Economic losses due to decreased milk production, mortality and early removal from the herd were estimated at US$950 per clinically affected cow for a total cost of approximately US$737,500 for just the one herd the team studied. This did not include any ongoing herd dynamics or reproductive losses for this herd.

In the paper, titled “The impact of influenza A H5N1 virus infection in dairy cows,” published in Nature Communications, the researchers said they found cows clinically infected with HPAI presented a significantly increased risk of death and of premature removal from a herd of 3,876 adult cows in Ohio.

The most remarkable finding was the long duration of diminished milk production in clinically affected cows, said co-author Diego Diel, professor of virology and director of the Virology Laboratory at the Animal Health Diagnostic Center.

He says pasteurization efficiently inactivates the virus, rendering the milk safe for human consumption, but that a diminution in milk production presents an enormous financial burden to the producers of affected farms, and if added up to all affected farms, it is causing major economic losses to the United States’ 9.3 million-cow dairy industry.

“This represents a shock to production costs if you are affected by an outbreak,” said Matthew MacLachlan, co-author and assistant professor. “For a clinically diagnosed cow, we found an average of $950 in costs, which includes the milk you expect to lose over 60 days and the possible cost of removing them from dairy production. Even if they recover, that’s going to cost a dairy farmer $367 on average in milk losses.”

“One key strategy is implementing biosecurity measures to minimize these outbreaks, and the next step is developing vaccines,” said Felipe Peña Mosca, who was first author on the paper.

It’s a thorny problem, Diel said, because ordinarily mastitis is prevented through increased disinfection. In this particular case, those practices used for disinfection — pre-milking teat cleaning with a germicidal solution that is then toweled off — could be introducing the virus to the next cow. Study results suggest an association between cumulative exposure to the milking process and the risk of clinical disease, meaning the introduction of the virus could be during the milking process itself.

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Over 200 American kitchens were photographed to determine if the food sitting out on counters could predict the weight of the woman living in each home. The new Cornell study found that women who had breakfast cereal sitting on their counters weighed 20 lbs. more than their neighbours who didn’t, and those with soft drinks sitting out weighed 24 to 26 lbs. more. The good news? Those who had a fruit bowl weighed about 13 lbs. less.

“It’s your basic See-Food Diet; you eat what you see,” said lead author Brian Wansink, professor and director of the Cornell Food and Brand lab and author of Slim by Design: Mindless Eating Solutions for Everyday Life. “As a cereal lover, that shocked me. Cereal has a health halo, but if you eat a handful every time you walk by, it’s not going to make you skinny.”

Although the study cautions that the findings are correlational, Wansink says, “We’ve got a saying in our lab, ‘If you want to be skinny, do what skinny people do.’ If skinny people make their homes ‘Slim by Design’ by clearing the counters of everything but the fruit bowl, it won’t hurt us to do the same.”

The forthcoming study — dubbed “The Syracuse Study,” because all of the photographed households were in Syracuse, N.Y. — is published in the journal Health Education and Behavior.

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This survey of conservation activity among rural landowners in Upstate New York considered a range of possible predictors such as gender, age, education, political ideology, and beliefs about the environment. All other factors being equal, birdwatchers are about five times as likely, and hunters about four times as likely, as non-recreationists to engage in wildlife and habitat conservation. Both birdwatchers and hunters were more likely than non-recreationists to enhance land for wildlife, donate to conservation organizations, and advocate for wildlife — all actions that significantly impact conservation success.

The contributions of individuals who identified as both birdwatchers and hunters were even more pronounced. On average, this group was about eight times more likely than non-recreationists to engage in conservation.

“We set out to study two groups — birdwatchers and hunters — and didn’t anticipate the importance of those who do both, and wildlife managers probably didn’t either,” said Dr. Caren Cooper, the study’s lead author, now at North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. “We don’t even have a proper name for these conservation superstars, other than hunter/birdwatchers.”

The study, published in the Journal of Wildlife Management, speaks to wildlife agency managers. Findings could assuage concerns about diminishing support for conservation in the United States and its historic ties (both socially and economically) to hunting, an activity that has been declining for decades.

“Our results provide hope for wildlife agencies, organizations, and citizens concerned about conservation,” offers study co-author Dr. Ashley Dayer of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. “Birdwatchers, a group not traditionally thought of as a constituency by many wildlife management agencies, have real potential to be conservation supporters, if appropriate mechanisms for them to contribute are available.”

As agencies and conservation organizations ponder how to better work with birdwatchers, hunters, and hunter/birdwatchers on conservation, one take-home message is clear: The more time we spend in nature, the more likely we are to protect it.

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