“Wildlife Health” is more than just the presence or absence of disease.
Disease is an important factor in the conservation and management of species. But wildlife health approaches that focus only on disease will not effectively promote research and action that will improve wildlife’s capacity to cope with, adapt to, or recover from health challenges imposed by rapid environmental change.
Although wildlife health research has traditionally focused narrowly on disease, there is a growing awareness that defining wildlife health as “the absence of disease” is no longer sufficient.
The health of wildlife is connected to the health of ecosystems, humans, and domestic animals. The concept of One Health and the field of Conservation Medicine utilize collaborative approaches to understand these interconnections between people, animals, and the environment. These types of integrated approaches are required to better understand the true health status of a population.
A “Determinants of Health” model has recently been described as a way to better understand the multiple dimensions of wildlife health. This approach attempts to analyze interactions of the various abiotic, biotic, and social elements that influence health:
The health of an animal is influenced by the cumulative effects of multiple stressors. These stressors add up, and negatively affect the resiliency of wildlife. Ultimately, the end result is the expression of disease and possible mortality.
Most research in wildlife health still focuses on the detection of disease as the primary outcome. But this type of research can be difficult to translate into actual solutions- such as controlling disease spread or mitigating the effects of disease.
Our challenge moving forward is to develop methods that will allow us to better understand these multiple stressors and their effects on wildlife. If we can advance our wildlife surveillance programs so we are not just reacting to disease outbreak events after the fact, we can instead work to proactively protect the health of wildlife and humans.
Further Reading:
Stephen, C. (2014). Toward a modernized definition of wildlife health. Journal of wildlife diseases, 50(3), 427-430.
Wittrock, J., Duncan, C., & Stephen, C. (2019). A DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH CONCEPTUAL MODEL FOR FISH AND WILDLIFE HEALTH. Journal of Wildlife Diseases, 55(2), 285-297.
Peters, A., Carver, S., Skerratt, L. F., Meredith, A., & Woods, R. (2019). A solutions-focused translational research framework for wildlife health. BioScience, 69(12), 1019-1027.
