Terrestrial Wildlife Diseases

White-nose syndrome (WNS) is an emergent disease of hibernating bats that has spread from the northeastern across United States at an alarming rate.

While the Hawaiian avian disease system has been well-studied in the forests of the older section of Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park (HAVO), and in many other locations throughout the state, nothing was known about avian disease in the new Kahuku Unit of HAVO and the adjacent Ka‘u Forest Reserve. The high elevation forests of Kahuku are the only habitat located on National Park Service lands where...

Vector-borne diseases are transmitted from one animal to another by vectors, including insects, such as mosquitoes or fleas, and arachnids, such as ticks. The USGS National Wildlife Health Center investigates wildlife diseases, including vector-borne diseases, such as West Nile virus and sylvatic plague.

Avian botulism causes waterbird mortality in Hawai‘i's wetlands and elsewhere. We evaluated bird mortality using trained scent-detection canines (sniffer dogs) as a new tool to survey for the presence of avian botulism. Biologists compare variables influencing detection probability and detection rates with traditional search methods. The pilot study tested the feasibility of this approach as a new...

The Mojave desert tortoise is listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act and faces threats from habitat loss, predators, and disease. Drs. Lizabeth Bowen and A. Keith Miles with WERC are designing new methods to determine the type and influence of stressors present in the environment for the tortoise and other wildlife.

The primary goal of this bat research program is to develop projects that increase our understanding of basic ecology and natural history of western bat species, while simultaneously providing needed data to inform conservation measures and management decisions in the West. Dr. Brian Halstead, together with Gabriel Reyes, studies the habitat and resource selection, movement ecology, demography...

Dr. Kathleen Longshore’s goal is to understand how predator/prey relationships, disease and human-caused disturbance work separately and synergistically to impact bighorn sheep populations under variable ecological stress. Information from this project will provide managers with an understanding of specific and regional impacting factors that contribute to impact variation in population trends.

WERC's sea otter researchers are developing and utilizing a variety of methodological and analytical tools to understand the causes of biological and ecological trends in sea otter populations, and to predict the ecological consequences of management practices on these populations and their ecosystems.

Environmental stressors such as contaminants and disease can cause physiological imbalance in all types of wildlife. WERC’s Drs. Lizabeth Bowen and A. Keith Miles develop gene transcription profiles to detect organisms’ physiological responses to environmental stressors and provide resource managers with early warnings for potential effects on wildlife and ecosystem health.

As resource managers balance the needs of humans and wildlife, WERC’s Dr. Berry provides the necessary science to inform decisions on shared lands. Visit the “Science” tab to delve into specific projects.

White-nose syndrome (WNS), a novel fungal pathogen of cave-hibernating bat species in east and central North America, is causing the most precipitous decline in bat populations ever reported. This disease causes mortality in at least 6 species of bats, including the endangered Indiana Bat (Myotis sodalis), with mortality rates in some hibernacula averaging 95%. Since the onset of this disease in...

Agassiz’s Desert Tortoise (Gopherus agassizii) was listed as threatened in 1990 under the Endangered Species Act. WERC’s Dr. Kristin Berry leads studies on the cause of diseases in populations of Agassiz’s Desert Tortoise across the Mojave and western Sonoran deserts in southern California.