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Wildlife Health
Current Issues and Resources
The health of British
Columbia’s wild animals, like that of BC’s
human residents, depends on many things, particularly
the quality and quantity of water, land and air
resources available to them.
Healthy wild animals must deal with the stresses
of day to day living in many environments: to
obtain the right kind and amount of food; to reproduce
and raise offspring; to avoid predation; to adapt
to extremes in weather and other changes in their
environment, including naturally occurring diseases
and parasitic infections. Healthy wild animal
populations are important to us for many reasons
- to satisfy ecological (conservation), commercial
and recreational (wildlife viewing, sustainable
hunting and trapping) and social (cultural and
“just plain knowing that they out there”)
values. In the past several years, emerging infectious
diseases, are increasingly of concern to wild
animals, domestic animals and humans. So
what can we do? |
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Wildlife Health
Program
By monitoring the overall occurrence of diseases and
parasites and how these change over time, as well as
specific diseases of concern, the Wildlife Health Program
of the BC Ministry of Environment endeavours to increase
our understanding of some of the factors that affect
the health of BC’s wildlife. Other activities
include cooperating with other agencies, organizations
and researchers locally, nationally and internationally
on issues related to wild animal care, wildlife conservation,
wildlife diseases, livestock and agriculture and how
these interact with public health. This program provides
technical information and assistance to species at risk
recovery programs, other wildlife professionals, the
hunting and trapping community, and other groups such
as wildlife rehabilitators.
We are always interested in learning more, so if you
have a question or a comment, please contact
us!
How to Report Wildlife Diseases
Understanding animal health requires the collection
of information about the diseases and parasites that
occur in individuals and populations over time The Wildlife
Health Program is interested in reports of these occurrences.
Videos, written or oral descriptions or photographs
can be valuable sources of information. If you would
like to report an occurrence of wildlife disease, please
use the form on the on-line Wildlife
Disease Manual to help collect the appropriate information
and/or samples, or contact the Ecosystems Branch's Wildlife
Veterinarian. And thank you for your interest.
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