Both the report that I posted yesterday going back a decade in Minnesota and Wisconsin and todays analysis coming from Peter Gogan's(Forestry Science Lab, Montana State) 1987-91 Voyageurs Park report reflect the fact that Wolves(and Coyotes) are susceptible to the Borrelia Burgdorferi spirochete that causes lymes disease.
Unlike the Minn/Wisconsin analysis that found only 3% of those Wolves infected with lymes, the Voyageurs study reveals that 43% of it's Wolves had the lymes antibodies..............the highest recorded incidence of lymes in the Great Lakes Wolf population. In Voyageurs, in addition to the deer tick as the causal agent, the winter tick that is the scourge of Moose revealed itself to be a transmittal agent of lymes. With Deer and Moose being the two major prey species(beaver third) of Wolves in Voyageurs, logical rationale for these Wolves to be coming into contact with lymes at almost every turn of their daily lives.
Note that Gogan and his team did not discover any wolf fatalities attributed to lymes disease. Kazmierczak(1988) discovered that wolves purposely injected with lymes in the laboratory did develop lymph node enlargement and did develop antibodies to the disease. Burgess and Windberg(1989) reported that in Coyotes, lymes is transmitted across the placenta.
Bottom line is that the two lymes studies that I discovered in the literature(10-23 years old) conclude that the significance of lymes in Wolves(and Coyotes) is unclear..................but both caution that their analyses highlight the potential vulnerability of Wolves(and Coyotes) to new disease organisms that are introduced into their environment.
If any "Coyotes, Wolves and Cougars Forever" blog readers know of any other peer reviewed literature on the impact of Lymes on our suite of native predators, I would love for you to send it to me for Posting and review.
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