Fish and Wildlife Disease

Multiple research endeavors at the USGS National Wildlife Health Center are ongoing to help assess the possible impacts of SARS-CoV-2 on wildlife.

Sixteen years after Pd, the fungus that causes white-nose syndrome in bats, was first recognized in New York, its range now extends to the Rocky Mountains, and it has been definitively detected in all but seven states (Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, and Utah). The National Wildlife Health Center and our partners continue to field test a WNS vaccine for wild bats and to research...

This project focuses on understanding the forces driving the risk of avian influenza transmission from wild waterfowl to domestic poultry within the Chesapeake Bay region.

This project focuses on improving our understanding of how current and previous infection with avian influenza viruses impact the movement ecology of wild waterfowl species.

The first 2021/2022 detection of Eurasian strain (EA) highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 in North America occurred in December 2021 in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. Subsequently, HPAI EA H5 and EA H5N1 viruses have been confirmed in wild birds, backyard flocks, commercial poultry facilities, and wild mammals in both Canada and the United States. This HPAI distribution map will be...

Professionals at the NWHC include wildlife biologists, veterinarians, statisticians, epidemiologists, and informatics specialists. This multidisciplinary group conducts investigations and disease ecology studies of emerging and recurring priority wildlife diseases, maintains and analyzes comprehensive information on wildlife disease events, and provides response and management consultation and...

The Disease Decision Analysis and Research group is a multi-disciplinary team based out of the Eastern Ecological Science Center whose strengths are in ecology, decision sciences and quantitative modeling.

The USGS National Wildlife Health Center (NWHC) conducts surveillance in wild birds to facilitate early detection and situational awareness for high consequence pathogens, including highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) viruses.

Sylvatic plague is a flea-borne bacterial disease of wild rodents. Humans, pets, and wildlife can be afflicted with this disease. Prairie dogs are highly susceptible to plague and are the primary food source of the highly endangered black-footed ferret, which is also susceptible to the disease. Sylvatic plague can decimate prairie dog colonies (90% or greater mortality rates), resulting in local...

Chronic wasting disease (CWD) affects cervids (elk, moose, mule deer, and white-tailed deer) throughout the U.S. CWD affects the nervous system in these animals and creates distinctive brain lesions. At this time, we have no treatment for CWD and it is fatal to the animals who contract it. CWD is caused by an infectious, irregular form of cellular prion protein. CWD can be directly and indirectly...

Since 2006, we have partnered with agencies around the world to monitor the spread of highly pathogenic (HPAI) avian influenza. In 2014, our scientists detected three HPAI viruses for the first time in wild birds in North America: H5N2, H5N8, and a recombinant H5N1. In response to HPAI detections, our scientists are working closely with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and other Federal and...

Disease causing pathogens are of concern to human and wildlife health and are frequently the number one reported impairment for water resources in the United States.