Yosemite deer mice being trapped, killed following virus outbreak

  

Deer mice being culled in Yosemite over hantavirus outbreak - Vitals

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Yosemite officials trap, kill mice after hantavirus outbreak

Mike Groll / AP, file

A female deer mouse has a monitor attached to her left ear at the Adirondack Ecological Center in Newcomb, N.Y. Yosemite National Park is trapping and killing the deer mice, which can carry the deadly hantavirus, after an outbreak there over the summer.

By Reuters

SAN FRANCISCO - Yosemite National Park has begun trapping and killing deer mice whose growing numbers may have helped create the conditions that led to a hantavirus outbreak that has infected eight park visitors, killing three, public health officials said Tuesday.
Yosemite officials in recent weeks have warned 22,000 people who stayed in the park in California over the summer that they may have been exposed to the rodent-borne lung disease, which kills over a third of those infected.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has also sounded a worldwide alert, saying visitors to the park's popular Curry Village lodging area between June and August may be at risk. Park officials have closed nearly 100 tent cabins in Curry Village infested with deer mice, which carry the virus.