A team lead by Kimberly VanderWaal, DVM, PhD, an assistant professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine, has received funding for a two-year project focused on the creation of a system for surveillance for wildlife health threats within Minnesota. The project has been funded by the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund through the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources.

Throughout the state of Minnesota, wildlife and animal health is threatened by a variety of toxins and diseases such as avian influenza, West Nile virus, and lead poisoning.

However, a lack of information on the occurrence of these threats in wildlife makes it challenging to identify trends and issues in wildlife population health. Typical approaches for collecting data from free-ranging wildlife are expensive, challenging, and time consuming.

In contrast, over 13,000 animals are admitted annually to wildlife rehabilitators in Minnesota. Health information is routinely recorded on these animals, such as species, age, location, reason for admission, and symptoms/clinical signs. The Raptor Center and Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Minnesota have maintained electronic databases with this information since the 1990s.

VanderWaal’s project will work to use these organizations’ rehabilitation data for tracking health trends within Minnesota’s wildlife. The data will be organized in an online platform, which will ensure long-term sustainability of the project and easy access to the system’s information.

Currently, wildlife rehabilitation data is not being analyzed to its full potential. With the development and implementation of the new surveillance system, researchers will better be able to monitor wildlife health, detect new health threats, and identify emerging environmental issues impacting health.

The monitoring system may also allow for more strategic use of resources by identifying geographic areas or wildlife species experiencing health events. With this information, populations can be targeted for more in-depth health investigations that may ultimately lead to more effective control and prevention of disease and other health threats.

The project’s specific aims are to:

1. Establish data systems that utilize wildlife rehabilitation data to monitor wildlife population health trends
2. Develop an alert system for detecting anomalies in wildlife rehabilitation data that may indicate emerging health threats
3. Investigate environmental and land-use drivers of wildlife health trends

This project will be developed with the advising of a group of researchers from various institutions, including Julia Ponder, DVM, MPH, and Michelle Willette, DVM, of The Raptor Center; Philip Jenni and Renee Schott, DVM, of the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center; Andrés Perez, DVM, PhD, director of the Center for Animal Health and Food Safety; and Petra Muellner, DVM, PhD, director of Epi-Interactive.

For more information on this project, please email Kimberly VanderWaal, the project’s Principal Investigator.