A WILDLIFE CONSERVATION SOCIETY PROGRESS REPORT
WILDLIFE HEALTH 2014
W
ildlife Conservation Society Progress Reports provide you, our generous supporters, with updates and insights on core conservation activities. Together, we are securing a future for wildlife and wild places. WCS saves wildlife and wild places worldwide through science, conservation action, education, and inspiring people to value nature. WCS envisions a world where wildlife thrives in healthy lands and seas, valued by societies that embrace and benefit from the diversity and integrity of life on earth. Executive Editor: Mary Deyns Brandão Managing Editor: Christine Westphal Writer: Christine Westphal Art Direction: Drew Albinson Staff Photographer: Julie Larsen Maher Editorial Support: Sarah Walker
With deep appreciation to: Shirley Atkinson, Paul Calle, James Deutsch, Martin Gilbert, Christopher Golden, Helen Lee, Dee McAloose, Harley Newton, Sarah Olson, Steve Osofsky, Bonnie Raphael, and Joanne Valletta
Photos: Front and Back Covers, Inside Front Page © Julie Larsen Maher/WCS; P. 1 (top) © Cristián Samper/WCS; P. 1 ©WCS (bottom); P. 2 © Tracie Seimon/WCS; P. 3 © WCS Russia; P. 4 © Christopher Golden; P. 5 © Mark Atkinson/WCS AHEAD
WCS Progress Report: Health ▪ 1
TRACKING EBOLA IN THE WILD As the Ebola crisis in West Africa continues, the Wildlife Conservation Society’s health experts remain focused on improving understanding of the virus in its forest ecosystem and on preventing outbreaks at the wildlifehuman interface. The current Ebola crisis is believed to have originated when a two-year-old child either came in contact with or consumed meat from a hunted wild bat. WCS researchers are actively working to better characterize the role of bats in the maintenance and spread of Ebola, and how the virus is spread to great apes. As with people, the majority of infected apes perish. The staggering death toll from this disease in both humans and great apes compounds the urgency of our work to understand and prevent the transmission of Ebola among species. In 2014, WCS scientists were able to develop a breakthrough for accurately tracking wild great ape exposure to the Ebola virus. Aided by our novel diagnostic method that detects antibodies to Ebola in the feces of those great apes that have survived exposure, we will now be better able to identify outbreaks in wild animals, learn how the virus is spreading between species, and warn public health authorities when surveillance indicates heightened potential risk for human exposure. Almost a decade ago, WCS pioneered surveillance methods that help both the conservation and public health communities. By creating the regional Wildlife Mortality Monitoring Network, we have been able to foster the rapid reporting of and diagnostic response to wildlife found dead in the forest. The Network is largely focused on hunters, who are typically the first people to encounter dead great apes and other potentially infected wildlife in the forest, and has now expanded to over 100 villages in the Republic of Congo. In addition, by examining the behavior of great apes and other forest animals via remote videography, WCS teams and our partners are exploring how various species interact around seasonally fruiting trees. Improved understanding of these interactions will likely yield important clues on how the Ebola virus moves from species to species, and on how we may someday be able to stop it. WCS is also working to educate local communities on measures they can take to avoid contracting Ebola, including not hunting or eating high-risk species such as bats and great apes—a win-win for both public health and conservation.
Dr. Kenneth Cameron of WCS and Dr. Vincent Munster of the National Institutes of Health’s Rocky Mountain Laboratories collect a sample from a hammer-headed fruit bat, one of several species believed to be reservoirs of the Ebola virus.
WCS Progress Report: Health ▪ 2
TORTOISE REINTRODUCTIONS IN MYANMAR
A group of Burmese star tortoises born and raised in a WCS facility in Myanmar. These tortoises were examined and screened for diseases to ensure a healthy release into the wild.
WCS pathology technician Ania Tomaszewicz (left) and molecular scientist Tracie Seimon conduct screenings on Burmese star tortoise samples in Myanmar using the mobile molecular laboratory.
Burmese star tortoises are back in the wild! The species, which for years has been functionally extinct in its native habitat due to over-harvesting for food and the pet trade, is finally on track to repopulate Myanmar thanks to a reintroduction project spearheaded by WCS. Starting in November 2013, a WCS Zoological Health Program team including Drs. Bonnie Raphael and Tracie Seimon, technicians, and volunteers traveled to Myanmar with WCS Turtle Conservation Coordinator Brian Horne to work with a team of Myanmar turtle experts—WCS Regional Herpetologist Steven Platt and his partner, the Turtle Survival Alliance’s Kalyar Platt—on implementing star tortoise health assessments in preparation for their release. Over the last 12 months, 450 Burmese star tortoises, all of which were bred and raised in propagation centers in Myanmar, have been examined and screened. Examination and disease testing were conducted using mobile molecular and clinical hematology laboratories brought to Myanmar specifically for this purpose. The mobile laboratory allows for very sophisticated DNA-based disease testing in this remote location, and immediate determination of disease status without the sometimes lengthy sample export process. In addition, physical exams and a review of blood samples were performed to ensure each individual tortoise has a clean bill of health—both to improve their chances of survival after release and to prevent them from spreading diseases to other species of wild tortoises and turtles. To date, 50 tortoises have been successfully released and another 100 are in the pre-release stage. Using transmitters adhered to their shells, WCS is continually collecting location data from the released tortoises to monitor their success. This will facilitate the creation of sound guidelines for subsequent releases. Looking ahead, WCS plans to perform genetic analyses of populations of Burmese star tortoises in Myanmar, as well as to expand assurance colony facilities, in order to fully safeguard this species from future threats.
WCS Progress Report: Health ▪ 3
A BREAKTHROUGH IN TIGER HEALTH RESEARCH In 2003, WCS field biologists and veterinarians were the first to diagnose a wild tiger with canine distemper virus (CDV)— an often fatal disease found in wild carnivores and domestic dogs that share the Amur tiger’s forest habitat in the Russian Far East. Since then, we have found that CDV can cause abnormal behavior in Amur tigers before eventually killing them; in several cases, this has led to dangerous situations in which tigers approach people living in tiger habitat. In 2014, our scientists extracted genetic material from archived tiger tissues and proved that Ivan—an adult male tiger whose unusually fearless behavior led to the death of a local fisherman and Ivan’s subsequent shooting by local officials in the Russian Far East—was infected with CDV at the time of his death. The conservation impact of our breakthrough research found additional significance in January 2014 when the Indian Veterinary Research Institute announced the first cases of CDV in wild tigers in India, confirming that the virus may be impacting tiger populations in other parts of their range beyond Russia. WCS is committed to continuing our research— through collection and analysis of both archived and new samples—to understand the ecology of the virus in tigers and in the domestic and wild carnivores that share their habitat. This knowledge will be crucial in assessing the threat CDV poses to wild tigers, and in developing measures to prevent it in the future.
Only 350–400 adult Amur tigers remain in the wild. As part of these efforts, in May 2014, Dr. Robert Ossiboff (WCS Molecular Diagnostics Fellow) joined Dr. Martin Gilbert (WCS, University of Glasgow) and Dr. Nadya Sulikhan (WCS, Russian Academy of Sciences) at the Institute of Biological and Soil Science in Vladivostok, Russia to test samples collected during the winters of 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 from sable, Siberian weasels, badgers, lynx, raccoon dogs, and leopard cats that they trapped and subsequently released, or that had been hunted for the fur trade. The group processed over 750 tissue samples from approximately 450 individuals, and tested approximately 350 samples for CDV. While the vast majority of samples were negative, a small set tested positive for the virus. By comparing the genetic sequences from these viruses with those obtained from Ivan and the other affected tigers, as well as with viruses obtained through sampling local domestic dogs and mammalian wildlife, WCS wildlife health scientists aim to determine how CDV persists in nature and which species are responsible for transmitting the virus to wild tigers. In October 2014, WCS experts collected additional samples from domestic dogs and wild mammals in Russia. These samples will allow us to definitively identify the most likely sources of infection for wild tigers. This testing is crucial for fully understanding the risk that CDV represents to wild tigers so that we can ultimately develop methods to manage this health threat. .
WCS Progress Report: Health ▪ 4
A CONVERSATION WITH DR. CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN, MPH, PhD Ecologist and epidemiologist Dr. Christopher Golden has served as the Director of WCS’s Health & Ecosystems: Analysis of Linkages (HEAL) Program since January 2014. Recently, his groundbreaking research on how the environment affects human health, completed during his 15year residency in Madagascar, earned him the title of 2014 National Geographic Emerging Explorer. Fascinated by Madagascar and the threats to its unique wildlife from the age of nine, Dr. Golden has since learned of the urgent problems also facing the island’s native people. Currently he is working to understand and improve child nutrition and its relationship with wildlife in Madagascar’s Makira region.
Dr. Christopher Golden (far left) and two health workers in Madagascar collect blood from local people in forest communities to determine the role of wildlife loss in human nutrition.
Why is improving global child nutrition so critical? Christopher Golden: Malnutrition is the single largest risk factor for early death around the world, and in a place like Madagascar, we see almost 60 percent of pre-adolescent children being affected by anemia. If you are iron deficient in the first two years of life, your brain cannot properly develop. Those cognitive deficits can last 20 years into the future. What are the current threats to proper child nutrition? CG: One major cause of child malnutrition is lack of access to a diverse and high-quality diet. Losing access to wildlife as a food source due to unsustainable hunting practices is just one aspect to that; another is that there’s no meaningful market through which people can access alternatives to wildlife. Also, Malagasy people have very limited access to healthcare, so the effects of insufficient dietary intake are amplified by infectious diseases that further reduce nutritional status.
How does your research affect local policy and community practices in Makira? CG: It’s not about changing [wildlife hunting] laws; those laws are there for good reason because the hunting is unsustainable. It’s about creating opportunities and alternatives for people because we know that their health is incredibly vulnerable to losing access to wildlife. The partnerships that we’ve created with the Ministry of Health in Madagascar aim to improve rural and economic development.
We have interventions that are now underway. One is a chicken husbandry project; we are teaching people about improved husbandry conditions, biosecurity measures, and also making a vaccine available for diseases that affect chickens. [Note: Dr. Golden and HEAL, in partnership with WCS Madagascar, are helping provide vaccines to prevent Newcastle Disease in chickens, which allows Malagasy people How are you and your team grappling with these issues? to better raise chickens for consumption as an alternative to illegally hunting and consuming bushmeat.] The other is a CG: Our primary focus is to understand the ways in which mobile health clinic project [which involves] family planning environmental change affects human nutrition and health and nutritional education, improving access to birth control, in a holistic way. We are working to identify quantitative and broader health education. connections between access to wildlife as a resource and human nutritional status. We have shown that by losing Could your work in Madagascar serve as a model for access to wildlife, rates of anemia would increase by 30 researching and improving child nutrition in other parts percent. Additionally, we just completed a 15-month of the world? longitudinal study of the ways in which intake of wild foods affects human nutrition, as well as how malaria, intestinal CG: We have researched the different contextual variables parasites, and other types of disease affect nutritional status. that need to be understood first in order to discern what
WCS Progress Report: Health ▪ 5 mediates the relationships between the environment and humans, and will be able to apply this research framework in a more general way to different places around the world, so I definitely think [our work in Makira can be] a model for how people research malnutrition in the future. My learning curve is still going up exponentially because I have a fantastic team of local Malagasy working on the project with me.
And, at a place like Harvard School of Public Health (where I’m now based), we have access to really bright students who want to continue the work and build on what we’ve created there. To learn more about Dr. Golden’s research and the global work being done by WCS’s HEAL Program, visit: wcs-heal.org
LOOKING BEYOND FENCES IN SOUTHERN AFRICA Transfrontier conservation areas (TFCAs), which incorporate a mosaic of protected areas as well as communal lands, provide extraordinary wildlife conservation and sustainable development opportunities. One of the most ecologically important TFCAs is the Kavango Zambezi (KAZA), which is home to the world’s single largest remaining population of elephants. While ecotourism within KAZA and other TFCAs helps to alleviate poverty, other forms of income generation are also essential, including traditional livestock farming, which is culturally important to millions of people who have lived in these areas for generations. Unfortunately, subsistence farmers sharing the land with wildlife in these TFCAs cannot sell their healthy, free-range beef to the lucrative export market due to international trade practices dictating that cattle must be physically separated from wildlife because of disease concerns. Farmers are therefore faced with a dilemma: In order to export their beef, they have to either eliminate wildlife such as buffalo (a natural reservoir for foot and mouth disease) from the area, or construct miles of environmentally-damaging disease control fences, thereby threatening ecotourism opportunities and endangering wildlife, including elephants. Thankfully, there is a potential win-win solution. With support from USAID, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Rockefeller Foundation, and private donors, WCS’s AHEAD (Animal & Human Health for the Environment And Development) program is working with regional and international partners such as the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the World Organization for Animal Health to ensure that farmers do not have to make this choice. AHEAD’s Beyond Fences project is researching new science-based approaches to the safe trade of beef, based on the safety of the meat production process itself rather than focusing on where a particular cow has come from. This work is leading to new, non-fence based ways to manage commercially important diseases, thus lessening the conflict between livestock agriculture and wildlife conservation. Currently, the World Organization for Animal Health is reviewing recommendations for policy changes concerning methods for controlling foot and mouth disease (as related to beef exports) without a complete reliance upon fences. A final vote by all 180 of the organization’s member countries is scheduled to take place in Paris in May 2015. Beyond Fences has important implications for the approximately 250,000 elephants in the KAZA TFCA. This prime conservation real estate spans five countries (Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe), and at more than 175,000 square miles, is similar in size to the northeastern United States. As elephants are in the midst of such an alarming poaching crisis, AHEAD’s Beyond Fences project aims to protect these animals from the additional threat of losing access to precious habitat. To learn more about WCS’s AHEAD Program, visit: wcs-ahead.org
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