Invasion Front
@Roba Olana
Culling
- Selective culling of infected individuals will often be the most feasible option to control infectious disease in a threatened wildlife host but has seldom been implemented or evaluated as a management tool for the conservation of threatened species. (Lachish et al., 2010)
- Draconian measures are often undertaken to target a small area on a previously unoccupied region as soon as an invading pathogen is detected. (Langwig et al., 2015) Active surveillance focuses on dead or visibly sick animals while transmission in reservoir hosts often occurs without symptoms — rendering culling ineffective.
Captive Assurance
- As part of captive assurance for a vulnerable species, forming a captive colony, cryobanking sperm, eggs, or zygotes to hold genetically sound populations in captivity may be carried out.
- However, this method is riddled with difficulties ranging from difficulty in sustaining colonies to revival after diseases spread culmination.
- Despite complications, establishing captive assurance colonies may be effective in some cases and is currently being pursued to protect some amphibian species from chytridiomycosis (Lachish et al., 2010)
Prophylactic treatment
- Methods to clear infections in individual animals have included the use of antifungal chemicals and through elevating host body temperature (Kilpatrick et al. 2010a; Langwig et al. 2015a) (Langwig et al., 2015)