONG AGAIN!!! JESUS!!! Have we as a species not learned ANYTHING from the past in regard to infectious diseases!!! Bubonic plague for example...spread when rats and mice who were the carriers of the organism were then bombarded with fleas. The fleas bit the mice and rats who then acquired the organism in their bodies. They (the fleas) in turn transmitted the bubonic plague organism to humans when rats and mice who were plentiful and living virtually everywhere at that time in the same living spaces as humans then had the fleas getting on them thus transmitting the bubonic plague to them through bites from fleas. This is THE SAME WAY the hantavirus is being transmitted to humans who are out in national parks taking part in the traditional summertime ritual of traditional tent and sleeping bag camping. You need to wipe out the mice and rat population (because rats live in the forests too not just in urban and suburban areas) if youre going to ever have a chance at wiping out the emergence of hantavirus. When youre camping youre constantly being bombarded and bitten by all types of insects...chiggers mites black flies noceeums deer flies horse flies fleas ect. you have no way of knowing when youre sleeping or otherwise occupied having outdoor fun ect. just whats biting you. WAKE UP SCIENTISTS!!!
Here we go again... The humans are overpopulated so kill the mice and all the things that depend on them for their own survival. Eventually humans will wontonly kill enough other species that they will kill themselves too, and that's a good thing.
Come on people! We should be culling our own species. You cannot screw with mother nature. She is hell bent on reducing our numbers. The increase in diseases has been nothing short of amazing. Legionairres, Ebola, Hanta, Lyme, Triple EEE, etc, etc. I myself have a autoimmune disease that took part of my eyesight but leaves me with a hyper immune system that helps me against cancer. The overpopulation of our planet is setting us up for the big fall. The people who make it through will have dna mutations that will help perpetuate our species; unless of course the drug and biotechnology industries sign our death warrants first.
thoughts and prayers go out to the deer mice and their families. godspeed dear mice.
Nice...
Personally I think it would be easier to 'world proof' the tourist rather than 'tourist proof' the world.
Well I'm surprised the lefties aren't out there protesting! There usual position is let the animals live and let people die.
I'm not a lefty but like I said, you cannot screw with Mother Nature without exacting a terrible price; just like you can't screw with Mother Capitalism without exacting a terrible price. I have to remind you the Republicans started screwing with Mother Capitalism when they initiated the bank bailouts. Not everything comes down to righty versus lefty. "There usual position" should read "Their usual position". Shut off the right wing radio and try some reading!
Read what? Mao's Little Red Book?
"Children rarely contract the virus, probably because it is often transmitted when adults sweep or vacuum droppings or cut and stack wood."
If my husband is reading this ... see, I told you housework can be hazardous to your health.
What makes these mice so special that they are the host or carrier of this virus? Why is there now a bunch of cases and "no" reports of isolated or fewer cases before (except that of several years ago)? One or two cases every now and then of no significance? What made this area special for the virus with this mice population? Wouldn't appear the answers will be found by sweeping the problem under the rug of eradication/reduction of the mice population.
Maybe I don't fully understand how the hantavirus is contracted, but there seems to be a very simple solution to preventing Yosemite Park visitors from being infected.
1. Keep the cabins clean.
2. Place traps to reduce the population in the area surrounding the cabins.
3. Allow the mice's natural predators to exist within the surrounding areas.
4. Offer immunizations (if one exist) to park visitors.
I live 15 mikes from Yosemite. I have several mouse traps set. F the little bastards!
This is what happens when you throw off the balance of nature. And killing the mice will only make things worse. When will people learn that hunting earths creatures to near extinction disturbs the natural balance on this planet? Mankind is killing the animals and destroying the plants that make our planet inhabitable. The extinction of man is on the horizon and it's his own fault.
No hunting in National Parks, Einstein.
THE SKY IS FALLINGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Blamo. Not all predatory animals live in National Parks, Einstein.
Aaaaaww....and such a cute little fellow
I wonder if the government is going to have a memorial service for the mice they slaughter.
I say ship the mice to the terrorists..let them handle it. Haha