Antarctic Wildlife Health Network - Action Group

Currently Antarctica is suffering environmental changes due to global change, including climate change and local human activities, that could increase the risk of infectious and non-infectious diseases in wildlife. Current knowledge on bacteria, parasites and viruses and non-infectious diseases in Antarctic wildlife is scarce with limited baseline data or ongoing monitoring programmes.

Two key priorities listed in SCAR’s Horizon Scan, ‘Understanding how climate change will affect the risk of spreading emerging infectious diseases in Antarctica?’ (Q56) and ‘how will humans, diseases and pathogens change, impact and adapt to the extreme Antarctic environment?’ (Q80), are a key focus on the Action Group.

The Antarctic Wildlife Health Network Action Group (formally EG-BAMM’s Antarctic Wildlife Health Network Working Group) aims to improve our understanding and provide expert advice on current, novel and emerging disease and toxicology threats to Antarctic Wildlife.

The Action Group will specifically focus on the following objectives:

• Provide expert advice and risk assessments on pathogens and disease risk in Antarctic wildlife to the ATCM, and Antarctic Stakeholders (e.g. IAATO, COMNAP, CCAMLR, etc)
• Conduct risk assessments on current and emerging diseases.
• Monitor abundance and distribution of pathogens of concern in Antarctic Wildlife
• Establishment of a central database for pathogens and disease outbreaks (expansion of SCAR HPAI database) and unusual mortality events in Antarctic wildlife.
• Identify novel and emerging pathogens of concern and assess their risks to Antarctic wildlife.
• To work with other components and scientific programmes of SCAR (Ant-ICON, ImPACT, JEGHBM, EG‐ABI, AntaBIF) and key Antarctic Research Initiatives (e.g. Securing Antarctica’s Environmental Future) to achieve multidisciplinary approaches to animal health issues.