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  • Title: Comparison of ranging behaviour in a multi-species complex of free-ranging hosts of bovine tuberculosis in relation to their use as disease sentinels.
    Author: Yockney IJ, Nugent G, Latham MC, Perry M, Cross ML, Byrom AE.
    Journal: Epidemiol Infect; 2013 Jul; 141(7):1407-16. PubMed ID: 23433406.
    Abstract:
    Sentinel species are increasingly used by disease managers to detect and monitor the prevalence of zoonotic diseases in wildlife populations. Characterizing home-range movements of sentinel hosts is thus important for developing improved disease surveillance methods, especially in systems where multiple host species co-exist. We studied ranging activity of major hosts of bovine tuberculosis (TB) in an upland habitat of New Zealand: we compared home-range coverage by ferrets (Mustela furo), wild deer (Cervus elaphus), feral pigs (Sus scrofa), brushtail possums (Trichosurus vulpecula) and free-ranging farmed cattle (Bos taurus). We also report in detail the proportional utilization of a seasonal (4-monthly) range area for the latter four species. Possums covered the smallest home range (<30 ha), ferrets covered ~100 ha, pigs ~4 km(2), deer and cattle both >30 km2. For any given weekly period, cattle, deer and pigs were shown to utilize 37–45% of their estimated 4-month range, while possums utilized 62% during any weekly period and 85% during any monthly period of their estimated 4-month range. We suggest that present means for estimating TB detection kernels, based on long-term range size estimates for possums and sentinel species, probably overstate the true local surveillance coverage per individual.
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