Disease impact investigations

    Integrate health surveillance into field activities

• Expand investigation of regionally specific avian health and disease problems
• Continue to create baseline health and disease data to identify population impacts
• Evaluate critical avian populations: species of concern, threatened and endangered species (conduct field investigations in combination with the ongoing research)
• Investigate infectious diseases (viruses, bacteria, fungal infections)
• Investigate non-infectious diseases  (parasites, biotoxins, contaminants)
• Conduct targeted pathogen surveillance
• Investigate indigenous and exotic disease problems

   Climate change

• Coordinate with and support LCCs with technical assistance, planning
• Guide avian disease activities contained in the DOI climate change strategic plan
• Integrate health surveillance with National Wildlife Refuges Inventories and Monitoring disease surveillance priorities
• Investigate the impact of climate change on the biology of wildlife disease reservoirs and vector species
• Investigate disease impacts on species adaptation strategies
• Identify ancillary stressors influencing avian susceptibility to disease (de-coupling of biological processes)

    Human-induced effects on disease transmission

• Assess the increased disease risks associated with urban, suburban, and agricultural environments (water quality, habitat fragmentation, contaminants)
• Aid in the prevention and management of invasive species introduction
• Adjust FWS field activities to decrease the potential of disease transmission to humans, other wildlife, other geographic sites