Wildlife, Humans, & Livestock
- Herders in Afghanistan Photo
- Wakhi herders and their sheep in Afghanistan's Big Pamir Mountains.
- ©Ali Madad Rajabi & Hafizullah Noori
Our global economies, communication, and travel increasingly link Earth’s citizens, ideas, and species. But to wildlife health scientists, a serious consequence of our seemingly shrinking world is the increased frequency and kinds of physical interactions between wildlife, domestic animals, and people. Recent outbreaks of West Nile virus, Ebola hemorrhagic fever, SARS, monkeypox, mad cow disease, avian influenza, and H1N1—or swine flu—demonstrate some of the outcomes of these interactions. Other consequences include species loss, habitat degradation, and invasive species, with global climate change positioned to exacerbate them all.
The rise of emerging and resurging infectious diseases threatens not only humans (and their food supplies and economies), but also the animals and plants comprising our planet’s living infrastructure. The effectiveness of humankind’s environmental stewardship and our future health have never been more clearly connected.
WCS Projects
WCS helped launch One World – One Health™ to promote an international and interdisciplinary strategy for combating threats to the health of life on Earth. The initiative encourages health experts from around the world to discuss and share information regarding the movements of diseases among humans, domestic animals, and wildlife.
From the Newsroom
After nearly dying from eating a poisoned animal carcass, a critically endangered white-rumped vulture was nursed back to health by wildlife veterinarians and conservationists from WCS and Angkor Centre for Conservation of Biodiversity.