LAB NEWS

Internship Announcement

Overview: The National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Lab (NFWFL) in Ashland, OR offers an unpaid internship program in the Pathology Section of the Lab that is open to foreign and US veterinarians with an interest in learning the techniques of forensic pathology. NFWFL is the only wildlife forensics lab in the United States and is part of the US Department of the Interior Office of Law Enforcement. The Lab aids in the investigations of DOI law enforcement agents by analyzing submitted evidence in five scientific disciplines: Genetics, Criminalistics, Morphology, and Pathology. Cases for analysis are received from all 50 US states and US territories. The Pathology Section is staffed by three pathologists and two pathology evidence technicians, and utilizes a new, state-of-the-art facility. Interns will learn about the laws governing endangered species in the US, law enforcement evidence handling protocols, forensic necropsy techniques, and will be exposed to the functions of other scientific disciplines the Lab. Interns will have an opportunity to work on cases directly under the supervision of the pathologists to determine cause and manner of death. Completion of a project is encouraged and it is recommended that, in their application materials, applicants propose a research project to be undertaken during their time at the Lab. This project may be refined and guided by the staff pathologists.

Applications are evaluated quarterly and deadlines for receipt of application materials are January 1, April 1, July 1, and October 1. Applications received between January 1 and April 1 will be evaluated and applicants will be informed of their status by April 30. A similar schedule follows other application periods. Applicants should be mindful of the deadline dates when determining proposed dates of the internship.

Who may apply: Degreed veterinarians from an AVMA-accredited veterinary college or foreign veterinarians with an accepted degree

Period of internship: The internship period will be at least one month long and will not exceed three months duration.

Accommodations: At this time, the NFWFL cannot offer a stipend or a housing allowance.

Application materials:
Cover letter/letter of intent
CV
Three references
Specific desired timeframe of internship
Outline of proposed project

Please mail or email application materials to:
Dr. Tabitha Viner
Supervisory Veterinary Pathologist
National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Lab
1490 E. Main St.
Ashland, OR 97520

E-Mail: Tabitha Viner

 

Introducing the Two New Pathologists to the Laboratory

I am very excited to welcome two (2) new pathologist to our Lab: Tabitha
Viner, DVM DACVP and Rebecca Kagan, DVM DACVP (The initials stand for
Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, and Diplomate, American College of
Veterinary Pathologists).

Tabitha Viner comes to us from the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington
DC, where she worked for 7 years as the associate pathologist. While at
the zoo, she performed clinical and anatomic pathology investigations on
animals in the collection that died or were under veterinary care due to
disease, old age changes, or trauma, as well as wildlife found dead on the
zoo grounds. Her research activities included investigations of
salmonellosis in wild house sparrows, discovery of a degenerative storage
disease similar to Tay-Sachs disease in American flamingos, and evaluation
and abatement of bird mortalities caused by window strike throughout the
zoo. She earned her Bachelor of Science in biology at the University of
Maryland Baltimore County, and her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM)
degree at the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine in
Blacksburg, VA. She worked as a small animal veterinarian in Washington
DC before beginning two years of residency in pathology at the National
Zoo. A third year of pathology training at the Armed Forces Institute of
Pathology at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington DC rounded
out her residency and she was boarded as a diplomate of the American
College of Veterinary Pathologists in 2003.

Rebecca (Becky) Kagan grew up in north- central Pennsylvania, roaming the
woods and detasseling the corn. She graduated from Susquehanna University
with a bachelor’s degree in biology and then headed to the Midwest for the
better part of next decade. While there she attended Iowa State
University and obtained a doctorate in veterinary medicine, then moved to
Chicago to complete a residency program in zoological pathology through
the University of Illinois. After finishing the residency, she decided to
trade the Chicago winters for the Southern California beaches and spent
the next two years as a pathology fellow at the San Diego Zoo. Now she’s
in the Pacific Northwest and is excited to be continuing her career as a
wildlife pathologist at the Forensics Lab. When not engaged in scientific
pursuits she may be found running, reading, acquiring new domestic skills,
hanging out with rabbits, eating or all of the above.

I presume the most immediate question from our users group is "When will
my case be done", the reply is "as soon as posible". Please make Tabitha
and Becky feel welcome as only Office of Law Enforcement knows how to do, by sending your cases
in.

- Ed Espinoza, Deputy Director, National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory

Recent Publications by the Staff

Yates, Bonnie C., Edgard O. Espinoza, and Barry W. Baker. 2010. Forensic species identification of elephant (Elephantidae) and giraffe (Giraffidae) tail hair using light microscopy. Forensic Science, Medicine, and Pathology 6(3): 165-171
[ Click Here to Read ]

This papers describes morphological methods for distinguishing the tail hairs of African elephants, Asian elephants, and giraffes.

M.E. Sims, 2010. Unusual appearance of Schreger-like pattern in Hippopotamus amphibius ivory: Wildlife forensics investigation of a netsuke, Forensic Sci. Int. (2010), doi:10.1016/j.forsciint.2010.04.008.
This paper describes a unsual discovery and describes a unique item in the ivory trade.

Scanlan, Michael D., 2010. Home made bullets from cartridge cases and copper tubing. AFTE Journal, Vol. 42, No. 2, pp 156 - 163.
This paper describes the process used by some reloaders to manufacture home made bullets.

Scanlan, Michael D., Reinholz, Andrew D., and Espinoza, Edgard O. 2010. Evaluation of field tests for non-toxic shot pellets. AFTE Journal, Vol. 42, No. 2, pp 164 - 171.
This paper describes some shortcomings of the exisiting non-destructive field tests to determine the elemental composition of lead free shot.

Baker, Barry W., John D. DeHaan, Darrell Hegdahl, Jim A. Chamberlain, and Edgard O. Espinoza. 2009. Taphonomic effects of burning on ivory: preliminary results. Current Research in the Pleistocene 26:129-131. [ISSN: 8755-898X]
This paper describes the effects of burning on ivory and the resulting implications for identifying ivory artifacts from archaeological sites and the modern wildlife trade.

 

The Inaugural Meeting of the Society for Wildlife Forensic Sciences Took Place at the Laboratory in April 2010

For details please visit: 2010 INAUGURAL SWFS MEETING

 

Jenny Giles, a Shark Scholar Works Towards Her PhD at the Lab

Jenny Giles is a PhD student from the University of Queensland in Australia, visiting the Ashland laboratory until mid-2010 as a Fulbright Postgraduate Scholar. Jenny's research specialises in shark genetic population structure, shark fisheries and the shark fin trade in the tropical Indo-West Pacific, particularly South East Asia and northern Australia.

While in Ashland, Jenny is working on aspects of her PhD, in which is she is developing techniques to assign likely population origin to shark fins of selected Indo-West Pacific shark species when they are encountered in trade. This work involves developing new tools for gathering population-scale trade data for a number of species common in the region, and building on an existing body of techniques for identifying the species of dried shark fins in the consumer trade. As the Indo-West Pacific region has both the world's highest shark catch and the highest shark and ray diversity, these techniques will contribute to global efforts for characterising, monitoring and enforcing the international trade and harvest of shark fins.

Jenny is working with the Lab's Genetics section to further develop her approach in context of equivalent analyses developed for other groups of wildlife with valuable products in trade. Jenny is supervised in Ashland by Dr. Mary Burnham-Curtis, and in Australia by Dr. Cynthia Riginos (School of Biological Sciences, University of Queensland) and Dr. Jennifer Ovenden (Queensland State Government). This research is funded primarily by Seaworld Research and Rescue Foundation Australia.

 

 

Shifting Patterns: Meditations on Climate Change in Oregon's Rogue Valley

Two Forensics Lab staff members, Pepper Trail (ornithologist) and Jim Chamberlain (multimedia specialist), recently published a book entitled Shifting Patterns: Meditations on Climate Change in Oregon's Rogue Valley, along with a companion website (http://www.shiftingpatterns.org). Through essays, photographs, and poems, the book and website explore what climate change will mean for our local region and beyond. As Fish and Wildlife Service Director Sam Hamilton has said, "Climate change and its impacts will affect everything we do and will shape our work for decades to come." Shifting Patterns draws on local knowledge and love of place to illuminate this paramount global issue.