Why wildlife health is the missing link in conservation

While racing to stop the sixth mass extinction, scientists and conservationists are sounding the alarm that without immediate action, we risk losing half of all species on our planet by 2050. The United Nations has declared that a staggering 1 million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction, underscoring the critical need for comprehensive conservation efforts.

While conservation efforts to protect endangered wildlife have been focused on anti-poaching measures, climate change and habitat encroachment, wildlife health has often been overlooked. As human and domestic animal populations explode into the vital habitats of critically endangered wildlife, the risk of disease transmission between species escalates.

This increased proximity and the intensive animal production in the commercial food industry pose a grave threat to people, domestic animals, and wildlife. Despite measures to control disease transmission, for example, ventilation systems in poultry production and intensive management practices of pigs have not prevented spilling pathogens into the environment, threatening wildlife species.

To date, the emphasis has been mostly on protecting humans and livestock from diseases transmitted by wildlife, but there is a crucial gap in addressing how health threats are impacting wildlife itself. Integrating veterinary medicine into conservation efforts is imperative to safeguard endangered populations before irreversible extinction trends take hold. There are many models for how integrating wildlife health into conservation has helped species bounce back from near extinction: mountain gorillas, black footed ferrets, California Condors are example subjects, to name a few.

For decades, we have witnessed species teetering on the brink of extinction or disappearing altogether due to rapid population declines caused by disease outbreaks. Conservation medicine (One Health) can help us weather these outbreaks. One key aspect of conservation medicine is understanding the complex interactions between pathogens, hosts and the environment.

Although COVID-19 seems like a bad dream now, we have another imminent global threat today: highly pathogenic avian influenza, also known as bird flu. It is circulating amongst poultry and wild waterfowl and has now spread to wild birds and mammals. For example, avian influenza has recently caused catastrophic die-offs of thousands of elephant seals.

Despite the urgency, there is still time to reverse this negative trend – a task for veterinarians and the conservation community. We have the tools to improve the number of wildlife populations through science, technology, education and collaboration. We must work together in a coordinated and holistic way to address this crisis while being sensitive to the ecosystems and communities that are dependent on the land.

It’s imperative to address both the extinction crisis and the dangers of emerging diseases and understand their deficiencies. Currently, there is a critical gap in knowledge about the health status of wildlife species that are in trouble. We need to make sure the wildlife health professionals are adequately trained in disease surveillance and have the necessary tools to be able to recognize and respond to health emergencies both in wildlife and humans. Veterinarians play an integral role in helping to define the role wildlife play in the emergence of diseases.

Another challenge in wildlife conservation is the lack of digital disease surveillance systems. Much like the human hospital electronic medical records, it is important to have similar records for animals to be able to monitor the health of their populations, identify emerging threats, track disease outbreaks and implement target interventions to mitigate health risks to vulnerable species. By bridging technology with science, it is possible to be more effective in improving the well-being of wildlife populations.

We also recognize the importance of engaging local communities in wildlife conservation efforts to ensure conservation programmes are sustainable. The livelihoods of many communities in the buffer zones of national parks depend on healthy wildlife and ecosystems.

An excellent example of community engagement is providing education and mentorship on zoonotic diseases to local people living adjacent to national parks and those working at the human-livestock-wildlife interface, such as veterinarians and park rangers. This is a first step in preventing the transmission of deadly diseases such as rabies and tuberculosis from humans and domestic animals to wildlife and vice versa.

World Wildlife Day reminds us of our interconnectedness and the critical role wildlife plays in healthy ecosystems. Therefore, we must protect endangered wildlife populations and to ensure a sustainable future for all species. By prioritizing wildlife health, we can help curb the mass extinction of species, the irreversible loss of ecosystem global biodiversity, landscapes devoid of wildlife and the risk of human health pandemics.

Wildlife health has been underrepresented in conservation and there is a critical need for increased funding, both private or public, to correct that in order to make a lasting global impact. We must include wildlife health into the fabric of conservation efforts. If we act now, we can still win the race and save endangered wildlife for future generations.