In the Spotlight : Wildlife Health Newsmaker Interview with Dr.Thomas (Tom) Yuill

Wildlife Disease News Digest

In the Spotlight

Wildlife Health Newsmaker Interview with

Dr. Thomas (Tom) Yuill

Who are you?
Thomas Yuill

• Professor Emeritus, Pathobiological Sciences, School of Veterinary Medicine
• Professor and Director Emeritus, Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies
• Professor Emeritus, Forest and Wildlife Ecology

University of Wisconsin-Madison - Map It

What are you working on now?

Training and education of wildlife biologists and veterinary students and graduates on wildlife diseases

How does your work benefit wildlife disease research?

• Past research has provided information on the roles of wild birds and mammals as reservoirs of human and domestic animals' diseases.
• Past research has contributed to an understanding of avian botulism as a cause of waterfowl mortality.

What do you see as the most significant challenge for wildlife health professionals today working in the field of wildlife disease?

• Learning to work as part of an interdisciplinary team.
• Learning to communicate with the public.

What informational resource (e.g. book, journal, website, etc) should any wildlife health professional be familiar with?

• Journal of Wildlife Diseases
• Infectious Diseases of Wild Mammals
• Parasitic Diseases of Wild Mammals
• Infections and Parasitic Diseases of Wild Birds
• ProMED-mail list serve
• ...and many others!

What advice would you give to someone interested in pursuing a career in your field?

Specialize in one area, but acquire some background in other areas to be able to function well in a team.

What do you enjoy doing in your free time?

• Interacting with grandchildren
• 
  

  
  

  Hiking, cross country skiing
• Music

>>> PRINT FULL INTERVIEW [pdf]

In the Spotlight : Wildlife Health Newsmaker Interview with Dr. James N. Mills

Wildlife Disease News Digest
In the Spotlight


Wildlife Health Newsmaker Interview with Dr. James N. Mills




Who are you?

James N. Mills, Ph.D., Editor, Journal of Wildlife Diseases (WildlifeDisease@gmail.com)
Retired Chief, Medical Ecology Unit, Viral Special Pathogens Branch, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Adjunct Professor, Population Biology, Ecology and Evolution, Emory University
Member, Scientific Committee, DIVERSITAS EcoHealth Cross-cutting Network
Chair, DIVERSITAS EcoHealth, Biodiversity and Emerging Disease working group

What are you working on now?

• As its Editor, I advocate, represent, and provide leadership for the Journal of Wildlife Diseases, including conducting workshops on writing and publication for scientists and graduate students of wildlife disease in Latin American Countries. The Journal is experiencing a period of rapid global evolution as evidenced by the near-doubling of total numbers of submitted manuscripts and quadrupling of manuscripts from non-North American countries in the last three years.

• As a senior scientific advisor and consultant to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, US Department of Agriculture, and other federal agencies, I am serving as a consultant and on working groups involving zoonotic disease, climate change, and vaccine studies. I am also providing expert testimony concerning zoonotic pathogens.

• I am actively working with nongovernmental organizations that advance the translation of research findings to practice; for example organizing and co-chairing a special session on Biodiversity Loss and the Emergence of Infectious Disease for “Planet Under Pressure,” in March, 2012, London.

• I am providing lectures and training on zoonotic and vector-borne disease topics and wildlife disease research and safety in national and international forums. In November I will give a keynote presentation on climate change and emerging zoonotic diseases for the symposium “Strategies for Zoonoses Prevention under Climate Change” in Taipei, Taiwan.

• I am mentoring a soon-to-graduate Ph.D. student studying Disease Ecology at Emory University, and serving on dissertation committees for several other Ph.D. students.

• I continue to collaborate in ongoing research projects in several countries (e.g, Colombia, Brazil, Peru) and to publish original scientific articles in wildlife and zoonotic disease ecology.

How does your work benefit wildlife disease research?

Promulgation of research results in the scientific literature is the primary means by which knowledge grows and discoveries are applied. The Journal of Wildlife Diseases is the premier international journal for Wildlife Disease research.

Just as wildlife biodiversity increases toward the topics, so does the diversity of wildlife pathogens. Especially as human encroachment of formerly pristine tropical habitats increases, the tropics will be the primary sources of emerging wildlife and zoonotic diseases. Yet the developing countries of the tropics represent the areas that receive the least research and are least understood.

I believe that our efforts toward internationalization of the Wildlife Disease Association, encouragement of publication by scientists from less represented countries and making the Journal available, free of charge, to scientists from countries in the lowest economic tiers will contribute to more research and greater understanding of wildlife diseases in those areas of the world that are least studied.

What do you see as the most significant challenge for wildlife health professionals today working in the field of wildlife diseases?

For too many years scientists in different disciplines (veterinary science, ecology, public health, conservation) have worked toward overlapping goals without collaboration and published in their own literature. This has resulted in inefficiencies and duplication of effort.

Multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional, collaborative research projects may be the only way to understand the increasingly complex wildlife disease issues brought about by climate change coupled with expanding human perturbation of natural habitats.

>>> READ FULL INTERVIEW

In the Spotlight : Wildlife Health Newsmaker Interview with Dr. Fredrick (Ted) Leighton

NBII Wildlife Disease Information Node Wildlife Disease News Digest - In the Spotlight

Wildlife Health Newsmaker Interview with

Dr. Frederick A. (Ted) Leighton

Who are you?
Dr. Frederick A. (Ted) Leighton
Executive Director
Canadian Cooperative Wildlife Health Centre (CCWHC)
CCWHC Headquarters
Western College of Veterinary Medicine/ University of Saskatchewan
Saskatoon, Canada - Map It

What are you working on now?

• Helping Sri Lanka (formally known as Ceylon – Map It ) - As a Collaborating Centre of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), the CCWHC team is sharing their expertise and knowledge about wildlife disease to help Sri Lanka, an OIE member country, to develop the capacity to detect and manage wildlife disease.
• Developing new governance policies for CCWHC.
• Fund-raising for the CCWHC.
• Preparing for the annual national meeting of CCWHC professional staff.
• Authoring a paper on cormorant diseases.
• Developing a training workshop on wildlife disease surveillance for OIE member countries.
• Preparing for an upcoming meeting, the OIE Global Conference on Wildlife Health and Biodiversity.

How does your work benefit wildlife disease research?
CCWHC is a national research organization with activity distributed among Canada’s five veterinary colleges. The CCWHC coordinates Canada’s national disease surveillance program. Surveillance plays an important part in scientific discovery and has on many occasions given rise to new research projects. In addition, CCWHC’s mandate includes providing education opportunities which is fulfilled in part by engaging graduate students to participate in CCWHC’s many research activities.


What do you see as the most significant challenge for wildlife health professionals today working in the field of wildlife disease?
The most significant challenge is the unprecedented speed and scale of environmental changes occurring today due to unprecedented human numbers and human activity in North America and around the world. These environmental changes are radically changing patterns of occurrence and intensity of occurrence of diseases in wild animals, and they are driving new and more frequent transmission of pathogens from wild animal populations to human and domestic animal populations.

To achieve a reasonable standard of health in any of these populations we must achieve that standard in all three and in the biosphere that supports us all. This is a challenge to the sciences associated with wild animal health and disease that is both daunting and urgent.

What informational resource (e.g. book, journal, website, etc) should any wildlife health professional be familiar with?
The phrase “wildlife health professional” includes people with knowledge and expertise in many different fields. No one body of knowledge, journal, textbook or canon is appropriate to all. The skill and capacity that is required of all of these people is the ability to apply their particular knowledge to complex issues through collaboration among multiple fields and disciplines. This is a new imperative and effective collaboration to tackle global issues is a challenging task that humankind is just beginning to learn how to do.

Anyone interested in wildlife disease should be aware of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment report and the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations.

>>> READ FULL INTERVIEW [pdf]

In the Spotlight: Wildlife Health Newsmaker Interview with Dr. Dolores Gavier-Widén

Wildlife Health Newsmaker Interview with

Dr. Dolores Gavier-Widén

Who are you?
Dolores Gavier-Widén, a veterinarian (DVM, MS, PhD, Associated Professor), originally from Argentina. I graduated as a veterinarian in Buenos Aires and moved thereafter to UC-Davis were I was a graduate student of Dr Murray Fowler. I have lived and worked in Sweden and England since 1988.

• Head of the Research and Development Section, Department of Pathology and Wildlife Diseases, National Veterinary Institute of Sweden - Map It ,
• Associated Professor, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences - Map It ,
• Vice-president of the Wildlife Disease Association (WDA), and
• Past Chair of the European Section of the WDA.

What are you working on now?
Wildlife diseases, diagnostics and research. On the research side, I work on several very interesting collaborative projects. Three examples are:

• The European project WildTech, which develops new technologies for wildlife surveillance (http://www.wildtechproject.com/wildtech/),
• A project which investigates an emerging form of tularemia in wildlife (financed by http://www.covetlab.org/), and
• A project which characterizes natural highly pathogenic avian influenza (H5N1) in wild birds in Sweden (financed by The Swedish Research Council www.formas.se).

How does your work benefit wildlife disease research?
The research projects that I participate of study the mechanisms of infectious diseases in wildlife hosts. The information we obtain contributes to the understanding of several aspects of the diseases, and in that way to their better management, control and prevention.

This has also an impact on the health of domestic animals and humans. I often choose to work on zoonotic diseases, i.e. diseases transmitted between animals and humans.

What do you see as the most significant challenge for wildlife health professionals today working in the field of wildlife disease?
The complexity of the field, the multiple disciplines involved. I strive to improve the communication and collaboration among scientists working on different disciplines and in different parts of the world.

Another major challenge is the extensive and progressive human-made environmental changes, which affect so detrimentally wild animal health and conservation.

What informational resource (e.g. book, journal, website, etc) should any wildlife health professional be familiar with?

• The Journal of Wildlife Diseases, and, of course,
• The Wildlife Disease News Digest.

>>> TO ENTIRE INTERVIEW [pdf]

In the Spotlight: Wildlife Health Newsmaker Interview with Dr Matt Hartley

Wildlife Health Newsmaker Interview with
Dr. Matt Hartley


Who are you?
Matt Hartley BVetMed MApplSc CertZooMed DipECZM CBiol MSB MRCVS
Head of Wildlife, Aquatic and Zoological Animal Health
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, London, UK -
Map It


What are you working on now?
I am responsible for the detection, assessment and management of new, emerging and exotic diseases in wildlife and aquatic species.  So, I manage a range which contribute to this:

• I am responsible for aquatic animal health and we are currently dealing with an outbreak of new variant Oyster Herpes Virus which is a new and emerging disease causing significant mortality in Europe. We have a control zone in place and are conducting surveillance throughout the country. This work also involves liaising with the European Commission and OIE to communicate that we are meeting our international obligations relating to disease control.
• I manage wildlife disease surveillance which is delivered by our newly formed GB Wildlife Disease Surveillance Partnership which includes both government agencies and NGO’s working together.
• We recently published a control strategy for notifiable diseases in Feral Boar and I am now working on putting the field delivery instructions in place.
• I am working on our contingency planning for rabies in wildlife. This is very important as the UK is free of rabies in all animals.
• Part of my role is the production of veterinary risk assessments regarding wildlife and I am now working on a risk assessment concerning the potential role of deer in the epidemiology of notifiable diseases in the UK.
• I chair a number of advisory committees which provide wildlife disease expertise to policy makers these include the European Bat Lyssavirus Advisory Committee, the Ornithological Expert Panel which advises on wild bird ecology for Avian Influenza policy and the Feral Boar Expert Group. I strongly believe that we need a range of expert advice to assist in wildlife disease control so these forums are key to effective policy.

How does your work benefit or impact the knowledge of wildlife diseases?
My role is to identify the surveillance and evidence needs that Defra has in regard to wildlife health and commission appropriate work to answer key policy making questions. This means I am responding to real situations and to real issues.

We fund a considerable programme of work relating to wildlife disease; these are often focused on developing diagnostic tests, epidemiological investigations and practical disease control methodologies. It is then my role to take the findings and results from the studies and integrate them into our policies and control strategies.

What do you see as the most significant challenge for wildlife health professionals today working in the field of wildlife disease?
In the UK we have not had the same number of wildlife disease issues with such wide ranging and serious impacts as there have been in other countries such as Rabies, Chronic Wasting Disease, West Nile Fever, White Nose Syndrome or Henda Virus and therefore organizations which provide funding often do not recognize wildlife disease as a high priority area for funding.

In addition, I strongly believe that wildlife disease workers need to explain why their work is important, how it has the potential to make a difference and how the outcomes can be used. In my experience wildlife disease researchers are not good at this. I receive many applications for research on wildlife disease which do not state why we should be interested in funding the work and what the results would mean. The fact that animal population X has a seroprevalence of 55% for disease Y in 3 month period in a 30km area in Southern England is completely useless to me – what I want to know is why is this important, what does it tell us? What are the risks and to whom? What drivers might make this better or worse? And what can we do about it?

Wildlife disease field research needs to answer questions that funders and decision makers really need to know and not be based on the fact you get to collect blood samples from cool animals on a fun field trip and the results are rather interesting academically. There are so many really important questions relating to disease in wildlife populations and we need to focus on these so that the area of veterinary medicine is really taken seriously and recognized as the critical issue it is.

What informational resource (e.g. book, journal, website, etc) should any wildlife health professional be familiar with?

• Infectious Disease of Wildlife: Detection, Diagnosis and Management
  Rev.sci.tech.Off.int.Epiz. 2002; 21Part 1 (4)
  Rev sci.tech.Off.int.Epiz. 2002; 21 Part 2(4)
  I find this publication extremely useful as a practical real life information source even though it is now several years old.
  

• Delahay R. et al. (Eds.). (2009). Management of Disease in Wild Mammals, Tokyo; London: Springer
  This is also a very useful text.
  

• And of course the Wildlife Disease Information Node that we refer to on a regular basis

>>> TO ENTIRE INTERVIEW [pdf]

In the Spotlight: Wildlife Health Newsmaker Interview with Dr. Cindy Driscoll

NBII Wildlife Disease Information Node – Wildlife Disease News Digest
Wildlife Health Newsmaker Interview
Dr. Cindy Driscoll
07 May 2010

Who are you?
Dr. Cindy Driscoll
State Wildlife Veterinarian; Director of the Fish & Wildlife Health Program
Maryland Department of Natural Resources at the Cooperative Oxford Laboratory
Oxford, Maryland, USA – Map It

What are you working on now?

Currently I am working on a number if interesting projects:

• Analyzing results on a black bear health assessment and disease project with the Maryland Zoo;
• Developing an interagency working group to address zoonotic diseases for state and federal agriculture, wildlife and public health agencies in our region;
• Investigating White-Nose Syndrome in Maryland bat populations including a metagenomics study to determine viral exposures;
• Summarizing contaminants research on stranded marine mammals in Maryland;
• Beginning an endangered species project with State of Virginia biologists to explore sea turtle health, pathology and diet preferences for the Chesapeake Bay;
• ..... for more
  

>>> READ FULL INTERVIEW

How does your work benefit or impact the knowledge of wildlife diseases?

I hope that most of what I attempt to do contributes to the field of wildlife health and disease research. Encouraging wildlife biologists and managers to look at wildlife from a disease and health perspective is part of my job. These folks are willing participants in sampling and necropsy workshops, and eager to increase their knowledge bases for the animals in their charge.

Additionally, my love of working in the field of wildlife disease research is enhanced by educating and nurturing young professionals in our field and helping them to appreciate natural resources and the world around them. These young people bring new fresh approaches to wildlife issues and will be the future of our profession.

What do you see as the most significant challenge for wildlife health professionals today working in the field of wildlife disease?

From my perspective the most challenging issue is funding for all types of wildlife disease work – especially long-term studies. The reactive nature of approaches to wildlife disease is fundamental to most agencies. Proactive and long-term research is often sacrificed for the “problem of the day.” States are suffering from loss of staffing positions and budget cuts. Monies are limited currently, but hopefully will increase with a recovering economy.

With what informational resource (e.g. book, journal, website, etc.) should any wildlife health professional be familiar?

Many federal and regional agencies have excellent websites with readily available free resources for wildlife professionals:

• USGS National Wildlife Health Center (NWHC)
• NBII-Wildlife Disease Information Node (WDIN)
• Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study (SCWDS)
• U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS)
• U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)

Additionally – professional organizations provide another good source for information:

American Association of Wildlife Veterinarians (AAWV)
Wildlife Disease Association (WDA)
American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA)
International Association for Aquatic Animal Medicine (IAAAM)

The Journal of Wildlife Diseases is an excellent source of in depth articles on new and long-term wildlife disease research.

What is your most significant accomplishment?

While pursuing my professional career – being able to raise my beautiful daughter (now 20 years old) with the constant support of an amazing husband. Second to that would be - being the first state wildlife veterinarian in MD and on the East Coast – and the first marine mammal veterinarian for the US DOC/NOAA Office of Protected Resources.

>>> READ FULL INTERVIEW

In the Spotlight - Wildlife Health Newsmaker Interview

Lewis Gilbert
Associate Director
University of Wisconsin (UW) Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies

Madison, Wisconsin, USA - Map It



The UW Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies is
one of the core partners that supports the NBII Wildlife Disease Information Node, the people who bring you this News Digest. Meet Lewis Gilbert, Associate Director of the Nelson Institute.

What are you working on now?

I am responsible for day-to-day management of many of the Institute’s activities and for new program development. Highlights of my current activities include:

• Enhancing the participation of UW-Madison faculty with the Wildlife Disease Information Node;
• Advancing our pilot program in Food Sustainability;
• Participating in planning for campus-wide efforts around sustainability as part of the UW Chancellor’s task force on sustainability;
• Raising funds for the next steps in our Wisconsin Initiative for Climate Change Impacts (WICCI);
• Evaluating teaching loads as we launch a new undergraduate major in Environmental Studies.

How does your work benefit wildlife disease research?

My work benefits our knowledge of wildlife diseases primarily through the support of the Wildlife Disease Information Node. That support provides a couple of things:

• Infrastructure that supports entrepreneurial research development - By providing an institutional platform that augments its partnership with Federal agencies, I can help WDIN personnel gain access to a wider range of funding sources.

• Access to scientific partners - A large part of my motivation in bringing WDIN to the Nelson Institute was the potential I saw for WDIN to provide a catalyzing and integrating substrate for wildlife and other disease scientists here at the UW. With the presence of WDIN and through a few recent faculty additions, the partnership of WDIN, UW-Madison, and the USGS National Wildlife Health Center is able to conduct investigation of disease that spans from diseases in purely wild animal populations, through domestic animals and into human populations. Within a radius of 10 miles of the Madison area, we can truly pursue the OneHealth idea with investigators.

What do you see as the most significant challenge for wildlife health professionals today working in the field of wildlife disease?

The biggest challenges on this front are the same as those on many such interdisciplinary fronts - that of translation among ideas of what it means to have constructed a good model and to have collected good data. Fundamental to this is constructing databases that can bring together data and observations of very different kinds. We need tools that can enhance the ability of researchers to find the data they need and to relate the data and models with which they work with those from complementing fields. Finding is often half the battle, as it is often difficult for investigators in one field to even know what researchers are looking for in other fields.

The kinds of tools that WDIN is building are exactly the sorts of things that will break down such obstacles. First steps in this direction can be as simple as compiling maps that show the existence of multiple sets of observations made in a single location by different teams with differing scientific objectives.

>>> READ FULL INTERVIEW [pdf]

In the Spotlight - Wildlife Health Newsmaker Interview

Jonathan Sleeman, MA, VetMB, Dipl. ACZM, MRCVS
Director
USGS National Wildlife Health Center

Madison, Wisconsin, USA - Map It

>>> TO FULL CV

Since July 2009, the Wildlife Disease News Digest staff has been bringing readers special features through our segment, In the Spotlight, on Fridays. Our newest addition to this informative segment is the Wildlife Health Newsmaker Interview.

Maintaining the health of wildlife is not just of interest to specialists, but professionals from related disciplines (e.g. public health officials, domestic animal veterinarians, conservationists, policymakers, etc.) and the public also share this concern. It is this unique mix of individuals that make up the wildlife health community, and almost all its’ members would agree that a holistic approach is needed in order to better manage and understand emerging diseases.

One step towards implementing this approach is for managers, practitioners and researchers to learn about the related work others are doing across different disciplines, and around the world. In this new segment, the Digest will introduce readers to the interesting, innovative and newsworthy work our colleagues are doing.


To the Interview. . . .

Our first interview is with Jonathan Sleeman, Director of the USGS National Wildlife Health Center, one of the core partners that support the NBII Wildlife Disease Information Node, the people who bring you this News Digest.


What are you working on now?

• I am working on a number of interesting projects.
• Writing a book chapter entitled, Wildlife Disease Surveillance Strategies, for a conservation medicine text book.
• Developing a 5-year strategic plan for the USGS National Wildlife Health Center (NWHC) which will help establish future research directions for the Center and its scientists. One area of research which will take priority is the study of ecosystem health and how wildlife health is interconnected with human, domestic animal and environmental health.
• Reviewing new studies on the effects of contaminants on wildlife health. The Center has become increasingly more interested in further exploring this area of research.
• Developing the NWHC operational budget.

How does your work benefit wildlife disease research?

I believe many of the routine tasks I do in my current position help to further wildlife disease research. I try to provide leadership and strategic direction on the research that is conducted at the Center. I feel I offer a big picture view of the current landscape of science which can assist with developing projects.

Finding funding for wildlife disease research is always challenging which is why I am continually on the lookout for sources. I spend time educating our stakeholders (e.g. Congress and wildlife professionals) about NWHC research projects and other capabilities through meetings and presentations which help to promote the importance of wildlife disease. In the end, I work to facilitate the activities the Center does and try not to get in the way too much.


What do you see as the most significant challenge for wildlife health professionals today working in the field of wildlife disease?

As a profession, we may not have all the resources we need for wildlife disease surveillance, prediction and management, but what we can do is utilize what we have now for the maximum effect. Also, we need to develop infrastructures for communication and information exchange that will support this goal. We are beginning to use these types of system structures and tools more, but we still have a ways to go.

At the technical level, we need to look for new approaches to doing integrated science. And, we need to look for new tools, such as those that could improve communications and surveillance methods.

What informational resources (e.g. book, journal, website, etc) should any wildlife health professional be familiar with?

• Journal of Wildlife Diseases
• Field Manual of Wildlife Disease – General Field Procedures and Diseases of Birds
• WDIN Wildlife Disease News Digest
• USGS National Wildlife Health Center

>>> READ FULL INTERVIEW [pdf]