Wildlife Disease Surveillance and Welfare

Wildlife disease surveillance protects both animal welfare and public health, with monitoring programmes enabling early detection of emerging threats and targeted intervention.

Key Facts

Avian influenza H5N1 caused mass mortality in wild seabirds and waterfowl in 2022 and 2023
Rabbit Viral Haemorrhagic Disease has killed millions of UK wild rabbits since its introduction
Tuberculosis in badgers intersects with bovine TB in cattle, creating complex management challenges
White-Nose Syndrome has killed millions of North American bats with potential threat to UK species
Wildlife disease monitoring requires coordination between veterinary, conservation, and public health authorities

Welfare Considerations

Wildlife diseases cause suffering at enormous scale and can rapidly collapse population-level welfare. Individual animals affected by highly pathogenic avian influenza experience rapid systemic illness with associated suffering. Rabbit haemorrhagic disease causes massive acute mortality in wild rabbit populations, with welfare consequences for individual rabbits and for predators that depend on rabbits as prey. Disease surveillance enables early detection and, where interventions are available, targeted response to reduce suffering at population scale. Building robust surveillance capacity for wildlife diseases is both a welfare and a conservation investment.

What You Can Do

Report dead or sick wild animals to the appropriate national surveillance scheme
Support APHA and UKHSA joint surveillance programmes for wildlife disease
Donate to wildlife disease research organisations
Advocate for funding of wildlife disease monitoring as a public health investment
Follow wildlife disease updates from the Animal and Plant Health Agency