CPD course: Wildlife Disease Management in Species Conservation Programmes
Course summary
In recent years, species and ecosystems have been threatened by many anthropogenic
factors manifested in outbreaks of infectious disease causing local and global
declines. This course equips veterinarians and conservation managers with the skills
they need to address and solve the challenging disease issues faced by conservation
programs today.
Alonso Aguirre, DVM, MS, PhD
Conservation medicine has evolved into a critical trans-disciplinary approach to the
management of disease within endangered species recovery programmes. As our
understanding of the dynamics of infectious diseases within small and often
fragmented populations grows so too has our ability to study and manage them to
mitigate their impacts, or put in place biosecurity systems to minimise the likelihood
of their spread.
This 16 hour on-line course exposes you to the realities of dealing with infectious
disease issues within a conservation programme, from managing an outbreak to
monitoring pathogens in a population. We will cover the impact of infectious diseases
on wildlife, examine how disease operates in small, endangered populations and
consider how to prioritise our disease screening efforts. Included is an introduction to
facilitation and conflict resolution tools which have become an essential component
of any disease manager’s toolkit as they seek to develop consensus over how best to
manage disease within a human-dominated landscape.
Learning outcomes
By the end of this course you should be able to:
i) Appreciate the relevance of Conservation Medicine, EcoHealth and One Health
approaches
ii) Understand the epidemiology of disease in small populations
iii) Critically assess the potential and limitations of disease modelling to inform
conservation interventions
iv) Develop methods of wildlife disease monitoring and surveillance
v) Conduct disease risk assessments
vi) Institute biosecurity protocols within wild and captive environments
vii) Draw on examples of disease management in conservation programmes (in-situ
and ex-situ) to inform your own practice
viii) Understand the role of a facilitator and be equipped with core tools to enable you
to deal with conflict and help groups to come to an agreed solution to a problem
Lectures
A suite of short lectures addressing each of the learning outcomes has been developed
to provide you with the necessary grounding in these areas.
Activities
During the module you will be asked to complete a range of activities including:
i)
Watching and taking notes from pre-recorded presentations
ii)
iii)
iv)
v)
vi)
Reading and summarising key points of specific articles
Reflecting on your own practice relevant to aspects of disease management
Working (on-line) in small groups to determine how you would deal with
different scenarios
Critiquing short videos wearing your ‘facilitators hat’
Taking on a role within a small-group activity to test your ability to deal
with the situation
Questions for discussion
Disease management, as with other aspects of species conservation programmes is a
value-laden field of work. It therefore raises many difficult questions for which there
are no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answers, only informed decisions that need to be backed up
with rationale and evidence. During the course we will address some of these
questions and will encourage you to raise your own ones to develop your personal as
well as professional perspective on species recovery projects and the role that disease
management should play within them.
We hope you enjoy the course and look forward to interacting with you over these
topics during the coming weeks.
Activity summary
Activity 1: The week before the module the following question should be posted on
the blog to prepare the group for a discussion thread started on the first day:
In preparation for this course I would be grateful if you would prepare a response to
the following questions.
Questions (To be emailed via Learn to all participants a week before the module)
1) a) To what extent do you subscribe to the view that the world is becoming
increasingly like a ‘mega-zoo’, with species living in such restricted areas that
they need to be managed as if they were in captivity.
b) Please provide some evidence for your response
2) a) Do you feel it is right to be willing to sacrifice the few for the sake of the
many? This is an issue that raises itself when considering reintroduction
programmes where threats, such as disease, may remain within an
environment into which individuals are being released
b) Please explain your response
3) a) Describe a meeting or workshop you have been involved in where you
finished the meeting feeling demotivated, excluded (or not valued) and unclear
about what your role was going to be after the meeting.
b) Explain what happened to make you feel this way?
Please post your responses to the questions above, on the blog. We will discuss the
responses you have all made at appropriate points within the course.
Session 1: Conservation medicine, Eco Health and One Health and their
relevance to species recovery programmes (Anna and Neil)
Aim: Appreciate the relevance of these evolving disciplines to our understanding of
how to manage disease within species recovery programmes
Objectives:
1) Understand the terms and the similarities and differences between them
2) Demonstrate the link between these concepts and species recovery
programmes
3) Know some examples of where these concepts have been applied to threatened
species conservation
4) Recognise the relevance of infectious disease in species conservation, the
trends in the spread of Emerging Infectious Disease and the likely increase in
the influence they will have over conservation projects
Activities:
1) PowerPoint lecture (Conservation Medicine and One Health approaches)Participants should be asked to watch
2) Discussion thread- Follow the thread of the responses to Question 1 put up
prior to the course (see Activity 1 above, which links to notes to go on website
week before module)
3) Reading- TBA
Session 2: Epidemiology of disease in small populations (Anna, Neil and Javier)
Aim: To understand how infectious disease operates within small populations as
opposed to large populations
We will provide definitions and terms of these concepts and discuss why this course is
important in the context of past, present, and future implications of disease effects on
threatened populations and ecosystems and vice versa
Objectives:
1) To outline the origins of epidemiology as a discipline, what it is and what it
covers
2) To understand key terminology in the field: incidence/prevalence,
epidemic/endemic, types of pathogens, modes of transmission etc.
3) To understand the characteristics of disease in small populations
4) Activities:
1) Powerpoint lecture (Disease epidemiology in small populations)Participants should be asked to watch this video
2) Individal work- Students asked to look at a set of pre-determined questions/
scenarios linked to disease epidemiology in small populations (from ‘real’
species recovery case studies) and to feed back their answers to the site for
discussion with the tutor
3) Reading- TBA
Session 3: Asking the critical questions: strengths and limitations of disease
modelling within conservation programmes (Neil)
Aim: To have a critical appreciation for the role of disease modelling in informing
species recovery programmes and understand the right questions to ask of your
modellers
Objectives:
1) Understand what an epidemiological model is and how it can be used (or
abused)
2) Understand the importance of the structure and behaviour of wildlife
populations in disease modelling
3) Recognise the important features to consider when developing models or
interpreting their results
4) Recognise some of the advances that are likely to come in near future and their
relevance to conservation programmes
5) Review some case studies on disease modelling in wild populations
Activities:
1) Powerpoint lecture (Disease modelling: current practice and state of the
art)- Participants should be asked to watch this video
2) Group work- You will be set questions around case studies of disease
modelling within wild populations to work on in groups and present your
responses to through the discussion thread / wiki
3) Reading- TBA
Session 4: Facilitation within species recovery programmes (Jamie)
Aim: To gain core understanding of the role of the facilitator and how to improve
your own facilitation skills within group or team settings
Objectives:
1) Know what a facilitator is and how it differs from leadership and participation
2) Recognise the need to consider the quality of thinking and the level of
acceptance when trying to facilitate a decision-making process in groups
3) Know the stages that groups go through in making decisions
4) Be aware of some of the tools available to encourage divergent and convergent
thinking within a group setting
Activities:
1) Powerpoint lecture (The role of the Facilitator)- Participants should be
asked to watch
2) Discussion thread- Follow what participants have put up regarding their
experiences of good/bad meetings they have attended (see Activity 1 above,
which links to notes to go on website week before module)
3) Critique of videoed discussion- Participants should be asked to view two 5
min videos of a discussion (needs short summary to provide context, on
website). One will have no facilitation and the other will. Participants will
then to discuss through the discussion thread what they think the differences
were, focusing on what ‘added value’ the facilitator brought
4) Reading- Participants should read Part 1: Grounding Principles in
Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision-making, ISBN 978-0-78798266-9, pp 3-37
Session 5: Wildlife disease monitoring and surveillance (Anna)
Aim: To be able to develop your own disease monitoring and surveillance programme
Objectives:
1) Understand the core components of effective disease monitoring and
surveillance programmes
2) Appreciate the justification for disease surveillance in wildlife and consider
the main methods that can be employed
3) Explore a range of case studies where different methods have been
employed and a critical review of their effectiveness
4) Understand how to develop surveillance systems to detect mortalities or
other more subtle physiological responses to specific pathogens.
5) Recognise the impact of sampling bias, validity and testing options to pick
up the change that we are monitoring for
Activities:
1) Powerpoint lecture (Wildlife disease monitoring and surveillance)Participants should be asked to watch this video
2) Group work- After the provision of some background material, you will be
given a case study to work on in small groups. After discussion in these
groups there will be an opportunity to present and discuss the approaches
adopted (feedback through discussion thread)
3) Reading- TBA
Session 6: Conducting risk assessments (Anna)
Aim: To be able to develop your own disease risk assessment as part of a species
recovery project
Objectives:
1) Understand the core components of the disease risk analysis (DRA)
process as they relate to species recovery project,
2) Appreciate the tools and methodologies used to undertake a DRA
3) Understand how DRA may be implemented and reviewed
4) Explore a range of case studies where DRA has been applied and critically
review their impact
5) Recognise the impacts that a DRA may have on a species recovery project
Activities:
1) Powerpoint lecture (Conducting risk assessments)
2) Group work- After the provision of some background material, you will be
given a case study to work on in small groups. After discussion in these
groups there will be an opportunity to present and discuss the approaches
adopted (feedback through discussion thread)
3) Reading- TBA
Session 7: Biosecurity within captive and wild settings (Javier)
Aim: To be able to develop a biosecurity programme that minimises potential impact
of infectious in a conservation project while being practical and commensurate to
risks.D
Objectives:
1) Understand the basic principles of biosecurity and the key components of a
biosecurity programme.
2) Appreciate the practical limitations of a preventative programme
3) Recognise the different levels of biosecurity required for different levels of
risk
4) Develop and critically review a biosecurity programme
Activities:
6) Powerpoint lecture (Biosecurity within conservation programmes)Participants should be asked to watch this video.
7) Group work- In two groups, participants will be asked to design
biosecurity programme and basic protocols for a captive breeding
population. After completion, the groups will be given an opportunity to
present critically review their work.
8) Reading- TBA
Session 8: Dealing with conflict (Jamie)
Aim: To be able to more effectively deal with conflict within your everyday work as
well as an important actor within a species conservation programme
Objectives:
1) Appreciate that conflict can be a productive process, generating new
information and encouraging understanding of diverse viewpoints
2) Recognise the value of asking ‘why?’ when trying to determine if conflict
exists or just that assumptions are being made
3) Know the five different modes of dealing with conflict and when to apply
them
Activities:
1) Powerpoint lecture (Dealing with conflict)- Participants should be asked to
watch this video
2) Triad activity- ‘Ugli Orange’. Participants need to sign up in groups of three
for a conflict activity. They need given role information beforehand which is
only viewable by the individual with that role. Ideally they then organise a
time via skype when they could work through the activity (time it for five
mins) and then feedback through the discussion thread the day after on what
the outcome was. If they can’t skype then they could message each other,
though this is not ideal.
3) Conflict resolution options- put up the conflict examples on the powerpoint
(last four on ppt) for the group to discuss and decide which conflict mode they
would use
4) Reading- Yellowstone National Park article (TO BE SENT- Anderson et al.)
Session 9: Disease management within wild populations (Neil)
Aim: To appreciate the range of techniques employed and our current level of
effectiveness in managing disease within wild populations
Objectives:
1) Appreciate the different approaches required to manage disease in wild
compared with domestic animal populations
2) Be able to evaluate when an intervention is justified
3) Understand the theoretical basis for controlling disease including
invasion/persistence thresholds
4) Understand the main practical approaches to controlling disease in wild
populations
5) Review some examples of the management of disease in wild populations
Activities:
1) Powerpoint lecture (Disease management in wild populations)Participants should be asked to watch this video.
2) Individual work- Review of a given case study or paper
3) Reading- TBA
Session 10: Group scenario: Developing your own response to disease (Javier
and Jamie)
Aim: Through the use of a current case study, to reflect on how to apply the learning
from the course to a response to a disease outbreak within a wild population
Objectives:
1) To encourage reflection on the theory and practice of disease management in
wild populations
2) To draw on different topics raised within the course to inform your decisions
3) To gain a more profound understanding of disease management and its
complexity within species recovery programmes
Activities:
4) Powerpoint lecture (Introduction to the Mountain Chicken)- Participants
should be asked to watch this video.
5) Group work- Provided with some background reading participants should
determine their own response to sudden disease outbreak within the focal
species in the wild and how they would put in place systems to mitigate future
risks
6) Reading- TBA