 HEXPERT: NEW DISEASES THREATEN MANATEES Miami Herald -- Wednesday, July 11, 2001 By: PHIL LONG, Herald Staff Writer FORT PIERCE -- Florida's manatees and dolphins are falling prey to new diseases at an alarming rate, a prominent researcher and veterinarian said Tuesday as he helped unveil plans for a $25 million marine mammal research hospital here. "Just in the last five years, manatees, dolphins and killer whales have been discovered with viruses and cancers we have never seen before in those animals,'' said Dr. Gregg Bossart. "These are just the warning signs that we better start studying these things. Whatever happens out there is eventually going to impact us.'' Bossart, who works at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute, is a longtime Miami Seaquarium veterinarian. He also serves as adjunct associate professor of pathology at the University of Miami School of Medicine and is a research associate professor at UM's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences. Bossart has begun field work on his first six patients, manatees at Homassassa Springs that are infected with a rare papillomavirus Ð which causes wart-like lesions that can become tumors. It is the same type of virus that causes cervical cancer in humans. "When I was in vet school we didn't have the ability to look at a manatee, or touch a dolphin or take blood samples from these types of animals. We are going to provide them that experience,'' Bossart said of students who will come to the facility. Harbor Branch has alliances with the University of Miami, University of Florida, Florida Atlantic University and other colleges. The hospital will be built on one acre in three phases over several years, depending on funding, said Steve McCulloch, director of Harbor Branch's dolphin project. Like Harbor Branch itself, the hospital will have multiple missions, including restoring animals to health, research, training veterinarians and conservation education. Reaction within the scientific community studying manatees was supportive. Bossart "is a top-notch veterinarian" said Jim Valade, a biologist with the the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's manatee recovery program. "We have been working with him for 20 or 30 years." "I think it is a good thing,'' said Patti Thompson, staff biologist with the Save the Manatee Club, one of the most powerful environmental organizations in the state. Harbor Branch, located north of Fort Pierce for more than 30 years, is the institute that pioneered deep-sea research subs, brought back the first relics from a Civil War submarine and retrieved the crew compartment of the space shuttle Challenger. For more information, see www.hboi.edu. Copyright (c) 2001, The Miami Herald |