Infectious
diseases can impact the health of individual birds as well as
populations in captivity, in the wild or during reintroduction
efforts. When the disease is chronic and difficult to diagnose, the situation further worsens. Such
is the problem of Mycobacterium avium, or avian mycobacteriosis
(tuberculosis). This disease is prevalent worldwide in
both captive and wild populations. Once infected, an individual
may become sick and die or remain healthy while releasing
large amounts of viable infectious organisms into the environment,
further spreading disease. Prevention and control are hampered
by the lack of reliable testing, which results in an overreliance
on slow-growing bacterial cultures for disease confirmation
and an inability to effectively treat the disease. All
of these factors have made this disease highly problematic for
those needing to move animals between zoological institutions.
As such, a science-based approach to assessing the risk of this
disease is highly needed.
In order to address this need, Lincoln Park Zoo’s veterinary (Kathryn C.
Gamble, D.V.M., M.S., Dipl. A.C.Z.M., director of Veterinary Services), conservation (Dominic
A. Travis D.V.M., M.S., director of the Davee Center for Epidemiology and Endocrinology), and collection departments (Robyn Barbiers,
D.V.M., vice president of Collections and Megan R. Ross Ph.D., interim general curator and Hope B. McCormick
Curator of Birds) led the development, with a team
of avian managers and veterinarians, of an easy-to-use risk assessment
tool useful for all avian species and various collection sizes. Its use encourages managers
and veterinarians to jointly fill out a survey in Microsoft Access that results
in a “risk grade” for the potential of spreading this disease between
housing facilities via the shipment of an individual or group of birds. "Risk
grades" are set up in a stoplight fashion, resulting in three categories:
red (high risk), yellow (medium risk) and green (low risk), with associated management
recommendations. It is important to keep in mind that this tool is not
meant to provide THE answer, but should be used as a starting point for discussion.
In order to download the tool and associated materials, click on the links below. These
links include the tool in Microsoft Access format (you must have this software
to open it); an instruction manual for installing and using the tool—including how to print and open reports; and three example reports, one for each risk level
(these report files are in .snp format and must be viewed through Microsoft Access
or opened using Microsoft Snapshot software available separately).
Given that there is no such thing as “zero risk,” we hope this tool
is useful for making decisions regarding avian shipments in the face of uncertainty. Please
feel free to send feedback to any of the project coordinators listed above at
Lincoln Park Zoo.
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Avian Mycobacteriosis Risk Assessment Tool v10.11 (Microsoft
Access format)
Documentation
and Instructions for v10.11 (PDF)
Risk Level Examples: (Note: the example files are in .snp and require
Microsoft Access to be viewed. Right click the links below
and choose "Save Target As..." in the popup menu.)
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