Articles Related to Biological Corridors
Causes of Morbidity and Mortality of Wildlife Species Presented to a Wildlife Clinic in East Tennessee, USA, 2000–2011
To determine the causes of wildlife morbidity and mortality in East Tennessee, we performed a retrospective analysis using 14,303 records from cases presented to the wildlife clinic of the University of Tennessee between 2000 and 2011. The cases were first categorized into herptile (includes reptiles and amphibians), mammal, or avian and then classified into 1 of 20 groups based on the primary admitting/presenting sign. The top reasons for presentation were trauma, found abandoned/orphaned, hit by automobile, cat-related injury, and dog-related injury. Overall mortality was 45.3% for the herptile cases, 57.6% for mammal cases, and 65.1% for avian cases. There are a variety of reasons animals were presented to the clinic, and some appear to be attributed to anthropogenic factors such as automobiles (n = 1253) and habitat destruction (n = 218), while the origin of others, such as trauma and disease remain unknown. This study confirms the importance of monitoring wildlife morbidity and mortality as an indicator of ecosystem health and of focusing efforts to reduce the anthropogenic threat on native habitats and resident wildlife populations.