cc  >> Hi, everyone.  I'd like to welcome you to  Wednesday Nite at the Lab here  at the UW Madison Biotechnology  Center.  And today I'd like to welcome  you to our talk by Milt Friend  and Cris Marsh.  So the title of today's talk  is going to be "Wildlife Disease  and Why You Should Care  About How Wildlife Disease  Affects Global  Human Infectious Disease."  And just a little bit of  background on our speakers  today.  This will be a shared talk.  Milt is currently an emeritus  scientist at the National  Wildlife Health Center.  And he teaches courses  at UW-Madison.  He has a background in wildlife  conservation and while he was at  the Fish and Wildlife Service he  came up with the whole idea of  having a national center.  And he developed that program  here on the UW campus in 1975,  and served as its director until  1998.  And after that he also worked in  a special assignment with the  Secretary of Interior in terms  of restoring the Salton Sea in  California. 

 So Cris is going to be talking  second and she manages the  content for the NBII Wildlife  Disease Information Node, and  the NBII is the National  Biological Information  Infrastructure, and she has  degrees in both zoology and  library studies from UW and also  has a background as a veterinary  technician.  So I'd like to have everyone  join me in welcoming Milt and  Chris tonight.  (applause)  >> Thank you.  It's a pleasure to be here.  It's nice to see such a big  crowd on a blustery night.  Well, I'm going to delve into  some things that maybe you may  not be too familiar with and  hopefully you'll have a better  understanding of the importance  of wildlife disease for society  when we get done.  So Cris Marsh and I are here to  speak about wildlife disease,  the National Wildlife Health  Center and why you should care  about both.  The short answer is three-fold.  Human health, wildlife health  and impacts on the global  economy.  I'm going to first turn to  disease in humans to provide  context. 

 Infectious disease has been a  part of life on earth since at  least the presence of early  humans and likely prior to that  time.  Recent advances in human  medicine have resulted in major  success in combating infectious  disease especially in the highly  developed nations of the world.  That success created the  illusion that microbes and  parasites are no match for human  capabilities to suppress them  and resulted in proclamations  that humans had essentially won  the war against infectious  disease.  However, as this "Time Magazine"  cover illustrates, the microbes  rose up against us and once  again we quickly learned  microbes, not macrobes,  rule the world.  That reality has been punctuated  by infectious disease emergence  and resurgence being a hallmark  of the latter part of the 20th  century.  Current society is a wash in a  restless tide of infectious  disease that has not subsided.  Instead, a flood tide of  infectious disease continues to  challenge society.  And this map just shows you some  of those locations.  Emerging infectious diseases are  commonly referred to as EIDs and  they are generally defined as  "infections that have newly  appeared in a population  or have existed previously  but are rapidly increasing in  incidence or geographic range."  With that bit of background,  I return to the question of why  you should care about wildlife  disease and about the National  Wildlife Health Center.  Again I turn to emerging  infections that impact humans to  provide context. 

 The situation is such that I  suspect if Alfred Hitchcock were  alive today a disease thriller  remake of his movie "The Birds"  would be quite likely.  Okay, pay attention now  these facts are important.  A recent evaluation of 335 human  emerging disease events that  were examined from between 1940  and 2004 has disclosed highly  significant and increasing  impacts on human health and the  global economy.  Those 335 events which you see  here did not equate to 335 new  diseases as many of those events  involved extension of geographic  range and/or increased frequency  of occurrence for existing  diseases.  Nevertheless, such an evaluation  provides important perspective  about disease patterns that goes  beyond simple tabulations of the  number of new emerging diseases.  Of direct relevance here is that  about 60% of those events  involved diseases transmitted  between animals and humans or  what we call zoonoses.  Of those, almost 72% were due to  pathogens of wildlife origin.  Other studies have disclosed  two-thirds of emerging diseases  are of animal origin and that 13  of the 14 most recent emerging  infectious diseases of human  importance are of animal origin  including those that I just  showed you.  Examples include West Nile fever  which was just up there, SARS  and the H5N1 influenza virus.  Further, three-quarters of the  emerging infectious diseases,  including the ones I just  mentioned, have wildlife roots. 

 Another recent evaluation  concluded that disease agents  infecting wildlife are twice as  likely to become emerging  diseases as those without  wildlife hosts.  The data just cited are reasons  why you should care about  wildlife disease from a human  health perspective.  Clearly, wildlife are an  important source of new  infectious diseases and many of  those are transmissible to  humans.  Also, many diseases of wildlife  impact domestic animals  resulting in substantial  economic costs when market  species such as livestock and  poultry are infected.  In the human disease event study  just cited, 52% of those  involving pathogens of wildlife  origin occurred during the last  decade.  Those data support the growing  contention that emerging  zoonoses are an increasing  threat and one of the greatest  challenges facing society.  Just short sighted to feel that  pathogens originating in  wildlife are of little concern  because one does not have  personal interfaces with  wildlife.  No wildlife contacts are needed  once those pathogens cross the  so-called species barrier and  adapt to human hosts.  Consider, for example, that  HIV/AIDS recently transferred to  humans from old world primates.  That a recent study suggests  birds as a source for the common  cold virus. 

 Evolution taking place about 200  years ago.  And that there is a potential  pandemic in waiting involving  avian influenza.  That pandemic requires evolution  of the virus to one that is  officially transmitted from  human to human.  Turning now to wildlife emerging  diseases, I offer some personal  perspectives from approximately  a half century of hands-on  involvement with wildlife  disease investigations.  With few exceptions, infectious  disease was not an important  cause of wildlife mortality when  I began my career.  Thus, during my tenure, I have  personally witnessed a wide  array of emerging diseases in  wildlife, the first being this  exotic fungus that infected  coworkers when I was employed by  the New York State Fish and Game  Department.  At that time, small mammals were  the primary wildlife species be  infected by infectious disease  and most noteworthy of these  were tularemia and plague.  These are two bacterial zoonoses  causing large scale losses among  muskrat and beaver and among  prairie dogs, respectively.  Distemper, a viral disease  occurring in raccoons, and  mange, a parasitic disease in  foxes, also were prominent.  Neither of these diseases are  zoonoses. 

 Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease,  or EHD, a viral infection of  deer had just emerged at that  time and was the primary disease  of concern in North American big  game species.  No one had every heard of  Chronic Wasting Disease back  then.  Of course, rabies was present  but it was more of a public  health concern than as a cause  for wildlife mortality.  Leukocytis Zoonoses, a parasitic  disease of water fowl was  regionally important but is  seldom heard of today.  The situation today differs  greatly from that prior to the  1960s.  It has been a steady progression  of emerging diseases of wildlife  since then.  More than 150 of which are list  in appendix A of this 2006  publication, a copy of which is  out there on the table.  Numerous additions already can  be added to that listing.  As seen from the following  examples, emerging infectious  diseases affect a wide variety  of wildlife in essentially all  types of environments.  And so it's hard to see that  screen but you've got Chronic  Wasting Disease up there in  deer. 

 West Nile fever in crows and  other birds.  Rabies in raccoons.  Distemper type viruses in seals.  Chytrid fungus wiping out frog  populations throughout the  world.  Upper respiratory disease in  desert tortoise.  Spring viremia of carp.  The Taura Syndrome is a major  impact on shrimp populations.  Wasting disease in abalone.  Coral diseases of all kinds.  And southern oak death to show  you a plant disease. 

 These impacts are compounded by  a plethora of emerging and  resurging noninfectious diseases  including those that cause mass  mortality like this avian  botulism outbreak.  Let me show you quickly, make  the point in terms of these  diseases occur in virtually  every kind of environment you  could possibly think of.  So here we have some ocean  examples.  The diseases aren't important,  just look at the left hand  column.  The ecosystem being impacted.  The right hand column, the types  of species being impacted.  So you can see marine mammals,  fish, sea otters and turtles and  big time losers in the ocean  environment.  Polar ice with penguins.  Situations with sea grass beds.  Oysters, the menhaden  and coral reefs. 

 I'll show you a picture of some  of the coral diseases  in a minute.  In the desert, the desert  tortoise with a microplasma  infection.  Grasslands, the African lion has  been taking big hits lately.  Canine distemper and other  diseases.  The amphibian fungal problem.  Wetlands with avian cholera.  This avian vacular myelinopathy,  we don't even know  what causes that.  We've been looking at that for  years.  Inland waters things like  whirling disease, botulism in  the Great Lakes.  West Nile fever in the  terrestrial systems along with  house finch microplasma and an  adenoid virus that killed a lot  of deer in California and other  states out west. 

 Rain forests, things like Ebola  fever in primates another  amphibian type of problem.  And in the urban suburban  environments things like duck  plague and rabies and here's  just some of the impacts on  coral systems.  All kinds of diseases impacting  there.  That photo is out of the book  that's out there.  Here's some examples of some of  the marine mammal die-offs from  the mobilly virus complex.  Fungus infections in the  amphibians.  Okay, we also have in birds  continuing major outbreaks that  have killed on some occasions up  to a million birds.  And so the ones in yellow there  as recent as 1997 a million bird  die-off from botulism in Canada.  That outbreak just about it  514,000.  That's that same population of  birds, left Canada, flew down to  the Great Salt Lake in Utah and  another half million were lost. 

 Public concern for wildlife  losses is highly variable.  Many within society see humans  as stewards of our wildlife  resources and become personally  involved in wildlife health  matters.  The numerous wildlife  rehabilitation programs and  people involved with this  activity is one example of that  involvement.  Government also is becoming more  involved.  Perhaps because for the first  time a disease has become a  major factor for wildlife  species extinctions.  I could make a much larger table  here.  You go down to the bottom the  Ethiopian wolf is the most  endangered of all the  carnivores.  It is going to be gone pretty  quickly if the rabies  vaccination program is not  successful.  They're trying to live trap  these, immunize them and then  release them again.  The Tasmanian devil is predicted  to be gone in ten years from a  facial cancer that it has no  immunity to and we can cite many  other examples. 

 Loss and biodiversity from they  cause can have significance  beyond the loss of a single  species because of the role that  species may play in sustaining  ecological services that serve  humanity.  Social concerns among involving  wildlife disease include impacts  on human recreational pursuits  such as hunting and fishing and  ecotourism.  Here's a Tiger Muskie  establishment program that isn't  taking place because of a new  fish virus threat.  And area closures, this is a  picture I took when we were  living in Colorado and I was  going up to Rocky Mountain  National Park with my family to  go camping and here's plague  warning.  So we get back in the car and  turn around and go home.  Okay, these kinds of things cost  money to society as does the  adjustments we need to make with  these diseases.  With Chronic Wasting Disease,  some of you may be involved with  the bans on feeding.  They rehab them.  There's all kinds of social  impacts in terms of changing how  we do business.  With VHS, it's a hemorrhagic --  virus in the Great Lakes and  other lakes here in Wisconsin we  have new laws on minnows and  cleaning your boats and all this  other sort of stuff. 

 So these things do impact you  directly.  Okay, regardless of what your  views are on hunting and  fishing, it doesn't matter.  I put this up here simply to  show you that these are tough  economic times, there's a  million and a half jobs  associated with hunting and  fishing.  Hunting and fishing and outdoor  recreation accounts for 1.2%  of the gross national product.  This is not small business.  All right, moving on.  This is the problem.  Divided we stand, united we must  become.  Perhaps for reasons of  competitiveness, turf and other  inherent animal instincts, the  human approach to combating  infectious disease has, in  general, been greatly flawed  despite the wisdom, insights and  significant contributions of  many.  A basic failing has been the  separation of efforts into  human, domestic animal, and  wildlife disease approaches. 

 Each of these is driven by the  individual institutional visions  and mandated responsibilities  despite the fact that we all  have recognition of the need for  a more holistic approach.  Those institutional visions and  mandates too often result in an  us versus them approach.  As these different interests  pursue their separate missions.  However, the current era of  infectious disease emergence and  resurgence once again has  brought forth a call for a one  world, one health approach.  Perhaps this time a greater  progress will be made to  functionally embracing the  concept that actually dates back  it the 1800s.  Initial progress is being made  but the hurdles are many and  extend far beyond conceptual  considerations.  For example, most people are  aware of the multiple components  that constitute the highly  developed human and domestic  animal health infrastructures  that provide long standing well  defined pathways for society to  address public health and  domestic animal disease issues.  There are government agencies at  the state and federal levels  that exist solely to address  disease prevention and control  on behalf of human and domestic  animal health.  Activities of those agencies  involve the development and  enforcement of standards and  regulations to be adhered to  including disease notification  and reporting, disease  surveillance, research and  development, disease diagnosis  and treatment and other  functions.  Conversely, most people are  unaware that no similar system  exists for wildlife. 

 They're on their own.  Instead, wildlife disease is  dealt with in an ad hoc manner  to not at all.  Although natural resource  agencies at the state and  federal levels have stewardship  and regulatory responsibilities  for the conservation of wildlife  species and their populations,  they have no specific mandates  to address wildlife disease.  Also in comparisons with human  and domestic animal health  agencies, natural resource  agencies are small size relative  to personnel numbers and fiscal  resources.  Investments to combat wildlife  disease are in competition with  more traditional agency  activities such as habitat  acquisition, law enforcement and  others.  This is a rough chart I put  together from the Department of  Interior budget a few years ago.  As a result, some state natural  resources agencies have no  internal capabilities for  addressing wildlife disease and  those that do typically employ  only one to two professional  level staff for that purpose.  Now before you jump up and down  and say there's a lot of other  states that have wildlife  disease programs, I separate a  program from hiring a person to  provide lip service by  investment and facilities and  enough of a core to really do  things.  We have a large number of states  that because of Chronic Wasting  Disease have had to hire  somebody just to deal with that  issue.  But those are not programs of  long standing duration. 

 Imagine the consequences if that  were the same for public and  domestic animal disease  programs.  What if you only had one to two  people to take care of domestic  animal health here in the state  of Wisconsin.  Think about that.  National Wildlife Health Center  is the only federal wildlife  disease program other than fish  disease within the Department of  Interior.  And the Department of the  Interior is the natural  resources agencies for the  federal government.  And so you've got Bureau of  Indian affairs, Bureau of  Reclamation, US Geological  Survey, Fish and Wildlife  Service, National Park Service,  Management Service, Office of  Surface Mining, Bureau of Land  Management.  And there's only one wildlife  disease program there and that's  the National Wildlife Health  Center.  There also are a very small  number of non-National Wildlife  Health Center staff with  wildlife disease  responsibilities within several  of those agencies.  The lack of formal wildlife  disease infrastructure has  precluded mandatory and  systematic disease reporting and  information transfer for  wildlife disease events.  So when these things happen it  may or may not get reported to  somebody outside of the location  of where the problem has  occurred. 

 Those aspects of disease  prevention and control, the  reporting, are ad hoc activities  with limited interfaces with  human and domestic animal health  agencies.  So that brings us to the  National Wildlife Health Center.  Like most natural resource  agency investments in wildlife  disease, the National Wildlife  Health Center was born out of  crisis.  Specifically, the January 1973  duck plague outbreak at the Lake  Andes National Wildlife Refuge  in South Dakota.  There's about 10,000 mallards in  that pile.  More than 40,000 of the 100,000  mallards wintering in that  location died from that foreign  animal disease of domestic  ducks.  It was a disease we did not have  in this country and it came from  agriculture.  An external blue ribbon  committee appointed by the Fish  and Wildlife Service director to  evaluate that outbreak  recommended that the Fish and  Wildlife Service develop a  centralized wildlife disease  capability staffed by a team of  disease specialists to address  future disease events that  undoubtedly would occur.  I was provided the opportunity  to develop that program and the  Madison campus at the University  of Wisconsin was selected as the  program site, and at the start  of January 1975 the program  began in facilities provided by  the university in the stock  pavilion and across the street  in what was then the Department  of Veterinary Science.  Today, the National Wildlife  Health Center resides on a  24-acre site off the Beltline  and Schroeder Road on Madison's  far west side. 

 However, due to an external  reorganization within the  Department of Interior, the  National Wildlife Health Center  is no longer part of the Fish  and Wildlife Service where it  originated.  All Department of Interior  science programs are now within  the US Geological Survey which  is also part of Interior.  And the USGS provides  consolidated science support for  Department of the Interior Land  Management Agency such as the  National Parks Service, Fish and  Wildlife Service and others.  Although the National Wildlife  Health Center has evolved into  the most comprehensive program  every developed for the purpose  of disease prevention and  control in free-ranging  wildlife, it remains a small  program by comparison with  resources devoted to human and  domestic animal health despite  its broad mission.  High level biocontainment  facilities have been constructed  at the Schroeder Road site to  support core activities of  diseased diagnosis.  Here you see a crow being  examined for West Nile fever.  Field response for the  investigation and control of  wildlife disease outbreaks.  This is a marine bird outbreak  in Alaska with our folks going  out there and working off ships  to look into that.  Research, here's another one of  our functions and close training  of others.  The center also maintains a  field station in Hawaii to  address special needs there such  as turtles and endangered seals  and other things. 

 Wildlife specimens from across  the nation are sent to the  center for evaluation.  That's a sea otter in the back  and a bald eagle in the  foreground.  And you can see that these cases  come to us from across the  country.  The center also has major  international involvement.  As you can see from this map.  You can see we have activities  of various kinds within various  countries.  As a result, center scientists  have been at the forefront of  wildlife emerging disease  identification and in developing  an important database on disease  in free living wildlife  populations.  So these are just the outbreaks  looked at by the center in 2007.  A significant early event here  in Wisconsin, to put this in  perspective, was the appearance  of a unique herpes virus  infection that nearly decimated  the International Crane  Foundation holdings.  Center scientists named the  malady inclusion body disease of  cranes on the basis of the  pathology seen and host  specificity that was determined  through experimental studies. 

 They also developed the  diagnostic assay for monitoring  disease exposure in live birds.  Through close, highly  cooperative efforts with  Dr. George Archibald, the  International Crane Foundation  director at that time, this  exotic disease was contained and  we were able to assist the  International Crane Foundation  move forward with their  important program of captive  breeding and global  reintroduction of threatened and  endangered crane species.  And more recent Wisconsin event  involved a 1996 occurrence of an  exotic parasite in birds at  Shawano Lake.  Thousands of American coot and  water fowl have died from this  snail transmitted parasite.  Center scientists identified the  parasite and determined it's  life cycle and this folder is  out there on the table.  Those are critical first steps  for the development of disease  control strategies.  This disease has now been seen  in the wolf River, Mississippi  River, in Minnesota, Montana and  is doing a big number on --  ducks.  A current noteworthy emerging  disease example is the  identification of a unique  fungus as the cause of a white  nosed malady that is killing  bats in eastern United States.  Large numbers of bats are being  killed by this never seen  before, those are bats hanging  down, you can see the white  noses where the disease gets its  name.  National Wildlife Health Center  scientists working  collaboratively with several  other investigators have  isolated and identified this  pathogen through their intensive  and somewhat high-tech research  efforts. 

 Experimental studies are now  underway to better understand  the ecology of this disease in  hopes of gaining insight that  can be used as interventions on  behalf of that populations.  Just started a bat colony within  the National Wildlife Health  Center so this could be studied.  Many other cooperative endeavors  can be cited in combating  emerging diseases including  zoonoses of West Nile fever and  H1N1 influenza virus.  So we're heavily involved in  nationwide monitoring programs  and other activities.  A plague is another current  focus.  Center researchers are working  to develop a vaccine for  predicting a endangered  black-footed ferret and its  prairie dog food base from this  zoonoses.  And the vaccine works very well.  But long way to go to get it out  on the street.  A premium is placed on sharing  information gained from National  Wildlife Health Center  activities.  This information is commonly  used in lectures here at the  university and elsewhere. 

 And as a foundation for the  development of scientific  articles and reports including  highly popular publications to  inform nonspecialists about  wildlife disease.  Also many wildlife disease  workshops have been given at  locations near and far by center  scientists, some of which also  contribute to special  instructional programs such as  Envirovet and a course in  wild animal health at the  zoological society of London.  Center scientists are also  involved in assisting others  pursue the development of  wildlife disease programs.  We have been instrumental in the  development of the wildlife  health program in the Wildlife  Institute of India and in  assisting other countries  enhance their internal wildlife  disease programs.  Within the past year training  and consultations for that  purpose were provided to  visiting scientists from South  Korea, Costa Rica, Japan,  Hungary and Turkey.  All right, so wrap this up and  turn it over to Cris, let me  provide some summary comments.  Clearly, emerging infectious  diseases are an important  challenge for society and  wildlife alike.  Wildlife faced double jeopardy  from these diseases first  because of the direct disease  impacts they incur and secondly  because of zoonotic disease  resulting in negative viewpoints  towards wildlife by some  segments of society.  Those viewpoints foster the  destruction of wildlife such as  going out and killing deer  because of lyme disease and  their habitat for the perceived  good of society.  Both jeopardy situations require  national resource agencies to  more fully engage in proactive  wildlife disease prevention  efforts and invest more heavily  than ever before in combating  wildlife disease events. 

 Those actions are needed because  the past resiliency of wildlife  to overcome major losses from  disease has been greatly  diminished and continues to be  eroded by habitat losses.  Changes also are needed among  those responsible for human and  domestic animal health.  And us versus them attitude  towards wildlife disease because  of emerging diseases is short  sighted for the three basic  reasons.  First, that type of punitive  approach is focused on symptoms  rather than cause because as  seen by the statement on the  screen, disease is an outcome  driven by factors beyond that of  reservoir hosts.  Louie Pasteur recognized this  more than a century ago in his  statement, "The microbe is  nothing, the terrain is  everything."  Very salient statement.  Second, as noted by Morens,  et al., microbes take advantage  of those changes in terrain and  the associated host interactions  that occur to become emerging  diseases.  And third, humans are the  dominant driving force in  landscape change.  We are the ones that create the  conditions that allow emerging  diseases to flourish.  Thus, paraphrasing Pogo, we have  met the enemy and he is us, not  wildlife.  A focus should be on gaining  greater understanding of how   human behavior and actions  influence relations between  pathogens and potential human  domestic animal and wildlife  hosts. 

 This is a high priority need  because the increasing  globalization and urbanization  of society has factors  facilitating rapid movement and  spread of disease agents.  Human population increases  assure greater wildlife habitat  loss and the forcing of  wildlife, that's Palm Springs by  the way, into urban areas.  Thereby facilitating greater  interspecies contacts.  Second, depending on the species  involved, wildlife have social,  economic and functional values  in maintaining balance within  biological systems that provide  ecological services that benefit  humans.  You know, the collapse of bees  is a big issue.  All of these values argue  against wanton destruction of  wildlife as a routine action for  protecting human and or domestic  animal health.  Third, the concept of one world,  one health recognizes holistic  integrated approaches are needed  to address most emerging  diseases, rather than intense  efforts focused on any single  group of host species.  Last, but not least, wildlife  provide a cornucopia of canaries  in the coal mine that can serve  society as a sensitive early  warning system for pathogen  activity consistent with  emerging diseases.  For example, West Nile Virus  activity has been found in  birds, the may line you see  there, well before the time it  is detected in mosquitoes  that vector this disease.  So if you go out and look at  mosquito populations you're  going to be a day late and a  dollar short in terms getting  ahead of the game. 

 These findings allow preemptive  actions to be mobilized to  protect human health.  Similarly monitoring primates  for Ebola virus activity can  serve as an early warning system  for outbreaks of this highly  fatal disease for humans.  Thus, wildlife disease  surveillance can be a important  adjunct for public health risk  monitoring that even extends to  national security against the  various uses of biological  agents.  Despite lack of a formal  wildlife disease infrastructure,  a great deal of information  about wildlife disease is being  generated by various sources  and Cris will complete our  presentation by commenting on  that.  (applause)  >> Can everyone hear me okay?  I'm kind of soft-spoken.  Yeah? A little louder?  Okay, I'll try to project.  So as I was introduced,  I am the content lead for the  Wildlife Disease Information  Node or WDIN as we call it and  basically my job is--  hold on a second.  I'm giving you guys a quick  preview of everything.  We'll start at the beginning.  There we go. 

 Basically, my job is to look for  and organize and deliver  wildlife disease related  information.  And now that Milt has done a  great job convincing us why we  should care about wildlife  disease, I'm going to talk to  you about where you can find  more wildlife disease  information.  First, a little bit of  background.  The Wildlife Disease Information  Node is part of the National  Biological Information  Infrastructure or NBII, and NBII  works to link biological  information together in one  place about our nation's plants  and animals and provides tools  to its users for connecting and  exchanging information.  And WDIN is just one of those  nodes in that network.  Other examples of nodes are the  Bird Conservation Node or  Invasive Species Node are they  are similar to the Wildlife  Disease Information Node in that  they are ecological theme that  goes with them.  And then there's also  geographical themed nodes like  California Node or Mountain  Prairie Node.  And the information that's  available at NBII comes in a  variety of formats such as  databases, interactive maps,  photos and documents.  And the organization is made up  of partnering organizations,  federal, state agencies along  with non-profit organizations  and universities and other  similar.  But before I go into talking  about WDIN, I did want to point  out that the National Wildlife  Health Center web site has a  wealth of information, not only  about current wildlife disease  research that they're doing but  also about general information  about the topic. 

 Two items that I wanted to point  out that I think are  particularly of interest is they  make available and searchable  articles that are published by  their researchers and then the  other item is their new and  ongoing wildlife mortality  events report.  This table here that's located  on their web site, it's updated  about every two weeks with  findings from their  investigations of wildlife  disease events across the nation  and from here you can link to  their quarterly reports.  There's a little link right  here.  Which contains a similar table  and narratives about the some of  their more interesting cases.  So here we are at the WDIN home  page.  This site contains general  information on the topic of  wildlife disease and disease  ecology and it also holds  information about specific  diseases.  So you can see here we have  about nine diseases that we  cover including the big ones  that are on people's radar right  now.  Avian influenza, Chronic Wasting  Disease, west Nile Virus.  >> I can't hear you.  >> Oh, I'm sorry. 

 Okay, I'll try.  Wildlife disease is only one  link in a larger chain of  emerging disease as Milt pointed  out.  So we do take an inner  disciplinary approach to the  materials that we select for the  site.  While our focus is on scientific  and technical content we do also  have information that crosses  over into other disciplines.  We have information that might  be of interest to medical  professionals and domestic  animal veterinarians.  We also just provide general  information that a concerned  citizen would be interested in  or a policymaker.  So basically we try to serve a  diverse audience.  This is an example of the  information that you would find  on a specific disease.  Here we have avian influenza.  Each section is organized by  categories such as you see here  is research and news, maps and  data, images and bibliographies. 

 On our guided search allows  users to build a query using  either our filters, which are  located up in here, or you can  do a combination of filters and  then your own terms to look for  content on the site.  Here I built a query specifying  Chronic Wasting Disease and then  I limited the search to maps.  So these searches can be pretty  powerful and allow you to  control your search.  WDIN is striving to be more than  a web site so we put a  significant amount of effort  into developing tools and  services to help those who are  interested in staying current on  the wildlife disease issues of  today.  In upcoming slides I'll show you  some of WDIN's information  products and one of the  objectives behind these products  is to bring the information to  our uses through email, blogs  and RSS feeds instead so you  don't have to continually return  to our site to see what has been  newly added.  So WDIN has a blog.  Almost daily our staff combs  open media sources for relevant  wildlife disease news and  journal articles and then we  pull all this information  together into a concise summery.  And on the right hand column  here you'll also find links to  other useful web sites and a  listing of new content that's  recently been added to WDIN.  We provide a number of ways to  deliver this information to our  readers.  Hopefully folks will find  something that they're  comfortable using. 

 Our E alerts is one of our more  popular services and you can  subscribe and have a email  notification delivered each time  the digest is updated.  All you have to do is enter your  email address right down in  here.  And before moving on I wanted to  point out that we do have a link  to our global wildlife disease  news map here.  And articles that discuss a  disease outbreak or spread and  have a geographical location are  placed on our map.  And you can spot which articles  have been placed on the map by  the little map-it globe on our  digest.  And if you click that little  icon you would get taken to the  disease map and there is where  you could read the article that  you were interested in.  Users can also browse the map  directly by using the different  filters that we provide.  Which include by disease,  species, country or date.  And once you decide what you  want to see you click on that  and then all the stories related  to that will show up for you.  Here I picked algae blooms. 

 And so if you click on the  little push pin it opens it up  and you get a quick summary of  the article or if you actually  click on the title you'll go  right to the whole news article.  And for any map makers that  might be out in the audience, we  do make the KML files available  so this mapping layer can be  used in Google earth  applications and that's what  this little blue icon is to let  people know.  And this layer is also available  as a geo RSS feed.  For those of you who are  interested in following the  federal surveillance efforts to  monitor highly pathogenic avian  influenza, you can visit the  Highly Pathogenic Avian  Influenza Early Detection Data  System or HEDDs for short.  It's kind of a mouthful.  From the home page you can get a  quick overview of where samples  are taking place and also what  kind of samplings are being  done.  Are samplings being collected on  live birds?  How many are being collected on  hunt or killed.  Or maybe how many are being  collected on birds being dead.  If you don't want to continue to  come to this site regularly you  can also subscribe using our  email updates or if you have an  RSS reader you can subscribe to  the RSS news feed.  And that's just clicking on here  a little icon. 

 In addition to our HEDDS feed,  WDIN provides a number of other  RSS feeds to our content.  For those of you who are  unfamiliar with RSS feeds, RSS  stands for real simple  syndication.  These feeds create a stream of  information that can be brought  into a person's own feed reader.  And a reader is just a little  application that creates a place  where people can aggregate all  kinds of different feeds.  This is an example of a free  web-based feed aggregator or  reader.  On the left are all the feeds  that I subscribe to which are  over 160.  And when I click on one of them  like the Science Daily here, all  of the new content that has been  added to web site shows up here  on the right.  And so you can see real quickly  how you can just scan the titles  to pick out what's interesting  it you.  And of course, the advantage of  the whole reader is it allows  you to quickly browse through a  whole bunch of different sites  and learn what has been newly  added to them without having to  go to each individual site.  Okay, and WDIN is a very large  resource. 

 And we're always working on  creating new project or  designing upgrades and the WDIN  highlights publication is a real  handy vehicle for us to let  people know what we've been up  to and make sure folks don't  overlook tools and services.  In addition to the main news  article, we include a list of  upcoming conference dates and  new web resources that we've  added.  And that's WDIN in a nutshell.  So if you have questions for  Milt and I, throw them out  there.  (applause)  >> Yes, sir.  >> That plague warning sign  you showed at Rocky Mountain  National Park, isn't it true  that close to the Rocky Mountain  states are a permanent reservoir  of plague and related diseases?  (indistinct talking)  >> Your question was whether  that was a plague and zoonotic  area?  >> Right.  >> Yes, this is a plague  zoonotic area which in layperson  terms means that a plague  is present there, but it isn't  always an outbreak.  And so plague is on a rebirth in  much of the country.  And, in fact, this past year we  had a national park service  biologist die from plague.  He carried a mountain lion that  he found dead out of the field  back to his residence to examine  it and he was found dead a  couple of days later in his  residence when he didn't appear  for work. 

 At that same time, there was a  plague outbreak in downtown  Flagstaff, Arizona, and one also  in Denver, Colorado, in a local  park.  We're seeing a lot of rebirth of  plague and this goes back to  some of the points that I was  trying to make as the human  population grows, we continue to  encroach upon areas where there  are things that take advantage  of our presence, and for those  of you who are cat lovers one of  the biggest hazards we have now   for plague and some other  emerging infectious diseases are  house cats that are allowed to  run freely and go out and catch  rodents and other things and  then bring those diseases  mechanically, in most cases,  they just contaminate the mouth  parts and then lick your face or  whatever as we like to get close  to our companion animals.  So the whole issue of companion  animals and humans and emerging  infectious disease is one that  is of growing concern as we  encroach further and further  into what previously were wild  places.  >> It gives new meaning to the  expression something that a cat  dragged in.  >> Yes.  >> What plague are you talking  about?  >> The question was what plague  are we talking about.  We're talking about  different varieties.  I guess things change over time.  There's two forms of plague.  One is pneumonic,  one is bubonic. 

 The pneumonic is aerosol  transmitted, the bubonic is  transmitted by flees.  But it's the same organism.  Just different manifestations of  the disease.  And this is going to take out  the black-footed ferret and its  population that's why the center  is working on vaccines to try to  protect those populations.  Question in the back?  >> Yes, what is the annual  funding of the National Wildlife  Disease Center and do you  consider it to be adequate?  >> No, it is not adequate.  I've been retired for several  years and I'm no longer director  so I don't know.  Josh, do you know what the  approximate budget is?  Dr. -- is one of our  investigators there and has been  a colleague with me working in  India to get that program up and  running.  >> I think it is, and this is  general, but I think it's  $9 million.  >> Okay, $9 million that's a big  leap from where it was when I  left.  And a lot of that is due to the  fact that the center is now  involved in a lot of companion  programs with public health and  so West Nile funding, avian  influenza funding and things of  that nature that were not done  when we were part of the Fish  and Wildlife Service. 

 It's a different orientation.  But think of $9 million to serve  the nation.  It's loose change in most other  programs.  No, it's very inadequate and if  it wasn't for a lot of  volunteers and students and  other people it would be very,  very difficult to accomplish  even close to what the center is  able to accomplish.  Thank you for your question.  Yes?  >> What about transmission from  humans to animals,  for instance, tuberculosis?  >> Very good question.  The question is what about  transmission from humans  to animals.  This is a major conservation  issue.  And too often, almost any  publication you pick up where  you see zoonoses defined, it's a  one-way street.  Animals to humans. 

 That's not the definition that I  put up there.  It's diseases, infections  transmitted between animals and  humans.  So for the great apes, I'll come  back to your question on  tuberculosis in a minute, for  the great apes and ecotourism,  we now are confronted with a  whole slough of diseases like  human measles, common cold and  some other situations that are  threatening the remaining great  apes.  In Africa, tuberculosis has been  considered to be human  transmitted.  I have a case, a paper I read  about someone who actually  transmitted human tuberculosis  to their pet parrot because they  had tuberculosis, they were, in  fact, chewing the food in their  own mouth and then feeding the  parrot from their mouth and  transmitted the disease in that  way.  In India, human tuberculosis is  a major issue in terms of  primates on the street.  And those primates, of course,  if they're picked up and taken  out to national parks and other  places and they're TB laden and  then they get fed on by things  like tigers and other big cats,  they are transmitting  tuberculosis to species that  never had a problem with human  tuberculosis.  So this is a two-way street.  And that's why we need to change  the way we look at these things.  Infectious diseases move from  host to host. 

 They have the potential to do  so.  There's a great paper by a  former professor from here who  unfortunately died this past  year, a Nobel Laureate Joshua  Lederberg, and that paper deals  with the evolution of infectious  disease, and the statement that  always sticks with me out of  that paper is that survival of  humanity is not preordained.  And this paper is about the  competition between microbes and  macrobes, us humans.  And the capacity that the  microbes have to overcome  virtually everything we throw at  them.  So this is going to be a growing  issue.  And it's also a growing issue in  terms of the infectious disease  and coming the other way because  of advances in medicine.  And so those advances in  medicine allow us to live  longer.  But to be less immunologically  competent as we get older.  As we combat cancers and other  diseases with immuno suppressant  drugs and we surround ourselves  in nursing homes and other  places with companion animals  which have a very plus side in  terms of reducing heart rate and  blood pressure and things like  that, but now if you don't  screen those animals for  disease, then you have the  potential of bringing things  into our environments.  So we're looking at  microbacterium problems from  fish, as well as birds. 

 And so we have to reexamine the  whole issue of emerging  infectious disease and we need  to do it in a context of one  world, one health.  If we don't, the problems we're  looking at now are going to  expand many-fold.  Thank you for your question.  Yes?  >> In terms of one world, one  health, what about transmission  between animals or humans and  plants?  >> What about transmission  between humans and plants?  >> Or animals and plants?  >> Or animals and plants.  The fungal diseases, of course,  would be an area where that  happens.  So one of the new diseases that  was discovered at the center was  a telephone call one day about  all of these sandhill cranes  that were dying down in the New  Mexico area.  It turns out this was, you ever  hear the term aflatozin?  Well, this was a disease like  that.  It was a microtoxin of -- that  had never been seen as a cause  of die-offs in wildlife.  And this was involved with  peanuts and peanuts are a  controlled crop.  And permission had been granted  to expand the peanut planting in  that area and it just so  happened that this area was in  a climatic zone that was  absolutely perfect for free star  cycles that allowed the fungus  to grow in the peanuts that were  left in the fields after the  harvest took place. 

 And the cranes coming down on  their migration and stopping in  this area and feeding on these  peanuts all of the sudden we had  a mass die-off.  So there's an example and it's  the fungal diseases that I think  of mostly when I think of any  transmission from plant  situation to animals.  And we have the same problem  from plants to humans with --  and some of those other  situations.  Let me get the lady behind you  first.  >> Is it safe to assume that  what you said about house cats  also applies to dogs?  >> It applies to all pets that  run and catch small rodents.  Small rodent population is  responsible for a lot of  emerging diseases.  A lot of that changing with the  changing landscapes and the  hantaviruses.  The hantavirus was a disease out  there in the countryside.  There was a recent case of a  high school teacher dying of  hantavirus in Berlin when he  cleaned out his shed at the high  school and got exposed to the  rodent droppings and the school  was closed down and had to be  disinfected and all that.  I just saw another situation of  an urban hantavirus situation. 

 So any kind of companion animal  that might be allowed to roam  free that is a carnivore, in  that it catches and prays upon  other things or eats dead things  out there and then comes back  into the home, is an issue.  Now, of course, you can take  preventive measures through  appropriate vaccinations to keep  your animal from being infected  by some of those diseases like  rabies.  We're really good about  vaccinated dogs against rabies.  We have programs that kind of  ensure that's going to happen.  We're not that good about doing  it with cats.  So there are a lot of things we,  as individuals, need to do and  one of the reasons why I enjoy  talking with groups like this is  to perhaps broaden your thinking  in terms of your own activities.  There's a flyer out there on the  table that you can sign up to  get, we've distributed tens of  thousands of them, on cleaning  up your bird feeder.  We have lots of diseases at bird  feeders.  You know would you eat off the  same plate day after day after  day without cleaning it up?  Don't expect a bird to and not  potentially have some problems.  So we see salmonella, we see  some other diseases that are  issues. 

 >> My last question, what's  happening to the honeybee?  >> What's happening to the  honeybee?  I'm not sure I have the full  story but there've been several  agents postulated for the colony  disorder collapse.  A virus has been pretty strongly  implemented.  And I haven't really stayed up  with it.  Josh do you have any advanced?  No.  But my last reading on the  situation was a virus problem.  It's an international issue.  And there's concerns in terms of  bringing bees into pollinate  from other countries that may  bring that or some other disease  with it.  So it's the tip of the iceberg  that we're looking at.  As I said, I could count on my  hands and have fingers leftover  all of the diseases that were of  concern in the wildlife field,  in terms of major mortalities,  when I entered the field 50  years ago plus.  It's not the case today. 

 Today it's like everyday you  pick up the paper here's  something new.  But the honeybee and the bats,  two big pollinators, bats in  west and desert areas and stuff.  But bats as insect control  mechanisms it's going to cost us  big time economically, and I've  seen some figures in terms of  the cost impacts from the  honeybees.  It's astronomical.  Yes?  >> What do you think are the  major reasons for that huge jump  in say 50 years.  >> What do I see as the major  reasons for?  >> For that huge jump in the  number of diseases and the  threat they pose in the last 50  years or so.  >> Well, three factors I guess I  tried to put together at the  end.  I'm a firm believer of Louie  Pasteur, the microbe is nothing,  the terrain is everything.  We, as humans, are the most  disruptive creature that has  ever walked the face of the  earth.  We approach things as if  everything else is expendable  and that our technology can, in  fact, take care of any problems  that appear. 

 So when you change the  landscape, you alter the  relationships between species.  And that means the potential for  new hosts encountering new  agents and causing a disease.  The other aspect of that, from a  wildlife standpoint, why we see  so many wildlife diseases, if  you think back to the history of  humankind, when he were swinging  around in the trees, okay, any  diseases that we had were  limited to that little  environment.  We came down out of the trees.  Now we encountered new agents  that we had no immunity to  because we, there was nothing  there.  Okay?  And so we confronted those.  But those were all self-limiting  situations.  Then we started to grow as a  population and the populations  got denser and denser and what  happened in the 1300s and what  happened in the 1400-1500s?  With plague coming in a taking  out major segments of society  because we did not have the  sanitation to provide a clean  environment and we had the  density that allowed the  efficient transmission of  infectious diseases.  The same thing is happening with  wildlife.  California has lost 95% plus of  the wetlands that existed at the  time of settlement. 

 Where do those 12 million water  fowl go?  From the Pacific flyway?  So instead of having transient  use of areas for limited periods  of time, now you have large  aggregations of wildlife that  facilitate crowd-type diseases  back to the human analogy.  When we moved into the cities  and then what happened after we  moved into the cities, we didn't  have enough resources there, we  started moving around the world  and we took the diseases with  us.  So when the Europeans came to  this country, what did they  bring with them?  Small pox.  Montezuma would still be in  power.  The Spaniards never would have  defeated Montezuma, small pox  did.  Brought by the Spaniards.  Measles taken by people into  Oceania and wiping out entire  native populations.  So we're looking at the same  kind of conditions, history  continues to repeat itself.  And the human population now  doubles in five years or seven  years, something like that.  And where are we going to put  all these people?  And what's going to happen to  the landscape?  It's going to continue to be  distorted and so now more and  more species are going to move  into the urban suburban  environment. 

 They're going to bring with them  some potential risks.  I give you an example.  I testified a number of years  ago in a big goose debate in  New York City area in terms of  getting rid of urban geese.  And at that time I testified  because the people who wanted to  get rid of the birds were using  disease as a reason to get rid  of them.  And I testified at that time  that there was absolutely no  evidence for any zoonoses of  concern in those birds and that  was not an appropriate approach  in terms of dealing with their  problem.  Today, there are at least three  or four diseases, zoonotic  diseases, that geese are  involved with.  Now, so far we don't have any  major human health issues but  they're growing.  And why do we have plague in the  cities?  Because the city is out where  used to be wilderness.  And that's what's happening.  A long answer to your question  but does that kind of clarify  it?  >> I was wondering in particular  if you thought global climate  disturbances?  >> Global climate has a major  issue because it changes the  distribution of species. 

 It changes vegetation which  changes insect vectors, okay?  It changes the distribution of  animals that are mobile enough  to get to that vegetation that  may be a food base.  It changes communities.  So there's a lot written and a  lot being debated in terms of  what's next in terms of global  climate change.  But certainly human health  concerns are great.  We have had a long time issue in  terms of looking at avian  malaria in Hawaii in native  forest birds.  The native forest birds only  exist at elevations above  mosquito line.  With global climate change that  mosquito line will move up and  as that mosquito line moves up  then the native birds that are  left in that zone where those  mosquitoes are will now be  exposed to avian malaria and the  other mosquito transmitted  disease there is avian pox.  So again those two diseases are  doing a major number on Hawaiian  forest birds.  Yes, sir?  >> What about the frog  population, is that disappearing  in Wisconsin and around?  >> How about the frog population  is that disappearing?  I'd say there's no other group  of species but amphibians that  are being decimated from disease  to the level that -- fungus and  some of the other stuff.  We have, I'd say one of the  world's experts on this  Dr. David Green who works at the  center. 

 I'm not up on the specifics of  Wisconsin, Josh do you have any  insights?  >> It's the same as the rest of  the planet.  There's lots of decline.  >> There are species going  extinct.  I was in Costa Rica about a year  ago, a little less than a year  ago, in an area that I had been  in two years before.  The difference in just hearing  the number of frogs singing was  dramatic.  We happened to get rained in to  an area and so we were kind of  stuck there and all I could do  is wander the roads.  We couldn't get over the  mountains because of landslides  and stuff to do what we were  supposed to do.  But I was just appalled at the  absence of, Panama has lost big  chunks of their population.  So major, major, major  situation.  Yes, sir?  >> You touched on this partially  but I'm wondering can you  explain a little bit more  because I never understood it  why so many of the FWS functions  were put into the geological  survey?  >> Oh, do I want to go there?  Okay, the question was why were  so much of the, so many of the  functions of other department of  the interior agencies moved into  the US Geological survey. 

 I have a lot of experience with  this as I was put on the  transition team to make this  happen.  The bottom line is that politics  are politics and the Secretary  Babbitt, at that time, took an  action which was totally within  his prerogative to do.  And it was a response to the  fact that we had a spotted owl  controversy going on in this  country in which we had  different government agencies  using the same data to get up  and testify and interpret the  differences, the data in  different ways.  So there wasn't a whole lot of  creditability, if you will,  outside of the scientific  community, in terms of some of  these data.  Among the warring factions.  So he was approached with a  suggestion that the science  agencies would be stronger if  they were put in an independent  agency.  An independent agency was the  National Biological Survey.  It wasn't the USGS.  And so the National Biological  Survey was created and the  political winds changed and a  new administration came in and  that new administration didn't  like what was done and so they  put on their agenda the  abolishment of the National  Biological Survey which now had  all of the science capability in  natural resources.  Now the NBS was a joint  situation between universities  and government and others. 

 So what to do?  You can't wipe out this.  This new administration is not  going to not do what they came  in to do.  Get rid of this, I'll refrain  from commenting, to get rid of  this situation.  And so everybody was looking for  a solution.  Well, all of those agencies in  interior that I put up there,  National Park Service, all  those, they all are land  management agencies.  They own land and they manage  that land from the perspective  of their charge.  The US Geological Survey is part  of Interior but it doesn't have  any regulatory responsibilities.  It's simply a science agency.  So it kind of made sense to take  those situations and move them  into that agency.  And so that's what was done. 

 The science agencies were  brought in as the Biological  Resources Division.  Which doesn't exist anymore and  has now been incorporated.  But I have to say to go back to  what I commented on before about  one world, one health, well, I  believe in one science.  And everything I've been saying  about wildlife disease says  there's a social component,  there's an economic component.  So USGS has terrific  mapping capabilities.  It has all kinds of geological,  you know, the physical science  is where the biological stuff  comes from.  And so potentially you have a  much stronger science capability  to deal with issues across  lines.  I went to graduate school here  in the '60s.  You could walk into any  department on this campus and it  was open arms.  When I came back here to start  the program, the National  Wildlife Health Center, things  had changed a bit because the  world got more competitive. 

 And we started to get more and  more isolated into our silos.  And what I'm suggesting is we  need to break out of the silos.  So if we can make this marriage  work, I think in the long-term,  we'll be stronger for it in  terms of scientific enterprise.  But it's tough to make really  big organizations work.  Especially when they're all  in line, and they have ingrained  philosophies of how to approach  the world.  Other questions?  Well, thank you for your  interest, I greatly appreciate  it.  (applause)