NOT LONG ago, there were short reports in this newspaper and others about The Wildlife Center of Virginia being chosen to develop a surveillance network designed to detect possible bioterrorism across the U.S.
It didn't surprise me that the project would go to the Wildlife Center, perhaps the most well-known and advanced center of its kind in the country.
I wanted to know more about this system they would be researching and developing.
Would it be for detecting anthrax in deer? Cholera in pigs? The plague in songbirds?
To find out more, I dropped in on Wildlife Center Director Ed Clark and Patti Bright, the center's director of veterinary medicine.
They were glad to share basic details of the $166,000, six-month contract with the Institute for Defense and Homeland Security, a consortium of university, industry and federal research and development partners. Funding for it and other projects came through a research division of the Air Force.
Clark and Bright explained that the idea behind the project, called Project Tripwire, is simple.
If there are bioterrorism or biosecurity threats in our country, one of the first places they could be detected and analyzed is in wildlife.
"If someone tries to contaminate a river or a reservoir, most likely the first victims would be geese or ducks found on the banks of those waters," said Clark. "Finding those birds and examining them, we could rapidly get word to the people who need to know what we're dealing with, defense and homeland security decision-makers."
Local authorities and the network of wildlife rehabilitators--who would likely be the ones to find more birds or other animals affected by contamination--also would be notified.
Right now, said the pair, wildlife centers and other facilities that deal with killed or injured animals operate largely on their own. Unless a threat to humans is seen, these facilities don't report findings to groups like the Centers for Disease Control, and most often don't share data with other wildlife facilities.
That's why national health officials were slow to pick up on the problems presented by the spread of West Nile disease in various bird species, Clark said.
Officials from wildlife centers and hospitals, gathered for a conference several years back, only stumbled onto the discovery that a large percentage of them were finding dead and diseased birds.
"At one conference session a person mentioned finding animals affected by West Nile," said Clark. "Before the session was done, they asked for a show of hands and found that almost 80 percent of the people in certain regions had found something similar."
To change that, Clark, Bright and others at the well-known teaching and treatment facility are developing a system that would compile data from all the institutions and individuals who care for and treat wildlife.
"We're not talking about reinventing the wheel here," said Clark. Most wildlife centers and hospitals already create their own records detailing each animal found or treated. "We're trying to develop a system that makes that reporting uniform, with standardized terminology and a simple way to collect and use the data."
Clark noted that the worst-case use of such a system would be reports of things like poisoning of water sources or the introduction of deadly diseases.
The two noted that most of the diseases identified as potential bioweapons are animal diseases that can be spread by wildlife--a list including avian influenza, plague, anthrax, foot and mouth disease and cholera.
But Clark and Bright said the system would be just as useful helping wildlife facility officials find and trace the growth of diseases occurring here naturally or finding their way here from other countries without the aid of terrorists.
"Had this been in place when we first started dealing with West Nile, we would have saved lots of money and damage to the environment by not spraying in the wrong regions around the country, for the wrong mosquitoes and at the wrong times of day, which did nothing to protect wildlife or people," Clark said.
It's critical to those who care for wildlife, said Bright, to trace any sort of disease outbreaks, whether they affect humans or not.
"We might see one or two cases of a new problem in, say, red-tailed hawks here over a year and not think it's significant," she said. "But if centers all over are finding those numbers, it would indicate a more serious problem. Information could be shared about the disease and perhaps treatments that various centers had found effective."
If a system is installed and eventually creates a national database of wildlife medical information, it could prove invaluable in picking up trends, new diseases and the spread of existing diseases.
"Or the reporting system could lead to something as simple, but as useful, as warning people about a particularly bad year for ticks," said Clark. "The threat doesn't always have to be cholera."
Both Clark and Bright noted that while the new system will protect humans, it's worth doing just for what it could provide in the care and treatment of animals.
"It's a win-win thing for humans and wildlife," said Clark, "and hopefully, that will help this system become a reality."
To reach ROB HEDELT:
Email: rhedelt@freelancestar.com