Wildlife Disease Surveillance Welfare

Wildlife disease surveillance programmes detect emerging diseases that affect animal welfare, enabling responses that reduce suffering in wild populations.

Key Facts

Garden Wildlife Health monitors disease in garden birds including trichomonosis and finch eye disease
Avian influenza outbreaks have caused mass mortality in seabirds and wildfowl
Chronic wasting disease in cervids has spread across North America with welfare implications
UK wildlife disease monitoring is coordinated through APHA and UKHSA
Citizen science disease reporting through Garden Wildlife Health is a key surveillance tool

Welfare Considerations

Wildlife disease welfare matters at both individual and population levels. An individual bird dying from trichomonosis or finch eye disease experiences genuine suffering — starvation, loss of vision, and systemic deterioration are real welfare costs. At the population level, emerging wildlife diseases can cause mass mortality events that impose suffering on thousands or millions of individuals. Surveillance programmes that detect emerging diseases early enable faster responses — advice on feeder hygiene to slow trichomonosis spread, movement restrictions during avian influenza outbreaks — that reduce aggregate suffering. Citizen science contributions to disease surveillance extend monitoring capacity enormously.

What You Can Do

Report sick or dead garden wildlife to Garden Wildlife Health for disease surveillance
Clean bird feeders and baths regularly to prevent disease spread
Follow APHA guidance on handling potentially diseased wild birds
Support APHA and RSPCA surveillance programmes through data contribution and funding