RSS feeds brought this short piece by New Scientist to my attention, which highlights the findings of a couple of articles about diseases spreading in pets because of the rapidly warming climate [wikipedia.org]. This affects humans as well, but now there is data on the pet-side of things as well. Since ticks and mosquitoes that were previously hindered from coming to Europe because of colder weather now find it possible to do so, they also spread the diseases linked with them. Apparently ticks of the Ixodes genus spread TBE [wikipedia.org] to many other species of mammals (incl. the common pets) as well as humans, and dog ticks spread a malaria-like disease… ticks are nasty little pieces of work, I have to admit. Mosquitoes are much nicer, but besides giving us malaria they also spread roundworms to pets. And then there are fleas…
Link:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16924-pets-may-become-latest-victims-of-climate-change.html
Further reading:
Punkkien levittämät taudit koirilla [Scalibor vet. -lääkemainossivu huom.]