Effects of Climate Change on Wildlife Health: Implications for Conservation, Domestic Animals, and Human Health

BELDOMENICO PM

Durham, NC

Simposio; VI One Medicine Symposium; 2008

North Carolina State University

The changes in climate we are experiencing as global warming and disturbance in precipitation regimes (IPCC, 2001) are having an impact on the health of wild animals, with resulting deleterious impacts on major human interests. In this paper, we review the relationship between climate change and wildlife health and argue that monitoring wildlife health provides an effective and sensitive indicator and predictor of climate-related emerging infectious diseases. we propose that climate change may directly modify the patterns of infectious disease basically in two ways: 1. Favoring pathogens (increasing pathogen and/or vector proliferation, or pathogen and/or vector survivability) 2. Increasing the host?s susceptibility to infection there are multiple mechanisms by which climate change could affect wildlife health including, but not limited to, the following: ? Expansion in the geographic distribution of pathogens, vectors, or hosts ? Changes in the seasonality of some diseases ? Increased severity of disease ? Increased exposure to pathogens ? Decreased host immunity