A Natural Infection of the Sharp-tailed Grouse and the Ruffed Grouse by Pasteurella tularensis

Abstract

The widespread destruction of rabbits and grouse in Minnesota during 1925 and 1926 led to a consideration of tularemia in epizootic proportions as a cause of the periodic decimation of wild rabbits and possibly of grouse. Green and Wade reported that ruffed grouse were susceptible to experimental infection with Pasteurella tularensis. Parker and Spencer had previously considered tularemia as a possible disease of grouse and had produced a fatal infection in a blue grouse. Tularemia as a natural disease of birds was definitely established by Green and Wade, when they isolated Pasteurella tularensis from a quail dying in the wild. Parker, Philip, and Davis recovered Pasteurella tularensis from sage hens, found dead or killed, on an area in which these birds were known to be dying. In the present paper is reported the isolation of Pasteurella tularensis from a sharp-tailed grouse and from a ruffed grouse in Minnesota. In the course of the wild-life disease investigation, routine examinations and study were carried out on game birds collected in various areas of Minnesota during the fall of 1932. Most of the specimens were collected by game wardens, through the cooperation of the State Department of Conservation. Tularemia in the Sharp-tailed Grouse (Pedioecetes phasianellus). A sharp-tailed grouse, No. B-10419, collected by shooting on September 27, 1932, in Pine County, apparently well when killed, was received at the laboratory on September 28, and 46 ticks of the genus Hemophysalis were collected, principally from the bag in which the carcass was shipped. Necropsy of the grouse revealed no abnormal pathology.