From domoic acid poisoning in seabirds to canine distemper in raccoons, wildlife faces a variety of threats and diseases. Some of those same diseases reach humans and domestic animals in our increasingly shared environment.
A new early detection surveillance system for wildlife helps identify unusual patterns of illness and death in near real time by leveraging data from wildlife rehabilitation organizations across California. This system has the potential to expand nationally and globally. It was created by scientists from the University of California, Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine with partners in California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the non-profit Wild Neighbors Database Project.
The Wildlife Morbidity and Mortality Event Alert System is described in A study published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
“Human-induced disturbances are contributing to a wide range of threats: habitat loss, introduction of invasive species, pollution, disease, wildfires,” said co-lead author Terra Kelly, a wildlife epidemiologist at the UC Davis One Health Institute forks Karen C. Drayer Wildlife Health Center within the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine. “It speaks to the need for a system like this where we can better understand the threats facing wildlife populations and respond to them in a timely manner so there is less harm to wildlife.”
Frontline Responders for Wildlife
Wildlife rehabilitation workers are the world’s first responders to animals in the wild. They are the first to receive and care for sick and injured wild animals. Your clinical reports contain a wealth of information that, when shared, can indicate broader patterns.
Until recently, these clinical reports were mostly stored on paper or in isolated computer files. In 2012, Wild Neighbors Database Project co-founders Devin Dombrowski and Rachel Avilla created the Wildlife Rehabilitation Medical Databaseo WRMD, a free online tool now used by more than 950 rehabilitation organizations in 48 states and 19 countries to monitor patient care.
Dombrowski and Avilla brought the tool to CDFW, which connected with longtime partners at UC Davis to pilot an alert system using the database as a foundation.
“I am delighted that WRMD is not only useful to thousands of wildlife rehabilitators, but that the data collected by them is being used to monitor morbidity and mortality,” said co-author Dombrowski. “To witness the WMME Alert System identifying anomalies in the data and alerting investigators is incredible.”
CDFW is using the system to help identify and prioritize wildlife needs and conservation efforts.
“The near real-time information this system provides has allowed us to quickly follow up with diagnostic tests to pinpoint the problem,” said Krysta Rogers, senior environmental scientist with CDFW’s Wildlife Health Laboratory. “This system has also been instrumental in determining the geographic scope and severity of the threat.”
How does it work
To test the system, scientists analyzed 220,000 case records collected between early 2013 and late 2018 to set thresholds for triggering alerts. The dataset included records for 453 different species, from common to rare.
The authors emphasize that the alert system is prediagnostic. Alerts agencies to unusual patterns that may warrant further investigation to determine specific health threats.
The system detected several key events, including large admissions of:
- Seabirds along the central and southern California coast in late spring 2016. Post-mortem examinations confirmed that they were hungry.
- Seabirds in April 2017. Domoic acid toxicity was later confirmed to be the cause of death.
- Invasive Eurasian collared pigeons in 2016 with encephalitis and kidney disease. Investigations revealed that pigeon paramyxovirus-1 was the cause of the event. This was the first detection of the emerging virus in Eurasian collared pigeons in this region of California.
- Rock pigeons in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2017 with an emerging parasite.
- Finches in 2016 and 2017 with seasonal conjunctivitis due to infection with mycoplasma bacteria
human connections
Kelly points out that being able to quickly monitor and detect such events is important for all species, including humans. For example, domoic acid poisoning is caused by harmful algal blooms, which are increasing in freshwater and coastal systems and threatening both wildlife and human health. Another example is West Nile virus, where bird deaths can serve as a sensitive indicator of risk to domestic animals and people.
The alert system is an inexpensive and efficient supplemental tool to add to the surveillance toolbox of state wildlife agencies. It combines machine learning algorithms, natural language processing and statistical methods used to classify cases and set thresholds for alerts with the ecology and distribution of wildlife within California, said co-senior author Pranav Pandit, a researcher at UC Davis One Health Institute. forks EpiCenter for Disease Dynamics.
“Data from wildlife rehabilitation organizations is making very valuable contributions,” said Pandit. “All of that comes together in this highly adaptable surveillance system.”
Other study partners and co-authors include Christine Kreuder Johnson and Michael Ziccardi of UC Davis; Nicole Carion, Stella McMillin, and Deana L. Clifford of the CDFW Wildlife Health Laboratory; Anthony Riberi from the web development company Y3TI; and Erica Donnelly-Greenan of Moss Landing Marine Laboratories and the BeachCOMBERS Program.
The study was funded by a State Wildlife Grant from CDFW.