Helping in the fight against avian flu

Avian influenza has made headlines in Wisconsin and several other states in recent weeks. The University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory (WVDL) are on the front line in responding to and understanding the virus and providing critical testing for food producers and commercial and private flock owners.

Move over Mozart: Study shows cats prefer their own beat

As more animal shelters, primate centers and zoos start to play music for their charges, it’s still not clear whether and how human music affects animals. Now, a study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison shows that while cats ignore our music, they are highly responsive to “music” written especially for them. The study is online at Applied Animal Behaviour Science.

Learning lessons by following Madison’s foxes and coyotes

Last year, a family of foxes — complete with roly-poly kits — took up residence on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus and made the city its playground. With winter in full swing, the foxes and their larger dog-like counterparts, coyotes, are out there again, roaming the wilder (and often not so wild) parts of the city and campus. This year, David Drake, a UW-Madison associate professor of forest and wildlife ecology, is welcoming the public to join him and his research team as they go out and radio collar the animals in an effort to track and better understand these urban canids.