Health Status of Reintroduced Wood Bison ( Bison bison athabascae): Assessing the Conservation Value of an Isolated Population in Northwestern Canada.

J Wildl Dis. 2018 Jun 28. doi: 10.7589/2017-09-235. [Epub ahead of print] Harms NJ1, Jung TS1,2, Andrew CL3, Surujballi OP4, VanderKop M1, Savic M4, Powell T1. Author information 1 1   Department of Environment, Government of Yukon, PO Box 2703, Whitehorse, Yukon, Y1A 2C6, Canada. 2 2   Department of Renewable Resources, University of Alberta, Edmonton, 751 General Services Building, Alberta, T6G 2H1, Canada. 3 3   Western College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Saskatchewan, 52 Campus Drive, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, S7N 5B4, Canada. 4 4   Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Ottawa Laboratory Fallowfield, 3851 Fallowfield, Ottawa, Ontario, K2H 8P9, Canada. Abstract A central goal for reintroduced populations of threatened wood bison ( Bison bison athabascae) is to maintain them free of diseases of concern, particularly bovine tuberculosis (caused by Mycobacterium bovis) and brucellosis (caused by Brucella abortus). A wood bison population in southwestern Yukon, Canada was reintroduced into the wild in 1988, but no health assessment has been done since then. To provide an initial assessment of the health status and, hence, the conservation value of this population, we serologically tested 31 wood bison (approximately 3% of the population) for pathogens of interest and obtained histopathology results for select tissues. We found no evidence of exposure to M. bovis or Brucella spp., but antibodies were present to bovine parainfluenza virus 3, bovine coronavirus, Leptospira interrogans, and Neospora caninum, with seroprevalences of 87, 7, 61, and 7% of the tested animals, respectively. Reintroduced wood bison in southwestern Yukon may be of high value for wood bison recovery because it is a large and geographically isolated population with no bacteriologic, histopathologic, or serologic evidence of exposure to Brucella spp. or M. bovis. KEYWORDS: Bison bison; Brucella abortus; Leptospira interrogans; Mycobacterium bovis; Neospora caninum; health surveillance; reintroduction; serology PMID: 29953313 DOI: 10.7589/2017-09-235