Every year, towards the end of August, Travis Livieri embarks on a journey into South Dakota’s Conata Basin, a grassland filled with sand. Armed with spotlights and syringes, he spends his nights capturing black-footed ferrets, the most endangered mammal in North America. His mission is to save these animals from the dire situation that humans have put them in.
Black-footed ferrets were once abundant across twelve western states in the US, as well as parts of Canada and Mexico. However, due to habitat destruction and the decline in their prairie-dog prey, their populations have drastically decreased. The biggest threat to their survival today is a plague introduced by Asian trading ships over a century ago. To combat this, Livieri, a wildlife biologist from Colorado, has turned to a military-developed plague vaccine that also protects animals. In the Conata Basin and the surrounding Badlands National Park, there are only 200 black-footed ferrets left, more than half of the global population. Livieri and his team aim to catch and immunize each one of them. Livieri describes himself as an “alien-abduction machine.”
In the realm of wildlife immunization, only two reasons justify vaccinating animals: preventing the spread of zoonotic diseases to humans and domestic animals, and conservation efforts. Vaccines for humans primarily act as preventives, but vaccinating animals like black-footed ferrets becomes a last-resort conservation strategy. Jean Tsao, a disease ecologist at Michigan State University, states that the fact we are exploring vaccines is a sign of desperation. It signifies that all other measures have failed.
Conservation efforts used to promote minimal interference in the past. However, due to humans’ negative impact on wildlife populations, the narrative has shifted to focus on positive impacts. Sharon Deem, the director of the Saint Louis Zoo Institute for Conservation Medicine, explains that humans need to take responsibility for the damage they have caused and work towards rectification.
Vaccines are considered a positive impact. However, introducing them to wild species raises ethical concerns regarding which animals deserve immunity, which diseases to target, and what risks are acceptable. Livieri acknowledges that human interference, even when well-intentioned, is a slippery slope. Vaccines, despite saving lives, still involve ecological meddling without a clear exit strategy.
The initial animals vaccinated for their own sake were chickens, followed by cattle and sheep, to protect livelihoods on farms. Nowadays, vaccination is routine for pets, livestock, zoo animals, and wildlife. The extent of vaccination depends on the proximity of these animals to humans.
The vaccination approach can be visualized as concentric circles, with humans at the center. The innermost rings include animals that are interdependent with humans. Dogs and cats receive core vaccines against diseases like parvovirus and distemper, while farm animals often receive even more vaccines. These vaccinations not only protect animals but also benefit humans. They prolong the lives of our pets and safeguard farm animals in unsanitary conditions. Vaccination is crucial for the poultry industry’s survival.
In zoos, vaccination is more complex. Despite being neither domesticated nor fully wild, zoo animals are under our care. Don Neiffer, the chief veterinarian at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo, estimates that 99% of the mammals in most zoos receive vaccinations. Vaccines play a significant role in geriatric veterinary medicine.
Vaccinating wild animals, the outermost ring, presents more challenges. Delivering human-made immunity becomes trickier and harder to justify due to limited interactions between wild animals and humans. Vaccinating wild populations that share diseases with humans is easier to argue for. Rabies is a prime example, as it can infect almost any mammal and is fatal to humans. Vaccinating dogs, the main carriers of rabies, has been the most effective intervention in preventing human rabies. Custom rabies vaccines have also been developed for wild species, considering their ecological habits.
The case of avian influenza highlights the difficulty in deciding which animals should receive vaccines. While the virus has devastated bird populations, the risk to humans remains relatively low. Vaccinating animals for diseases that pose the highest risk to them is a challenge that requires extensive resources.
Allowing nature to take its course would mean letting viruses infect and kill animals as part of the natural balance. However, humans have a responsibility to rectify the damage they have caused. Viruses play a role in maintaining check and balance in wild populations and ecosystems.
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