Wild Animal Diseases - (May/02/2010 )

Hello,

A curious comparison came to my attention recently and I'm in dire need of any scientific research proven evidence to help me confirm a particular issue.
You see, knowing how many diseases us humans have, and how cutoff from nature we've become with civilization, I pretty much started wondering if the same amount of diseases could be applied to non-domesticated wild living animals. By non-domesticated, I also mean zoo animals, and wild animals living close to human areas with risk of exposure to man-made products.

Here's what I got:

Wild Animal diseases:
http://www.alternativevet.org/wild_animal_diseases.htm
(not very reliable as some links are missing, but checking shows most of these diseases are related to either domesticated or semi-wild animals in close contact to human areas.)
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/06/ca...ild-animals.php
(possible result of man-made product exposure?)

Human diseases:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human...asitic_diseases
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoimmune_disease
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/alphalist/a-d

So my big question is:
What else do we know of Wild Animal Diseases that could outweigh or equalize to what we know about Human Diseases?

You see I haven't yet been able to assemble a cohesive list of wild animal diseases as easily as I have with human diseases, and that simple fact makes me wonder furthermore.

Hi Jeff83,

Interesting topic and welcome to Bioforum. Are you trying to compile a comprehensive list of wildlife diseases and match it up with the human counterparts? Do you think that they’re comparable in scale? Obviously, diseases in the wild (esp in the past), though not exactly largely ignored were just merely allowed to “resolve” by themselves- the great circle of life and all that, which is anyhow essential for the integrity of the natural ecosystem . Basically, wildlife diseases only become a serious concern for their impact on human health i.e. zoonotic potential, food safety (consumption of game) etc or economically, if they adversely affect livestock industry. There were few systems in place (gov’t or non-govt) for surveillance and control, no environmental org to highlight this issue in their platforms. I think it’s only been recently- all this increased interest and awareness which is more tied up to environmental initiatives and nature conservation.

Here in Canada, we have the CCWHC, The Canadian Cooperative Wildlife Health Centre, established in 1992 and coordinates Canada's national wildlife health surveillance program. They shld have a list of wildlife diseases somewhere in their database (which I couldn’t find ). But you might wanna check THIS from the UNBC.
And perhaps a bit more extensive disease index is from the NBII Wildlife Disease Information Node. They also have a good interactive wildlife disease news map.

Though I'm not an expert in animal diseases I guess wild animals have more or less the same diseases as we have or can have at least, but there are differences:


<*>Most animals won't get very old, therefore all diseases related to ageing and wear-out, are not relevant and almost never occur (except pets and animals in zoos); I think most of the cancers and metabolic diseases belong to this (exception: turtles get very old and may therefore be more threatened by cancer)
<*>the same holds true for diseases of civilisation, as those animals move and not feed too much (and all that; exception again pets and animals in zoos)
<*>Several or many diseases are just not known, because, as cas already mentioned, not economical important, except wild animals infect livestock (such as swine fever) or then mankind too (such as swine/bird flu)
<*>Several diseases are relevant for both humans and animals such as many of the parasitic diseases in the mentioned lists

Most wild animals will have infections by parasites and I think also other diseases (bacterial, fungi and or virus) therefore are diseased, but normally they may weak them, or reduce their fitness and longevity, but kill them not...they're used to it and highly adapted. If not they won't survive long (e.g. compare European livestock introduced to tropical countries, that suffers a lot and needs therapies to survive, and indigenous livestock and wild animals there, that survives the attacks of parasites).
If there are susceptible strains or genotypes they're eradicated quite fast, as they're not fit enough compared with others, the same is true for single specimen, mostly they "disappear" fast, they they cannot hunt efficiently anymore or escape a predator...here it may be interesting to read about the Tasmanian devil, were a disease threatens a whole population or even species (maybe caused also by the now low numbers of this species).