Longtime Michigan DNR pathologist finds the answers in wildlife deaths
If the Department of Natural Resources were in the television business, it would have one sure-fire, prime-time drama on its hands: “Cooley, M.E.” Tom Cooley is the DNR’s pathologist. When wildlife – both game and nongame – are found dead from unapparent causes, it is Cooley’s job to figure out what happened. “We get specimens from the public, our own agency personnel, the (U.S.) Fish and Wildlife Service and USDA Wildlife Services,” Cooley said. The DNR’s pathologist for 35 years, Cooley spends several days a week in the necropsy room at the DNR’s Wildlife Disease Lab (located at the Michigan State University Diagnostic Center for Population and Animal Health), working on everything from skunks to eagles, looking for what killed them. Sometimes the job is fairly easy; an animal, found by the side of the road with broken limbs and contusions, was likely hit by a vehicle, he said. Sometimes, the cause of death is much more difficult to determine. Take eagles, for instance. Last year, Co...