Terrestrial Wildlife Diseases

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.

Desert bighorn sheep populations in the southwestern United States are subject to non-native disease outbreaks, habitat loss, and genetic isolation that can threaten their long-term sustainability. In some regions of the southwest, mountain lion predation on desert bighorn sheep has been found to be the primary source of mortality. Grand Canyon National Park is home to one of the largest desert...

Some of the biggest challenges facing wildlife today are changes to their environment from both natural and anthropogenic causes. Natural resource managers, planners, policy makers, industry and private landowners must make informed decisions and policies regarding management, conservation, and restoration of species, habitats, and ecosystem function in response to these changes.

In North America, the flea transmitted plague bacterium (Yersinia pestis) has colonized and altered native animal communities and ecosystems for more than a century. Many species have suffered adverse consequences from plague, perhaps none more than the endangered black-footed ferret. Plague has established within the ranges of all North American prairie dog species, which collectively serve as...

White-Nose Syndrome (WNS) is a devastating disease that threatens the survival of hibernating bats in North America. Since first documented in the winter of 2005/2006, WNS has spread from a very small area of New York across at least two thousand kilometers and half or more of states and provinces in the U.S. and Canada.