Wobeser GA †
† Canadian Cooperative Wildlife Health Centre, Department
of Veterinary Pathology, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan,
Canada
Disease in wild animals is managed for one or more of three reasons: human health, domestic animal health and, less commonly, for the health of wild animals. A primary concern in any proposed management is to define the role of the various species as maintenance, spill-over, or dead-end hosts for the disease, so that management can be directed appropriately. The need for this step, and the difficulties in defining the roles, will be demonstrated using Mycobacterium bovis as an example. The second consideration is to define the objective of management, which might be prevention, control, or eradication of disease. Appropriateness and feasibility of each will be discussed. The third step is to identify the target(s) for management, which might be the disease agent, the host animal(s), or other elements of the environment. The objectives and the targets can be combined as a matrix for considering how management might be done. Current examples of management practices will be discussed within this matrix.
Disease is all about trade-offs. Disease agents must balance extracting resources from the host against transmission success. Host animals must allocate resources amongst competing needs, including growth, reproduction, and disease resistance. Disease managers must make trade-offs between committing resources to various types of disease management against other activities such as habitat acquisition. Success at all levels depends upon understanding the effect of the various choices. Wildlife managers have devoted little effort to measuring the efficacy of management techniques.
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