This is a very creative idea. A few of my thoughts:
1) Like you pointed out, many diseases that can be very virulent in humans (Ebola, Nipah, Coronavirus) are not so virulent in bats, so there would be many instances where a vaccination program will be very valuable for humans but have very little (and maybe even negative, due to side effects) effect on the wild animal population.
2) Diseases tend to be harmful in dense, homogeneous populations. Like people, or livestock. I don’t know how much disease really impacts wild animal suffering—there could be surprisingly small infection rates and impact.
3) Before vaccines we need survellience, not only because it will answer the question of how much disease affects wild animal suffering, but also because it’s impossible to produce a vaccine without a sequence.
4) Take into account that vaccine development involves a LOT of test subjects—which in this case will have to be wild animals grown in laboratory conditions. Could be thousands or even more. Even though a vaccine is developed, it might not be implemented because it fell through so any process like this could have a large unintentional negative impact. I’d be interested to know how vaccines are developed for animals (especially non-domesticated ones) because my guess is that the standards for side effects would be lower than humans, even only because it’s harder to detect side effects in animals. I’m really curious about the gel that was developed for bat white-nose syndrome!
Like you pointed out, many diseases that can be very virulent in humans (Ebola, Nipah, Coronavirus) are not so virulent in bats, so there would be many instances where a vaccination program will be very valuable for humans but have very little (and maybe even negative, due to side effects) effect on the wild animal population.
Yes, this is true to some extent, although it’s likely that even if viruses that are virulent in other animals are less so in bats, they are nevertheless, if to a minor extent, harmful for them. Maybe to them the viruses would be like a cold would be to us. So in these cases it is likely to be beneficial. It will just be much less so than in the case of other diseases we considered here, like rabies or white nose disease.
In addition to these cases, these programs would benefit nonhuman animals other than bats who may be infected by them, and would also be beneficial in the other ways pointed out in the last section of the piece.
I don’t know how much disease really impacts wild animal suffering
Available evidence suggests is pretty widespread unfortunately. See this piece.
Before vaccines we need surveillance
Yes! This is a reason why we think that promoting more research at the intersection of animal welfare science and the science of ecology is necessary. We’ve been funding work about this that examines different causes of death in wild animals in different countries, see here and here.
Monitoring is also needed after the vaccination programs are implemented.
Take into account that vaccine development involves a LOT of test subjects
You’re right, and this is a very significant concern. It is true that right now, because of the urgency to come up with a vaccine for COVID-19, testing is being directly carried out in human subjects (see for instance here, here and here for some news pieces about this). There are also some research methods not involving animals (here and here are pieces with examples). But regardless of this, we agree this is a very serious issue. We would advocate for vaccination programs in cases where a vaccine is available already.
I’m really curious about the gel that was developed for bat white-nose syndrome!
Yeah! In addition to the references in the notes, these are other relatively recent papers about this method:
This is a very creative idea. A few of my thoughts:
1) Like you pointed out, many diseases that can be very virulent in humans (Ebola, Nipah, Coronavirus) are not so virulent in bats, so there would be many instances where a vaccination program will be very valuable for humans but have very little (and maybe even negative, due to side effects) effect on the wild animal population.
2) Diseases tend to be harmful in dense, homogeneous populations. Like people, or livestock. I don’t know how much disease really impacts wild animal suffering—there could be surprisingly small infection rates and impact.
3) Before vaccines we need survellience, not only because it will answer the question of how much disease affects wild animal suffering, but also because it’s impossible to produce a vaccine without a sequence.
4) Take into account that vaccine development involves a LOT of test subjects—which in this case will have to be wild animals grown in laboratory conditions. Could be thousands or even more. Even though a vaccine is developed, it might not be implemented because it fell through so any process like this could have a large unintentional negative impact. I’d be interested to know how vaccines are developed for animals (especially non-domesticated ones) because my guess is that the standards for side effects would be lower than humans, even only because it’s harder to detect side effects in animals. I’m really curious about the gel that was developed for bat white-nose syndrome!
Thank you! Your points are very good ones.
Yes, this is true to some extent, although it’s likely that even if viruses that are virulent in other animals are less so in bats, they are nevertheless, if to a minor extent, harmful for them. Maybe to them the viruses would be like a cold would be to us. So in these cases it is likely to be beneficial. It will just be much less so than in the case of other diseases we considered here, like rabies or white nose disease.
In addition to these cases, these programs would benefit nonhuman animals other than bats who may be infected by them, and would also be beneficial in the other ways pointed out in the last section of the piece.
Available evidence suggests is pretty widespread unfortunately. See this piece.
Yes! This is a reason why we think that promoting more research at the intersection of animal welfare science and the science of ecology is necessary. We’ve been funding work about this that examines different causes of death in wild animals in different countries, see here and here.
Monitoring is also needed after the vaccination programs are implemented.
You’re right, and this is a very significant concern. It is true that right now, because of the urgency to come up with a vaccine for COVID-19, testing is being directly carried out in human subjects (see for instance here, here and here for some news pieces about this). There are also some research methods not involving animals (here and here are pieces with examples). But regardless of this, we agree this is a very serious issue. We would advocate for vaccination programs in cases where a vaccine is available already.
Yeah! In addition to the references in the notes, these are other relatively recent papers about this method:
Hoyt, J.R., Langwig, K.E., White, J.P., Kaarakka, H.M., Redell, J.A., Parise, K.L., Frick, W.F., Foster, J.T. and Kilpatrick, A.M. (2019) “Field trial of a probiotic bacteria to protect bats from white-nose syndrome”, Scientific Reports, 9, a. 9158.
Cheng, T.L., Mayberry, H., McGuire, L.P., Hoyt, J.R., Langwig, K.E., Nguyen, H., Parise, K.L., Foster, J.T., Willis, C.K., Kilpatrick, A.M. and Frick, W.F. (2017) “Efficacy of a probiotic bacterium to treat bats affected by the disease white‐nose syndrome”, Journal of Applied Ecology, 54, pp. 701-708.