Abstract

Conservation medicine is defined as the study of the relationship between human ecological disturbance and the biologic health of populations and ecosystems, and the practice of applying this knowledge to biodiversity conservation and attempting to achieve ecological health. The applied goal of conservation medicine is both to improve the health of all living organisms and to conserve biodiversity. Through this discipline veterinarians, physicians, wildlife ecologists, and other conservation professionals are working together to provide an ecological context for health management in relation to many complex environmental issues facing the world today. Conservation Medicine places an emphasis on system thinking and discovering linkages, and consequently, is transdisciplinary.^1,2

Human impact on the environment and ecological processes is well-documented. Habitat destruction and species loss have led to ecosystem disruptions that include the alteration of disease transmission patterns (i.e., emerging diseases), the accumulation of environmental contaminants, and the invasion of alien species and pathogens. The health implications of these disturbing events require novel strategies for disease prevention, health management, and conservation. Complex environmental problems increasingly require transdisciplinary solutions, new technologies that can be facilitated through interinstitutional collaborations. These changes call for a sorta situ approach to conservation, a fusion of ex situ developed skills including small population management, hands-on care, and special skills (veterinary, molecular, reproductive physiology) linked to field skills that include habitat restoration, community-based conservation, and behavioral ecology (Table 1).

Table 1. The changing nature of wildlife management and conservation

The presence of disease in individuals and populations can be an indicator of environmental health including local and global environmental impacts and ecosystem changes. All over the world, previously contiguous expanses of wild lands are being fragmented by encroachment of agriculture and other human activities. Habitat fragmentation and destruction are having many serious effects on threatened species. Using science, wildlife management, veterinary care, training, and education we are working toward mitigating the impacts of fragmentation on species whose survival will necessarily be within small, often isolated, habitat patches. A key area for this work is the Atlantic Forest of Brazil, the most endangered rainforest on the planet with only 2% of its original extent remaining. Within these forest fragments are some of world’s most endangered wildlife and planet species including the black lion tamarin (Leontopithecus chrysopygus). This ecosystem creates opportunities for disease transmission among species of wildlife, livestock, and humans. However, the species of wildlife, the diseases, the climate, and the forest structure and composition are all different, as are the economics and sociology of managing these issues. Wildlife Trust is developing a buffer zone research effort and examining the health, the risk of disease transmission among fragments, and the viability of black lion tamarins inhabiting this rainforest.

Human population expansion and unsustainable rural development are serious problems for much of the developing world, and climatic and environmental change has exacerbated the situation. The environmental consequences of these two issues are vast, including loss of species and genetic diversity and the spread of disease. In much of the developing world these issues are reflected in an overall drop in the quality of life, with an increased proportion of the people living in abject poverty, and the ever-increasing unsustainable use of what should be renewable natural resources. In Southeast Asia, these pressures have led to the fragmentation or loss of much of elephant habitat. India has experienced extensive loss of most of the major wildlife populations over the years, leading to vegetative imbalances and a general deterioration in ecosystem health. Wildlife Trust is working with several local institutions to reverse these trends, and to stabilize or even restore elephant critical ecosystems. This endeavor will require a truly integrated sorta situ approach, and the collaborative efforts of many partners.

At the present time, the importance of wildlife diseases is recognized by private and governmental agencies in few countries. Wildlife Trust has ongoing collaboration with Mexican institutions regarding efforts to diagnose and control disease in migratory neotropical bird populations during their wintering migration. Increasing data on disease agents in a greater number of species and scattered locations raise questions regarding the possibilities of disease introduction and exchange between geographic areas. There is supported evidence of annual reintroduction of pathogens from areas south of the U.S. by migratory birds such as West Nile encephalitis, avian influenza, equine encephalitis, Newcastle disease, and avian cholera. Surveillance for currently known diseases and isolation of new etiologic agents can be the initial attempt to establish the status of these diseases in Mexico. We are coordinating the effort to form a wildlife health cooperative in Mexico.

Literature Cited

1.  Aguirre AA, Ostfeld RS, Tabor GM, House CA, Pearl MC, eds. Conservation Medicine: Ecological Health in Practice. New York, NY: Oxford University Press; 2002:407.

2.  Tabor GM, Ostfeld RS, Poss M, Dobson AP, Aguirre AA. Conservation biology and the health sciences: defining the research priorities of conservation medicine. In: Soulé ME, Orians GH, eds. Research Priorities in Conservation Biology. 2nd edition. Washington, DC: Island Press; 2001:165–173.