Wildlife health and public trust responsibilities for wildlife resources

A significant development in wildlife management is the growing emphasis on wildlife health and wildlife-associated diseases. Consequently, it is an opportune time to emphasize the vital role of wildlife health in public... [ view full abstract ]

A significant development in wildlife management is the growing emphasis on wildlife health and wildlife-associated diseases. Consequently, it is an opportune time to emphasize the vital role of wildlife health in public wildlife governance because of the salience of the subject for the public and wildlife managers. Toward this end, we assert that wildlife health and disease management is squarely in the domain of public wildlife trust administration and should be part of the current discussion of wildlife governance. We summarize current thinking about public trust ideas applied to wildlife management in the U.S. We argue that wildlife health is essential to fulfilling public trust responsibilities in governance of wildlife resources due to the central concern with protection of the corpus of the trust. Furthermore, both health of wildlife and risk perceptions of humans regarding threats posed by wildlife-associated disease to themselves, their families and domestic animals are issues of growing concern, thus managing risk communication vis-à-vis wildlife health and wildlife-associated disease is critical to administration of wildlife as public trust resources. We conclude that current attention to public trust obligations of wildlife administrators provides opportunity for many contributions by wildlife health professionals in wildlife management.