Abstract
Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is an epidemiologically, politically, and socially complex disease. Across multiple international contexts, policy makers have struggled to balance the competing demands of wildlife and agricultural interests in their efforts to create workable and effective disease management strategies. This paper draws comparative lessons between the cases of Michigan in the USA and the UK to exemplify some of the challenges of developing an effective strategy for the long-term control of endemic disease, particularly reflecting on efforts to “responsibilise” cattle producers and engage them in proactive activities to mitigate transmission risks on their own farms. Using qualitative data derived from 22 stakeholder interviews, it is argued that the management of bTB in Michigan has important lessons for the UK on the role of human dimensions in influencing the direction of disease control. The management of endemic bTB relies on the actions of individuals to minimise risk and, in contrast to the predominantly voluntary approach pursued in the UK, Michigan has shifted the emphasis towards obtaining producer support for wildlife risk mitigation and biosecurity via a mix of regulatory, fiscal, and social interventions. Whilst the scale of the bTB challenge differs between these two contexts, analysis of the different ideological bases for selecting management approaches offers interesting insights on the role of negotiated outcomes in attempts to adaptively manage a disease that is characterised by complexity and uncertainty.
Highlights
Bovine tuberculosis is principally a disease of cattle, but there are several places worldwide where free-ranging wildlife are reservoirs of infection, namely brushtail possums in New Zealand, European badgers in the United Kingdom, wood bison and elk in Canada, African buffalo in South Africa and white-tailed deer in the United States [1]
On-farm Wildlife Risk Mitigation (WRM) is part of a wider approach to bTB management in Michigan, including surveillance, and control measures aimed at reducing the disease burden in both cattle and wildlife
The disease has been confirmed in nearly 875 of over 254,000 free-ranging deer tested in Michigan, with 77% of bTB-positive deer found in a core area— Deer Management Unit 452—in the northeastern lower peninsula (NELP) of Michigan, where the counties of Alcona, Alpena, Montmorency, and Oscoda meet (Figure 1)
Summary
Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is principally a disease of cattle, but there are several places worldwide where free-ranging wildlife are reservoirs of infection, namely brushtail possums in New Zealand, European badgers in the United Kingdom, wood bison and elk in Canada, African buffalo in South Africa and white-tailed deer in the United States [1]. Vigorous debate on the role of badger culling in the control of bTB has resulted in policies that have been considered to lack coherence [13] and a situation where the devolved administrations pursue their own control policies, with differing approaches to addressing the disease in their wildlife populations [14, 15]1. This has resulted in what Allen et al [(10), p. This has resulted in what Allen et al [(10), p. 110] considers this to be part of “the current impasse in bTB control” across Britain and Ireland, with multi-factorial problems inhibiting the national eradication programmes
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