Johne's disease, or paratuberculosis, is a chronic intestinal infection caused by Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis. The usually fatal disease is characterised by cachexia, and in some species diarrhoea, after a long pre-clinical phase. Treatment is ineffective and economically impracticable. The infection primarily affects domestic and free-ranging ruminants, but has also been report...

Ethical obligations to animals in conservation research and management are manifold and often conflicting. Animal welfare concerns often clash with the ethical imperative to understand and conserve a population or ecosystem through research and management intervention. The accelerating pace and impact of global environmental change, especially climate change, complicates our understanding of th...

Implanted transmitters have become an important tool for studying the ecology of sea ducks, but their effects remain largely undocumented. To address this, we assessed how abdominally implanted transmitters with percutaneous antennas affect the vertical dive speeds, stroke frequencies, bottom time, and dive duration of captive Common Eiders (Somateria mollissima). To establish baselines, we rec...

Populations of red imported fire ants (RIFA; Solenopsis invtcta) have spread rapidly throughout 'the southeastern United States. RIF A, directly or indirectly, negatively affect many wildlife species, _ and northern bobwhite (Col'inus virginianus) appear to be particularly susceptible. We examined the effect of exposure to different numbers of RIF A for 15 and 60 seconds on body mass and surviv...

Animals living around humans may habituate to us, but little is known about the consequences of this habituation. Some wildlife managers assume that habituation to humans makes individuals less likely to respond to natural predators, which is something to be avoided in captive breeding programmes where animals are destined for release. We conducted a playback experiment where we broadcast the s...

We evaluated 6 different porcine zona pellucida (PZP) preparations used as a single-shot vaccine for multiyear contraception of captive white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus). The study compared 2 PZP preparation technologies from ImmunoVaccine TechnologiesTM (IVT) and National Wildlife Research Center (NWRC) over a 7-year period. The study compared both the use of oil in an emulsion and in...

Host-parasite relationships are likely to be impacted by conservation management practices, potentially increasing the susceptibility of wildlife to emerging disease. Cryptosporidium, a parasitic protozoan genus comprising host-adapted and host-specific species, was used as an indicator of parasite movement between populations of a threatened marsupial, the brush-tailed rock-wallaby (Petrogale ...

Unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly called drones, are being increasingly used in ecological research, in particular to approach sensitive wildlife in inaccessible areas. Impact studies leading to recommendations for best practices are urgently needed. We tested the impact of drone colour, speed and flight angle on the behavioural responses of mallards Anas platyrhynchos in a semi-captive situat...

Potential stressors of wildlife living in captivity, such as artificial living conditions and frequent human contact, may lead to a higher occurrence of disease and reduced reproductive function. One successful method used by wildlife managers to improve general well-being is the provision of environmental enrichment, which is the practice of providing animals under managed care with environmen...