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Human and Wildlife Conflicts

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https://hdl.handle.net/10217/100289
This digital collection includes presentations given at the 8th International Wildlife Ranching Symposium held in 2014 for the symposium theme: Human and Wildlife Conflicts.

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Browsing Human and Wildlife Conflicts by Author "Gilbert, Amy, speaker"

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    The efforts of the USDA national rabies management program for controlling rabies on private and public land
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014-09) Shwiff, Stephanie, speaker; Chipman, Rich, speaker; Nelson, Kathy, speaker; VerCauteren, Kurt, speaker; Slate, Dennis, speaker; Gilbert, Amy, speaker; Breck, Stewart, moderator; International Wildlife Ranching Symposium, producer
    Management of rabies in wildlife populations is complex and provides unique challenges for wildlife managers: one of the largest is the majority of land in the US where rabies occurs in wildlife is private. Rabies virus infects nervous systems of mammals, is transmitted through the bite of infected animals, and is invariably fatal. Though human disease risk is largely mitigated in the US through preemptive vaccination of pets and human post-exposure prophylaxis, wildlife pose a continuous threat. Raccoons are the primary wildlife host of rabies, followed by skunks, bats, foxes, and coyotes. Timely administration of post-exposure prophylaxis has proven nearly 100% successful in preventing rabies deaths in humans. However, the financial cost of living with wildlife rabies in the US is conservatively estimated to exceed $300 million/year. Associated impacts such as anxiety, fear, and trauma are difficult to quantify, but often manifest with rabies. Since the late-1990s, Wildlife Services (WS) has coordinated wildlife rabies management with oral rabies vaccination (ORV) as the central tactic targeting terrestrial hosts focused primarily on private land. Significant progress has been achieved through long-term interdisciplinary and interagency cooperation from local to continental scales. The need for effective coordination has mandated the establishment of frameworks that bring together multiple jurisdictions and disciplines from municipal, county, state, federal and international agencies; universities; and the private sector to ensure collaborative, science-based approaches to rabies management on a landscape scale. We will update the status of rabies management in the US and how we effectively work on private land.