The Siberian flying squirrel (Pteromys volans) spends almost all of its life on trees and thus depends extremely highly on forests. Forest fragmentation has been reducing its habitat. To conserve the squirrel’s populations in fragmented landscapes we need information on not only its ecology but also its physiology, because stress and poor body condition resulting from clear-cutting could negatively influence its reproductive physiology. However, there is a paucity of information on the Siberian flying squirrel’s basic reproductive physiology, and there is no established method for studying it. Our goal was to validate fecal progesterone analysis in this animal using a commercial enzyme immunoassay (EIA) kit for endocrine profiles in Siberian flying squirrels. First, we tested parallelism between serially diluted fecal progesterone and a standard curve to validate the EIA. Comparison of the slopes of the two regression lines to test for parallelism revealed no significant difference. Therefore, progesterone concentrations in the fecal samples of the Siberian flying squirrels were exactly measured. Second, we compared progesterone concentrations among four groups—pregnant females, adult females in the non-breeding season, juvenile females, and adult males—to determine whether fecal progesterone analysis was useful for evaluating reproductive status using GLMM. Fecal progesterone concentrations were significantly higher in pregnant females than in other groups. These results indicated that fecal progesterone analysis in Siberian flying squirrels was valid for predicting pregnancy.

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Two steller’s sea eagles (Haliaeetus pelagicus) and a white-tailed eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla), over 25 years of age, died due to weakness and anorexia at almost the same time. Histopathologically, the vascular walls in the brain were thickened associated with the deposition of pale acidophilic material. Also, argyrophilic senile plaque-like structures were observed in the cerebral cortex. Immunohistochemical study revealed that these materials were positive for amyloid β protein. These findings indicated the occurrence of cerebral amyloid angiopathy and senile plaque- like structures in aged large eagles.

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On day 1, a female bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) estimated to be more than 19-years-old, became anorexic and had viscous black feces adhered to its anus. On day 8, prednisolone 120mg (0.45mg/kg) began to be administered. Thereafter, the dolphin was treated in combination with prednisolone and antibiotics over approximately 23 months. Prednisolone was tapered based on the clinical condition, and withdrawn for 49 days from day 72. However, on day 151, the symptoms returned and prednisolone therapy was restarted. Prednisolone therapy, the doses of 0.09-0.92 mg/kg, should have to be continued until its death because whenever the symptoms were relapsed in the course of tapering prednisolone. On day 726, the dolphin died of purulent pneumonia.

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