Passive, Opportunistic Wildlife Disease Surveillance in the Rocky Mountain Region, USA

Wild animals can play an important role in the epidemiology of infectious disease with significant public health, economic and ecological consequences. As it is often challenging to conduct unbiased surveillance in free-ranging mammal populations, passive, opportunistic case identification has been widely used for detection of disease events in wild animals. This study evaluated the role of different agencies and organizations in the Rocky Mountain Region of the USA to identify significant wildlife health events or aggregate information from multiple sources. Overall wildlife rehabilitators were in contact with the greatest number of animals; however, the data from these groups, in its current state, are insufficient for surveillance purposes. Wild animal data from all survey groups aggregated at the level of state wildlife organizations; these agencies are therefore central in this type of surveillance activity and require sufficient resources to ensure that appropriate testing is conducted.