Wildlife Disease Association

COVID-19 Data

Wildlife trade pandemics and the law: Fighting this year’s pandemic with last year’s laws
A report from Legal Atlas, Eco Health and George Mason University
This report takes a critical look at what have nations already done with their laws that support the monitoring and prevention of disease emergence that comes from wildlife? In particular, it examines how ten different areas of law respond to this need and provides a summary of the legal challenges and the many opportunities for immediate action. Find the report HERE.

For information concerning specific recommendations / guidelines for the prevention of or surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 in wildlife species please check out our COVID-19 Resources HERE.

Recent News & Announcements

Statement from the Wildlife Disease Association on WHO-China Report on SARS-CoV-2 HERE.

Congratulations to Kaylee Byers

Kaylee is a winner of the 2021 Bio One Ambassador Awards

Established in 2018, the annual BioOne Ambassador Award is given to early career researchers who can effectively communicate the importance and impact of their research to the public. The WDA as partner publisher of BioOne nominates individuals who are currently students or within 5yrs. post completion of their primary or secondary degree and have published or had their manuscript accepted for publication in JWD within the previous calendar year.

Kaylee was one of five early career scholars who advanced through this rigorous BioOne Ambassador Award competition. Nominees had to be in or within 5 years of completion of a graduate program and must have had their paper published in their association journal in 2020. Candidates were judged on a 750-word plain-language summary explaining “How does your research change the world”.

Kaylee’s summary: Location, Location, Location: Rats, Real Estate, and Public Health is based on her publication “Is Carriage of Leptospira Interrogans by Rats Influenced by the Urban Environment or Population Density?

For more information about the competition and to read Kaylee’s winning summary of her work as well as this year’s other Ambassador Award winners please click HERE.

Click HERE to watch a short video describing Kaylee's project.

Attention all researchers!

WDA and the crowdfunding site Experiment are partnering to run a Challenge grant for Wildlife Health and Disease. During the 2018 and 2019 challenge grants researchers raised more than $80,000. Find more information about this year’s challenge HERE

Who is WDA?

We are researchers, practitioners and educators! Please watch our video to learn more about us!

WDA Updates

Mark your Calendars! WDA will host a virtual week 30 August – 5, September 2020

Dear WDA colleagues,

COVID19 has sadly forced us to postpone our International Conference in Cuenca until 2021. However, I am certain you will all agree that in these last months more than ever before wildlife has been discussed here, there and everywhere! The topics of wildlife health, diseases and the links between wild animals, livestock and humans have made it to the media front pages, and forced many of us to put extra hours of work no matter where we are located.

I would argue it is therefore more than appropriate for our association to get together and take a short pause to discuss among other things, on what is happening in the different sections of our association, and how we can as a group continue to be a reference and a valued contributor to promote wildlife health across the globe.

With the help of technology, I would like to invite you all to join us for a virtual WDA week at the beginning of September. During this week, we are planning to host several events:

1. Our WDA Council meeting - the meeting will be held in two 3-hour blocks, Monday august 31st, and Tuesday September 1st both starting at 16:00 EDT (UCT/GMT - 4 hours).

2. WDA annual business meeting - the meeting will be held Thursday, September 3rd at 9 am EDT (UTC-4 hours). Not only will we discuss what is happening in WDA (some exciting news), but we will announce the winners of our two most prestigious awards, the Ed Adison Distinguished Service Award and the joint AAWV and WDA, Tom Thorne and Beth Williams Memorial Award.

3. Wildlife health across the world – each of our sections has been challenged to organize a 1hr session where they will bring 2 invited lecturers to present topics relevant to the respective section. These meetings will be open to all no matter where you are located and can be a short yet “teasing” chance to hear on what is keeping you colleagues across the globe so busy!

A calendar has been made to help you locate the different meetings and the times they take place. Please refer to the time zones columns to identify the correct time for you. Some may mean a late evening or a very early rise, but I have no doubts it will be worth it! The calendar can be accessed HERE.

These meetings will be hosted as ZOOM webinar and we will provide all with the links closer to the dates. More info on each “Wildlife health across the world” session will also be on our webpage in the coming days/week.

I look forward to meeting as many of you as possible during this week!

With my best regards,

Carlos das Neves

WDA President

The Student Activities Committee announces that applications are open for both the 2021 Student Chapter grants and the Student Travel Grants

For more information click HERE.

2021 Annual International Conference

Virtual 69th Annual - 14th Biennial Joint Conference of the
Wildlife Disease Association & European Wildlife Disease Association
August 31 – September 2, 2021

Call for abstracts now open!
EXTENDED Deadline for submission: April 30, 2021

More information HERE.

WDA Continues to Support One Health

For more than 60 years Wildlife Disease Association has published what is now called One Health research, facilitated One Health solutions to wildlife conservation challenges, and promoted One Health education.

For over 30 years WDA's One Health mission has been to "acquire, disseminate, and apply knowledge of the health and diseases of wild animals in relation to their biology, conservation and ecology including interactions with humans and domestic animals”.

Most recently WDA's slogan says it all:
“WDA is all wildlife diseases, all conservation, all one health, all the time!"