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Scott is right. This virus appears to be very virulent in this species so the course of disease from onset of clinical signs to death tends to be very short, making it hard to detect even in populations being regularly monitored. And the mortality rate appears to be quite high. So even if there were good diagnostic tests to detect previous exposure the prevalence would likely be severely underestimated as the majority of cases won’t survive to develop an immune response. So it’s really difficult if not impossible to know whether captive animals are more susceptible to the virus than wild turtles.
I’ve attached my JWD paper for those who might not have it which documents several cases in wild and captive turtles. We also performed a survey a summer or two ago here in Indiana and found about 4 of ~130 wild box turtles to be positive for the virus on PCR. Three showed signs of disease, 1 was apparently healthy. 2% of amphibians tested at the same time were also positive but we didn’t do any comparison studies of the viruses.
From: Global Ranavirus Consortium [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Scott Farnsworth
Sent: Wednesday, February 15, 2012 12:22 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Washington Post Article
April can probably speak to this best as her article in Journal of Wildlife Diseases is a good summary. I can add that at least 3 locations in Maryland including the site mentioned in the post article have been reported since that time (just for wild turtles). My feeling is that the only reason these sites are known is because we have a lot of people working with box turtles in this area and it likely goes largely undetected because there is such a narrow time frame in which the sick or dead turtle can be found in a condition that allows for testing coupled with the low detection probability of the animal itself.
Scott Farnsworth
On Feb 15, 2012, at 11:45 AM, Jesse Brunner <[log in to unmask]> wrote: