Skip to main content

PERSPECTIVE article

Front. Vet. Sci.
Sec. Veterinary Epidemiology and Economics
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fvets.2024.1466740
This article is part of the Research Topic Insights in Veterinary Epidemiology and Economics: 2023 View all 8 articles

Utilising a livestock model for wildlife health planning

Provisionally accepted
  • Royal Veterinary College (RVC), London, United Kingdom

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Health planning provides a structure for the application of epidemiological data to managed populations with the intention of maximising health and identifying targets for intervention. Whilst this is established practice in livestock health, such schemes are rarely applied to free-living wild animal populations. The health of wildlife is important for a variety of reasons including conservation, human health, and ecosystem health, and so it is recommended that a formalised health planning approach be adopted for wildlife, based upon advantages of livestock health schemes identified here. Six key strengths of livestock herd health plans are identified in that these plans are: 1) Outcome driven, 2) Structured and repeatable, 3) They can incorporate both health and welfare considerations and in doing so, establish multidisciplinary management teams, 4) Evidence-based allowing for the prioritisation of key risk factors, 5) Encompassing of both population and individual metrics, and 6) Offer the opportunity for accreditation schemes. The benefits highlighted have implications for both wildlife management and research agendas where the structured format of the health plans will highlight knowledge gaps. Challenges are acknowledged, and it is recognised that livestock health planning cannot simply be copied across to a wildlife context. However, the strengths identified are great enough that it is recommended that wildlife population health planning is developed for active management of individual populations, learning lessons from existing plans.

    Keywords: Evidence-Based Practice, Wildlife health planning, Wildlife management, applied epidemiology, Health Outcomes, Multidisciplinary teams, Wildlife health and welfare, Knowledge gaps Font: (Default) Times New Roman

    Received: 18 Jul 2024; Accepted: 04 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Patterson. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Stuart Patterson, Royal Veterinary College (RVC), London, United Kingdom

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.