December 28, 2012

In the Spotlight: Happy Holidays from WHER!

Twelve Days of the Wildlife Health Event Reporter 
Day 12: Happy Holidays! Wishing you Joy, Happiness and Good Health!

The Wildlife Health Event Reporter (WHER) team hopes you have enjoyed our special Digest series, Twelve Days of the Wildlife Health Event Reporter and learned how this system can support wildlife disease surveillance efforts. The series sparked a lot of interest in the system and we appreciated the questions and comments readers sent us.

We also wanted to thank all the new people who signed up to use WHER! As a reminder, WHER users can always enter in sightings of wildlife health events you observed in the past, even those going back a few months ago, as long as you remember the who, what, when and where facts of the event. 

Current reports to WHER provide near-real time situational awareness of where wildlife health events are occurring. Although past sightings that are back entered are just as valuable, because these historic records contribute to the development of a wildlife morbidity and mortality baseline - a beneficial benchmark that wildlife health professionals can use to support wildlife disease management decisions.

Figure 1: Colored pins on WHER map show where
wildlife health events have been recently reported.
If you have not already, sign up for a WHER account today! If your New Year’s resolution is to help wildlife, then you definitely need to get a WHER account. It will help you reach your goal! You say you already have an account? Then consider telling your wildlife-loving friends about WHER. Download our small, informational brochure and use it to tell others about WHER and why their wildlife health observations are valuable.
 
Kick off the New Year by reporting the next wildlife health event you see! Each report to WHER expands our knowledge base and understanding of disease ecology.

The WHER team wishes you joy, happiness and good health in the coming New Year! 



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