Analysis of a European general wildlife health surveillance program: Chances, challenges and recommendations.

Heiderich, Elisabeth; Keller, Saskia; Pewsner, Mirjam; Origgi, Francesco Carlo; Zürcher-Giovannini, Samoa; Borel, Stéphanie; Marti, Iris; Scherrer, Patrick; Pisano, Simone Roberto Rolando; Friker, Brian; Adrian-Kalchhauser, Irene; Ryser-Degiorgis, Marie-Pierre (2024). Analysis of a European general wildlife health surveillance program: Chances, challenges and recommendations. PLoS ONE, 19(5) Public Library of Science 10.1371/journal.pone.0301438

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In a One Health perspective general wildlife health surveillance (GWHS) gains importance worldwide, as pathogen transmission among wildlife, domestic animals and humans raises health, conservation and economic concerns. However, GWHS programs operate in the face of legal, geographical, financial, or administrative challenges. The present study uses a multi-tiered approach to understand the current characteristics, strengths and gaps of a European GWHS that operates in a fragmented legislative and multi-stakeholder environment. The aim is to support the implementation or improvement of other GWHS systems by managers, surveillance experts, and administrations. To assess the current state of wildlife health investigations and trends within the GWHS, we retrospectively analyzed 20 years of wildlife diagnostic data to explore alterations in annual case numbers, diagnosed diseases, and submitter types, conducted an online survey and phone interviews with official field partners (hunting administrators, game wardens and hunters) to assess their case submission criteria as well as their needs for post-mortem investigations, and performed in-house time estimations of post-mortem investigations to conduct a time-per-task analysis. Firstly, we found that infectious disease dynamics, the level of public awareness for specific diseases, research activities and increasing population sizes of in depth-monitored protected species, together with biogeographical and political boundaries all impacted case numbers and can present unexpected challenges to a GWHS. Secondly, we found that even a seemingly comprehensive GWHS can feature pronounced information gaps, with underrepresentation of common or easily recognizable diseases, blind spots in non-hunted species and only a fraction of discovered carcasses being submitted. Thirdly, we found that substantial amounts of wildlife health data may be available at local hunting administrations or disease specialist centers, but outside the reach of the GWHS and its processes. In conclusion, we recommend that fragmented and federalist GWHS programs like the one addressed require a central, consistent and accessible collection of wildlife health data. Also, considering the growing role of citizen observers in environmental research, we recommend using online reporting systems to harness decentrally available information and fill wildlife health information gaps.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

05 Veterinary Medicine > Department of Clinical Research and Veterinary Public Health (DCR-VPH) > Veterinary Public Health Institute
05 Veterinary Medicine > Department of Infectious Diseases and Pathobiology (DIP) > Institute of Animal Pathology
05 Veterinary Medicine > Department of Infectious Diseases and Pathobiology (DIP)
05 Veterinary Medicine > Department of Clinical Research and Veterinary Public Health (DCR-VPH)
05 Veterinary Medicine > Department of Infectious Diseases and Pathobiology (DIP) > Institute for Fish and Wildlife Health (FIWI)

UniBE Contributor:

Heiderich, Elisabeth, Keller, Saskia Annatina, Pewsner, Mirjam Lea, Origgi, Francesco, Zürcher-Giovannini, Samoa Micheline Maité, Borel, Stéphanie, Marti, Iris Andrea, Scherrer, Patrick Markus, Pisano, Simone Roberto Rolando, Friker, Brian, Adrian-Kalchhauser, Irene, Ryser, Marie Pierre

Subjects:

600 Technology > 630 Agriculture

ISSN:

1932-6203

Publisher:

Public Library of Science

Language:

English

Submitter:

Pubmed Import

Date Deposited:

22 May 2024 15:55

Last Modified:

23 May 2024 00:32

Publisher DOI:

10.1371/journal.pone.0301438

PubMed ID:

38771857

BORIS DOI:

10.48350/196958

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/196958

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