Options for the Control of Disease 2: Targeting Hosts

Targeting the host has been the most common approach to managing disease in wildlife. This has essentially involved some form of host population reduction, achieved through dispersing, culling, or controlling reproduction.

Dispersion of animals from the site of a disease outbreak has mainly been employed for birds (Wobeser 2007) but has also been attempted for some herding mammals such as bison (Bison bison) (Meagher 1989). This works best for noninfectious diseases; otherwise it requires that only susceptible individuals disperse, since the movement of infected animals will increase the geographic spread of disease. Unsurprisingly this method has had little success in practice, and is seldom likely to be of value in controlling infectious disease in wild mammals.