Wildlife Rabies Management in the New World: Prevention, Control and Elimination in Mesocarnivores

Abstract

Wildlife disease management is a growing and challenging One Health paradigm for scientists and program managers working to resolve human-wildlife conflicts. Managing wildlife diseases is complex and accomplished primarily through the manipulation of populations at a landscape scale. Rabies lyssavirus (RABV) perpetuates in dogs and wildlife, including mesocarnivores and bats, with the greatest diversity of viral variants (e.g., independent epizootic or enzootic foci) associated with wildlife throughout the Americas. From Argentina to the Canadian Arctic, prevention and control of rabies in carnivores has historically focused on managing dog-mediated human rabies through public health messaging, implementation of local animal control strategies to reduce free-ranging dog populations and mass rabies vaccination campaigns and local vaccination clinics. Multiple host shifts of canine RABV variants to a diverse array of wildlife has occurred throughout the Americas, creating a suite of unique management challenges. Successful management of RABV at the animal source across broad and complex landscapes requires knowledge of how reservoir populations use these landscapes and the development of coordinated management strategies that effectively target mesocarnivores across a variety of habitats and population densities. Historically, attempts at disease control in furbearers used population reduction. By the mid-twentieth century, alternative techniques focused upon oral rabies vaccination (ORV) of free-ranging animals. In the Americas, management of wildlife RABV through ORV of mesocarnivore populations has not occurred outside of Canada and the United States. A limited ORV field trial is being planned targeting mongoose populations in Puerto Rico. For three decades, integrated ORV programs have focused on coyotes, red and gray foxes, raccoons, and striped skunks to manage RABV variants in North America. Key components of successful wildlife rabies management include communication and coordination, enhanced RABV surveillance, ORV, program monitoring, contingency actions, and applied research. Science-based adaptive management and the development of new tools and technology aligned with sustained public support are critical to continued progress in controlling and eliminating RABV variants in mesocarnivore populations at local, regional, and national scales.