DISEASE AND ENVIRONMENTAL STRESSORS : HOW THEY COMBINE TO IMPACT ENDANGERED SPECIES

INTRODUCTION Working together, wildlife biologists, ecologists and veterinarians are slowing elucidating the complex relationships between host, environment, and pathogen that combine to cause disease in wildlife. Understanding the complexity of factors that underlie disease, malnutrition, or even the reduction in fecundity is challenging but enables managers to identify opportunities to address human actions that ultimately can prevent or mitigate disease in wild animals using tools that go beyond traditional veterinary concepts of disease prevention like vaccination or deworming. Being able to mitigate disease is especially important when trying to recover free-ranging endangered species. Two endangered species, southern sea otters (Enhydra lutris nereis) and the southern resident killer whales (Orcinus orca) provide examples of the complex relationship between disease and the environment and unique opportunities for reducing disease to benefit recovery of these declining populations.