Focus of the WDA

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• Endangered Species – WDA members together with international, state, provincial, federal, and private agencies are intimately involved in efforts to preserve and improve the status of endangered species populations. Examples include monitoring the status of the black-footed ferret in Wyoming, USA, trying to control losses of Tasmanian devils associated with Devil facial tumor disease, and investigating factors contributing to the woylie decline in West Australia.
• Game and Furbearing Animals – Extensive research and surveillance provides multiple benefits to wildlife through private and public agencies by enhancing understanding of the impact of diseases on wild animal populations.
• Wildlife Conservation – Members, working as and/or with wildlife biologists, investigate the effects of environmental toxins, global warming, habitat alterations, and introduction of exotic species on the health of native wildlife.
• Wildlife Translocation – Many members are engaged in translocation of wildlife between areas. Efforts are made to prevent the introduction of disease and to monitor the health of animals following translocation.
• Wildlife Rehabilitation – Veterinarians, clinically oriented specialists and other professionals affiliated with the WDA are increasingly interested in the rehabilitation of sick and injured wildlife, especially rare, threatened and endangered species.
• Zoological Parks – Zoo veterinarians supervise the care of a large variety of species and provide husbandry and veterinary care for many captive populations of threatened and endangered species from all over the world. In addition, they work with wildlife and other resource managers on the management of free-ranging wildlife population health.
• Public Health – WDA members contribute substantially to knowledge about arthropod-borne encephalitis, rabies, tularemia, Lyme disease, hantaviruses, plague, environmental toxins, and many other wildlife diseases potentially affecting human health.
• Livestock and Poultry – Wildlife specialists participate in laboratory, clinical and field research to control diseases in wildlife that can be economically devastating to domestic livestock. Among these diseases are malignant catarrhal fever, brucellosis, tuberculosis, viscerotropic velogenic Newcastle disease, and African swine fever.
• Comparative Medicine – Many WDA members with specialty training in the health and biological sciences are involved in basic research using wildlife as models of diseases found in humans or domestic animals.
• Ecosystem Health – Because no species exist independent of its environment, many WDA members are addressing the complex issues of ecosystem health. Topics of special concern include aquatic animal health, as many marine mammals and sea birds serve as biomarkers for the assessment of the health of the marine environment, and the multiple interactions resulting from human and domestic animal encroachment into wild habitats.
• Wildlife Disease Ecology – Understanding the transmission dynamics and impacts of diseases in wildlife populations is crucial to the future conservation management of wildlife. Thus, members conduct research on both endemic and exotic diseases in wildlife populations, to understand the transmission, ecology and impacts of diseases in these populations.