ONGOING STUDIES (newest to oldest)

Toxoplasmosis in Wildlife, Blue Ridge Wildlife Center with University of Tennessee Knoxville, Rick Gerhold.

• Importance to One Health: Toxoplasmosis is considered a leading cause of death from foodborne illness by the CDC and often impacts immunocompromised humans or developing fetuses. It is also a common cause of death in all animals and cats are the only definitive host. Better understanding the prevalence in wildlife locally will help us to better understand the risk to humans and begin to look at ways to reduce prevalence.
• Project Aim: Determine prevalence of toxoplasmosis in our patients to look at differences in species and location. Ideally we will be genotyping positives to help trace ancestry/route of transmission and looking at positives in relation to free-roaming cat populations.
• BRWC’s role: samples taken from birds and mammals that are euthanized with possible toxo signs (emaciation, neurological) including blood and frozen and formalin-fix samples of brain, heart, kidney, spleen.
• Results: none at this time

Ophidiomyces Ophiodiicola surveillance, George Mason University, Lauren Fuchs.

• Importance to One Health: None. This is purely a conservation study aiming to determine prevalence of the often fatal fungal virus in snakes.
• Project Aim: Determine prevalence in snakes, sequence O. ophiodiicola, learn about snake microbiome and monitor effects of treatment on disease and microbiome
• BRWC’s role: sample snakes on intake and weekly during treatment (researchers will along be doing wild caught sampling at Blandy. This will provide the researchers with samples and BRWC with free diagnostics
• Results: none at this time

Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Surveillance, Tufts Cummings School of Vet Med, Kaitlin Sawatzki.

• Importance to One Health: Though currently considered low risk to humans, HPAI is a zoonotic disease and it has now made the jump into multiple mammal species making spillover into humans a greater risk. Staying on top of prevalence helps us better understand the ever-changing risk to humans.
• Project Aim: Determine the prevalence of HPAI in Virginian birds and mammals
• BRWC’s role: Collect nasal/cloacal/rectal swabs of all waterfowl, raptors, corvids, game birds, and suspect birds and mammals
• Results: 4 positives as of 2/20/24; publications from this study are from before our participation

USDA Rabies Surveillance Program, USDA – Department of Wildlife Services - Virginia, Eric Wilhelm, Wildlife Biologist.

• Importance to One Health: Though few deaths from rabies are seen in humans in the U.S. due to excellent post-exposure treatment, this is still a fatal disease once signs develop and ongoing monitoring is essential to knowing the risk in humans.
• Project Aim: Determine the prevalence of rabies in Virginian Wildlife
• BRWC’s role: Collect RVS species and suspected mammalian cases that were euthanized/died but were NOT tested by local health departments due to lack of exposure.
• Results: Multiple positive raccoons, skunks, and a single opossum across counties. All results are combined and published nationally. Most recent publication, does not include our data as all before 2022 >

SARS-CoV-2 Mammal Sampling Project Along an Urbanization Gradient, Virginia Tech, Department of biological sciences, Amanda Goldberg.

• Importance to One Health: SARS-CoV-2 continues to be an important viral infection among humans and with the wild mammal populations getting this virus at high levels, the virus can mutate and newer, stronger variants can spill back over. Monitoring the virus in these populations helps to understand the risks to humans.
• Project Aim: Determine whether infection prevalence within wildlife populations differs along an urbanization gradient, determine whether infection prevalence differs within the wildlife community, determine whether wildlife infection prevalence differs by human vaccination and/or prevalence rates within similar urbanization categories, and determine whether nasal or oropharyngeal swabs are better at detecting the virus in wildlife.
• BRWC’s role: collect oropharyngeal swabs for testing
• Results:  Widespread exposure to SARS-CoV-2 in wildlife communities published 7/29/24 in Nature Communications >
• Study ongoing

Echinococcus multilocularis Surveillance, The Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources is assisting the Virginia Department of Health, the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, and the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine to determine if E. multilocularis is present in wild foxes and coyotes in northwestern/northcentral Virginia.

• Importance to One Health: This zoonotic parasite can be fatal in humans and is extremely challenging to diagnose. Prevalence studies allow for better understanding of risk to humans locally.
• Project Aim: Determine prevalence of this zoonotic parasite in red foxes, gray foxes, and coyotes in Augusta, Clarke, Culpeper, Fairfax, Fauquier, Frederick, Greene, Loudoun, Madison, Orange, Page, Prince William, Rappahannock, Rockingham, Shenandoah, and Warren counties.
• BRWC’s role: Collect canid fecal samples and carcasses for testing
• Results: None at this time

Wildlife Trafficking: Identifying wild vs. captive turtles, University of Richmond, Dr. Jennifer Sevin.

• Importance to One Health: None. This is primarily a study looking at the effects of captivity on turtles and ultimately how captive care may cause long term issues for them.
• Project aim: Differentiate between wild-caught vs. long-term captive box turtles using predictable changes in gastrointestinal microbiome and assess regional differences in common respiratory infectious agents to help re-wild wild-caught captives with unknown found location.
• UPDATE 2024 – testing ALL turtle species with oral then cloacal swabs on admission ONLY. Microbiome portion of study has ended, looking at disease prevalence regionally to help determine releasability of captives at areas other than found location.
• UPDATE 2022 – Dr. Sevin has been testing all samples for ranavirus and will continue throughout the study. In the first half of 2022, we had approximately 20% of our box turtles test positive on PCR despite only one of those individuals having any URI signs while in care. All were released prior to this diagnosis.
• BRWC’s role: Cloacal (+/- oral) swab on intake for all turtle species
• Results: none at this time

Virginia Tech prevalence studies (March 2019 – Present) with the Department of Entomology, Dr. Gillian Eastwood.

• Importance to One Health: Tick-borne diseases affect all species, humans included, and understanding prevalence is essential to understanding risk and increasing the likelihood of getting a quick and accurate diagnosis.
• BRWC’s role: Assisting with Dr. Eastwood’s overall research goal of investigating the potential for emerging zoonotic diseases as novel species and pathogens shift their distribution into the state. A variety of separate studies are detailed below.

1. Widespread Circulation of Tick-Borne Viruses in Virginia – Evidence of Exposure to Heartland, Bourbon, and Powassan Viruses in Wildlife and Livestock published 4/30/24 in Microorganisms
2. Avian Zoonotic Arboviruses
   > Prevalence and host diversity of St. Louis Encephalitis Virus in birds in Virginia – Avian serum samples are tested for SLEV to determine prevalence in VA counties
   > Prevalence and host diversity of West Nile Virus in birds in Virginia – Avian serum samples are tested for WNV to determine prevalence in VA counties
   > Flat flies will be collected opportunistically with blood from avian species and tested for a variety of arboviruses
3. Reptile Zoonotic Arboviruses - Prevalence and host diversity of West Nile Virus in birds in Virginia – Reptile serum samples are tested for WNV to determine prevalence in VA counties

• Publications: Lacrosse virus and tick-borne disease studies published, other studies ongoing

Coronavirus epidemiological research and surveillance (CoVERS study), Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine (Spring 2020 – Present)

• Study Aim: Determine which species of domestic and wild animals are susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 via human-animal transmission and better understand the risk of infection for various species
• BRWC’s role: Submit samples for testing
• Bat Surveillance – Throat/fecal/blood samples from bats – data collection complete, no positives found
• Wildlife Surveillance – Ongoing surveillance of mammalian species, especially mustelids
• Results: No positive tests in bats to date in the U.S – bat portion of study discontinued in 2023. Carnivores have tested positive, deer have tested positive. Sample collection is ongoing in conjunction with HPAI testing on mammals (same swabs).