Ensuring the health of wildlife, improving the health of people, domestic animals and the environment.
Wildlife populations and ecosystems are essential for human health and wellbeing. However, human activities expose wildlife populations to disease, resulting in population declines and species extinctions. They also expose people and domestic animals to disease from wildlife hosts with serious implications for human health and livelihoods. This interconnection between people, animals, plants and their shared environment forms the basis of ZSL's Healthy Wildlife, Healthy People research.
Disease does not respect borders; infections and pollutants travel beyond their source locations, causing problems across a wide range. Often, the impacts of disease are only apparent once population declines are underway and identifying the cause can be extremely difficult and expensive.
ZSL has teamed up with ITN Productions and the Royal Society of Biology to create a short film exploring the global challenges facing wildlife health, and how ZSL’s work to better understand this area is improving conservation outcomes.
Take a look to find out more about this critically important work and hear about our ambitious plans to transform the science we are able to do in this area:
