Colombia: Two Killed And 17 Hurt In Bullfight

The dangers of bullfighting are highlighted again after two men are killed during a festival in Colombia. 

Two men have been killed and at least 15 people injured during a bullfight in northern Colombia. 

They died on the second day of a popular festival on the South American country's Caribbean coast on Sunday. 

Doctors said one of the victims, 46-year-old Daniel Cardona, was killed when the bull's horn gored through to his heart. 

"Unfortunately the animal caught him by surprise and gored him," said a spectator, Orlando Ramos. 

"According to the report from the doctors who were there, it was a very deep stab to the heart." 

Another man later died in hospital of injuries sustained while trying to subdue the raging bull. 

Despite high risks and protests from animal rights activists, bullfighting remains a popular activity in Colombia. 

http://news.sky.com/story/1069725/colombia-two-killed-and-17-hurt-in-bullfight

Beaver Bites Man To Death In Belarus Attack

A fisherman has been bitten to death by a beaver after trying to take its photograph.

The man was on a fishing trip at Lake Shestakov in Belarus with two friends when they spotted the animal on the side of the road.

He stopped so that he could take a picture but as he approached the beaver it pounced on him, biting him in the thigh.

His friends attempted to stem the flow of blood from the wound but the animal’s bite had severed a main artery and the man, who came from Brest, bled to death.

Beaver attacks are rare and according to experts those animals that do go for humans are usually rabid.

However, they are not unheard of.

Earlier this week a video was posted on YouTube showing a man in the Tver region, northwest of Moscow, running away from a beaver who charged at him as he was filming in the area.

Last year in the US two girls were mauled by a beaver in a lake in Virginia as they swam. They suffered serious bite and scratch injuries. A man was also attacked in New York and an elderly woman in Washington .

In 2003 in Belarus a farm manager and farmhand were bitten by a rabid beaver as they tried to chase it from a barn. They survived the attack.

Beavers are the second largest rodents in the world.

video:http://uk.news.yahoo.com/beaver-bites-man-death-belarus-attack-102911690.html#Zz68cfz

Bat Virus Kills Boy: Will the Public Panic? – via D R Shoop

A bat virus has killed an 8-year-old boy in Australia, and medical experts are concerned that contact with bats may cause the disease to spread.

But conservationists fear an overreaction to the news may result in the wholesale slaughter of an animal that performs an important ecological role.

The boy died after being bitten by a bat while vacationing in the northeastern state of Queensland. The bat was apparently carrying lyssavirus, a virus similar to rabies, according to Agence France-Presse.

Unless treated aggressively after exposure, Australian bat lyssavirus (ABLV) is usually fatal. Since the disease was discovered in 1996, only two other people have died from ABLV, according to Scoop New Zealand.

"ABLV has proved fatal in all cases reported to date. There is a need for increased public awareness of the risk associated with bat contact," Dr. Joshua Francis of Brisbane's Mater Children's Hospital told a conference of the Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases.

"In short, people should stay away from bats," Francis said. He also noted the disease could someday spread from person to person: "Human-to-human transmission of lyssaviruses has not been well documented, but it is theoretically possible."

While many animals harbor zoonotic viruses (those that can jump from animals to humans), bats seem to be in a class of their own. The mammals can carry more than 60 viruses that also infect humans, hosting more viruses per species than even rodents, a recent study revealed.

Campbell Newman, the premier of Queensland, is taking the news seriously. "We are prepared to put the health and safety of Queenslanders before bats and we make no apologies for that," Newman told ABC.

But some environmentalists fear Newman may be calling for a culling of bats and flying foxes (an order of large bats) throughout Queensland.

"We always knew that once there was another Australian bat lyssavirus death of a human it would be very serious for flying foxes," Louise Saunders, president of Bat Rescue and Conservation Queensland, told ABC.

"We are just asking people to have a bit of calm and understand that flying foxes are all around us and we need them - they perform an ecological role in our environment," Saunders said.

"They perform a very important role; they are our pollinators and seed dispersers for rain forest and hardwood forest industry," Saunders said.

The best way for people to avoid lyssavirus, according to Queensland Health (the health organization for the state) is to avoid contact with bats and flying foxes.

Lyssavirus isn't the only virus held by bats that can infect humans. Recent research suggested bats are reservoirs for more than 60 viruses that can infect humans, playing host to more viruses per species than even rodents do. For instance, bats carry several harmful infections, including rabies and viruses related to SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome); studies have even suggested they may be the original hosts of scary viruses like
Ebola and Nipah - which causes deadly brain fevers in people.

"There seems to be something different about bats in terms of being able to host zoonotic infections," study researcher David Hayman, a wildlife epidemiologist at Colorado State University (CSU), told LiveScience in February.

http://www.livescience.com/28108-bat-lyssavirus.html

Large biting spiders create panic in India, 2 dead - update from earlier story - via Steve Jones

Large biting spiders have sparked panic in remote northeast India, but health authorities fear primitive treatment of the bites' painful swelling may be more dangerous than the spiders themselves.

Two people died in Tinsukia district after witch doctors used razor blades to drain the wounds. It's not known if the victims died from spider poison or from the attempted treatment. Local magistrate Kishore Thakuria said the victims were cremated before autopsies could be done.

Another seven bite victims have been treated with antibiotics against infection after they also tried themselves to drain their wounds, said Dr. Anil Phapowali at the local Sadiya town hospital.

The hairy spiders were noticed about a month ago across Tinsukia district's grassy plains and dense jungle forests north of the Brahmaputra River.

Ecologist L.R. Saikia at Assam's Dibrugarh University said it may be a previously unknown species of tarantula. The spiders are roughly the size of a person's thumb.

"It looks like a new species. We haven't been able to identify it," he said Tuesday. Officials cannot use anti-venom in treating bite victims until the species is identified.

Meanwhile, villagers are keeping lamps on at night and standing guard against spiders entering their mud-and-thatch huts. There are about 100,000 villagers, mostly poor rice farmers, living in the area cut off from roads by the river.

Officials say the spiders are now also showing up south of the Brahmaputra.




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