{"id":426977,"date":"2026-02-19T13:17:51","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T12:17:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=426977"},"modified":"2026-02-19T13:17:53","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T12:17:53","slug":"wrong-inside-climate-news-climate-change-isnt-worsening-wildlife-viruses-in-new-jersey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=426977","title":{"rendered":"Wrong, Inside Climate News, Climate Change Isn\u2019t Worsening Wildlife Viruses in New Jersey"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From The Climate Realism<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Anthony Watts<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"ICN-fake-news-ranavirus\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Inside Climate News (ICN) recently published \u201cClimate Change Could Make This Horrific New Jersey Wildlife Disease Worse<\/a>\u201d by Alex Megerle on February 17, 2026, claiming climate change, via warming temperatures, will intensify rana- virus outbreaks among New Jersey amphibians, producing indirect environmental and economic harms as a result. This is false, with points made in the article itself undermining the claim. Rana- virus outbreaks are driven by exposure and transmission routes in existing habitats, and ICN\u2019s reporting concedes researchers still cannot identify consistent outbreak triggers from field variables in New Jersey, which makes the climate storyline a narrative add-on, not an evidence-based conclusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cClimate change could throw an extra wrench into the gears,\u201d ecologist Kirsten Monsen-Collar, told Inside Climate News. \u201cRana- virus has a temperature range where it\u2019s optimally active and infectious, and it tends to be more infectious at higher temperatures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA small temperature increase could make it more likely that pathogens will infect and spread faster within organisms, but going above their limit could actually prevent infection,\u201d Monsen- Collar continued, noting that any predicted outcome and climate connection is speculation at best \u00a0\u201cWe don\u2019t know, we\u2019re all kind of waving our hands, predicting, \u2018Well, we think that this could happen . . . \u00a0and we\u2019re kind of just holding on to our seats, waiting to see what is going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Concerning the wildlife-health references actually listed as transmission vectors for the disease, the\u00a0World Organization for Animal Health<\/a>\u00a0explains that rana- viruses spread via direct contact with infected animals, ingestion of viral particles, and contact with contaminated surfaces, including water and soil. It also flags fomites, meaning human- mediated spread on gear and materials. That is the real- world \u201cvector\u201d discussion, and \u201ctemperature\u201d is not on that list because temperature is not a transmission pathway. The same plain-language message shows up in state wildlife guidance like the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources\u00a0rana-virus page<\/a>, which again emphasizes direct contact, contaminated water or soil, and ingestion of infected tissue or contaminated material as the routes of spread.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Temperature belongs in a different category entirely: it can influence how a virus performs inside a host, or how quickly disease progresses, but that is not how pathogens move from pond to pond or from animal to animal. Even a\u00a0rana- virus explainer web page<\/a>\u00a0that explicitly mentions temperature as one of many factors affecting infection outcomes still describes transmission as happening by direct contact, through the water, and by consuming infected tissues or fomites, meaning the movement mechanism is exposure, not a thermometer reading. ICN blurs that line, treating \u201cwarmer is worse\u201d as if it were a field-established driver of New Jersey die-offs. It is not. Rather, it is admitted speculation layered on top of thin and inconsistent local observations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, zoom out to the climate claim. Climate change is not a state-level switch that flips disease dynamics in one jurisdiction on cue. Climate is defined as average conditions over long periods, and the World Meteorological Organization uses\u00a030-year periods as the baseline for \u201cnormal\u201d climate.<\/a>\u00a0If someone wants to blame \u201cclimate change\u201d for rana- virus in New Jersey as a matter of evidence, the minimum requirement is straightforward: measured long-term warming at the specific waterbodies in question, during the relevant biological windows, paired with a measured, long- term increase in outbreak frequency or severity that tracks those local measurements. This article does not present that observational chain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, the ICN article undermines its own climate framing with the most important field detail it reports: researchers combined multiple years of sampling and \u201cstill struggled to see any consistent pattern,\u201d<\/em> and variables like pond size, depth, canopy cover, tree species, and proximity to human impact were \u201cnot clearly associated with presence or absence of the disease.\u201d When the honest answer from the field record is \u201cno consistent pattern,\u201d asserting that  climate change is or might make things worse is unwarranted. No causation can be found in uncertainty. Woefully, the story redirects the reader away from the messy, local, measurable drivers that actually control disease ecology, and thus take attention away from real world prevention measures having nothing to do with reducing greenhouse gas emissions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The article also glides past a more practical and well-documented point: human activity is a direct mechanism for spreading amphibian pathogens between sites, which is why formal disinfection protocols exist in the first place. A Northeast Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation field protocol\u00a0lays out routine disinfection steps<\/a>\u00a0for gear because contaminated equipment and footwear move pathogens across locations. The United States Geological Survey\u00a0publications on herpetofaunal pathogen disinfection<\/a>\u00a0similarly treat human- mediated transport, and not human caused climate change, as a serious problem worth addressing with standardized procedures. In a state as densely populated, developed, and heavily traveled as New Jersey, treating \u201cwarming\u201d as the headline driver while downplaying boots, buckets, bait, sampling gear, stocking practices, and habitat disturbance is not \u201cfollowing the evidence,\u201d it is hyping the \u201cclimate change causes everything bad,\u201d narrative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inside Climate News is right to describe rana- virus as a serious wildlife disease. But attempting to link its spread to climate change is unwarranted. The story admits the outbreaks have no clear, consistent environmental trigger in the data, then pivots to climate change anyway, making this irresponsible reporting on a dangerous pathogen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Inside Climate News (ICN) recently published \u201cClimate Change Could Make This Horrific New Jersey Wildlife Disease Worse\u201d by Alex Megerle on February 17, 2026, claiming climate change, via warming temperatures, will intensify rana- virus outbreaks among New Jersey amphibians, producing indirect environmental and economic harms as a result. This is false, with points made in the article itself undermining the claim. Rana- virus outbreaks are driven by exposure and transmission routes in existing habitats, and ICN\u2019s reporting concedes researchers still cannot identify consistent outbreak triggers from field variables in New Jersey, which makes the climate storyline a narrative add-on, not an evidence-based conclusion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":426981,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691818056,691841495,691841497,691818430,691841496,691819222,691841499,691841498],"class_list":{"0":"post-426977","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-climate-change","9":"tag-inside-climate-news-icn","10":"tag-kirsten-monsen-collar","11":"tag-new-jersey","12":"tag-rana-virus","13":"tag-temperature","14":"tag-wisconsin-department-of-natural-resources-rana-virus-page","15":"tag-world-organization-for-animal-health","17":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/0Screenshot-2026-02-19-131527.png?fit=1293%2C873&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1N4J","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":329234,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=329234","url_meta":{"origin":426977,"position":0},"title":"Wrong, Inside Climate News, Excluding Climate Change from Florida\u2019s Energy Policy is a Good Decision","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"16\/05\/2024","format":false,"excerpt":"An article in Inside Climate News (ICN) reports on a proposed change in Florida\u2019s state code to remove climate change as a consideration for policy issues, now in the hands of Gov. 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