Special Issue "Focus on Medicine, Surgery, Infectious and Parasitological Diseases, and Rehabilitation Aspects to Improve Wild Animal Health"

A special issue of Animals (ISSN 2076-2615). This special issue belongs to the section "Wildlife".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2021.

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Maurizio Mazzei
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Veterinary Sciences, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy
Interests: infectious diseases
Special Issues and Collections in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Micaela Sgorbini
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Veterinary Sciences, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy
Interests: equine internal medicine; sports medicine; neonatology
Dr. Maria Irene Pacini
E-Mail
Guest Editor
Department of Veterinary Sciences, viale delle Piagge 2, Pisa, Italy
Interests: management; rehabilitation

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Despite the fact that the rescue, management, and rehabilitation of wildlife is often subject to controversy and discussion, the recent increase in legislation to protect and raise public awareness makes interventions on orphaned or injured wild animals increasingly common in veterinary practice.
Unfortunately, veterinary knowledge on these animals is poor and veterinarians often use methodologies and knowledge extrapolated directly from domestic species even if each wild animal has biological, ecological, and physiological peculiarities, and specific diseases and clinical conditions. Wild animals are free-living and their very wildness should be considered during every clinical procedure, treatment, and intervention which can be complicated by the ‘wild nature’ of these animals.
Knowledge about the presence of the most diffused and emerging infectious and parasitic diseases, the epidemiological patterns, symptoms and clinical consequences are the major key point for their correct management.
This Special Issue aims to provide new insights outlining and covering all the main topics related to internal medicine, infectious and parasitic disease, surgery, management, and rehabilitation aspects to improve the health of wild animals.
Original manuscripts should focus on any aspects of wildlife medicine: detection and characterization of pathogens; hospitalization and handling; clinical and surgical procedures; anesthesiological and therapeutic protocols; and release procedure.

Prof. Maurizio Mazzei
Prof Micaela Sgorbini
Dr. Maria Irene Pacini
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Animals is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • wildlife animal
  • medicine
  • surgery
  • infectious disease
  • parasitological disease
  • management
  • rehabilitation

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

Article
Surveillance Study of Hepatitis E Virus (HEV) in Domestic and Wild Ruminants in Northwestern Italy
Animals 2020, 10(12), 2351; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani10122351 - 09 Dec 2020
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 689
Abstract
In industrialized countries, increasing autochthonous infections of hepatitis E virus (HEV) are caused by zoonotic transmission of genotypes (Gts) 3 and 4, mainly through consumption of contaminated raw or undercooked pork meat. Although swine and wild boar are recognized as the main reservoir [...] Read more.
In industrialized countries, increasing autochthonous infections of hepatitis E virus (HEV) are caused by zoonotic transmission of genotypes (Gts) 3 and 4, mainly through consumption of contaminated raw or undercooked pork meat. Although swine and wild boar are recognized as the main reservoir for Gt3 and Gt4, accumulating evidence indicates that other animal species, including domestic and wild ruminants, may harbor HEV. Herein, we screened molecularly and serologically serum and fecal samples from two domestic and four wild ruminant species collected in Valle d’Aosta and Piemonte regions (northwestern Italy. HEV antibodies were found in sheep (21.6%), goats (11.4%), red deer (2.6%), roe deer (3.1%), and in Alpine ibex (6.3%). Molecular screening was performed using different primer sets targeting highly conserved regions of hepeviruses and HEV RNA, although at low viral loads, was detected in four fecal specimens (3.0%, 4/134) collected from two HEV seropositive sheep herds. Taken together, the data obtained document the circulation of HEV in the geographical area assessed both in wild and domestic ruminants, but with the highest seroprevalence in sheep and goats. Consistently with results from other studies conducted in southern Italy, circulation of HEV among small domestic ruminants seems to occur more frequently than expected. Full article
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Article
Mortality Causes in Free-Ranging Eurasian Brown Bears (Ursus arctos arctos) in Spain 1998–2018
Animals 2020, 10(9), 1538; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani10091538 - 31 Aug 2020
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 969
Abstract
This work summarizes the mortality cases of twenty-five free-ranging Eurasian wild brown bears (Ursus arctos arctos) from the Cantabrian mountain range submitted for necropsy in Asturias and Castilla y León (northwestern Spain) from 1998 to 2018. Mortality cases were classified both [...] Read more.
This work summarizes the mortality cases of twenty-five free-ranging Eurasian wild brown bears (Ursus arctos arctos) from the Cantabrian mountain range submitted for necropsy in Asturias and Castilla y León (northwestern Spain) from 1998 to 2018. Mortality cases were classified both caused by (i) “non-human intervention” or “human intervention” causes and based on (ii) “non-infectious” or “infectious” etiology. In four cases (16%) it was not possible to determine the cause of death due to the inadequate preservation of collected specimens or insufficient tissue availability. Based on “non-human intervention” or “human intervention” causes, fourteen of the 21 (66.7%) brown bears died as a consequence of “non-human intervention” due to traumatic lesions (fights, unknown traumas or infanticide), infectious canine hepatitis, neoplasia or mushroom poisoning. In contrast, seven (33.3%) brown bears died by “human intervention” due to illegal hunting (shooting or snare), handling (during transit in an attempt to reintroduce a bear back into the wild) or strychnine poisoning. Based on “non-infectious” or “infectious” etiology, twelve of the 21 (57.1%) brown bears died due to “non-infectious” causes, namely traumatic lesions such as shooting, snare, fighting or infanticide, handling, strychnine poisoning, mushroom poisoning or neoplasia. The remaining nine (42.9%) animals died due to “infectious” diseases which included gangrenous myositis, infectious canine hepatitis or septicemia. In six of those cases traumatic lesions caused by non-human or human activities were complicated with bacterial infection (clostridiosis and septicemia) which finally caused the death of those animals. Additionally, exertional myopathy was observed in the handled animal and in one bear found in a snare. In a free-ranging population of Eurasian brown bear from the Cantabrian mountain range, main causes of death are attributed to non-human related traumatic lesions and infectious diseases (primary developed such as infectious canine hepatitis or secondary developed such as clostridiosis or septicemia) which is in contrast to previously reported data for other bear populations. These data are valuable and may help in the conservation and management of this recovering population. Full article
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Planned Papers

The below list represents only planned manuscripts. Some of these manuscripts have not been received by the Editorial Office yet. Papers submitted to MDPI journals are subject to peer-review.

Title: Surveillance study of hepatitis E virus (HEV) in domestic and wild ruminants in Northwestern Italy
Authors: Andrea Palombieri; Serena Robetto; Federica Di Profio; Vittorio Sarchese; Paola Fruci; Maria Cristina Bona; Giuseppe Ru; Riccardo Orusa; Fulvio Marsilio; Vito Martella; Barbara Di Martino
Affiliation: Faculty of Veterinary Medicine Università degli Studi di Teramo
Abstract: In industrialized countries, increasing autochthonous infections of hepatitis E virus (HEV) are caused by zoonotic transmission of genotypes (Gts) 3 and 4, mainly through consumption of contaminated raw or undercooked pork meat. Although swine and wild boar are recognized as the main reservoir for Gt3 and Gt4, accumulating evidence indicates that other animal species, including domestic and wild ruminants, may harbour HEV. Herein, we screened molecularly and serologically serum and faecal samples from two domestic and four wild ruminant species collected in Valle d’Aosta and Piemonte Regions (Northwestern Italy. HEV antibodies were found in sheep (21.6%), goats (11.4%), red deer (2.6%), roe deer (3.1%) and in Alpine ibex (6.3%). Molecular screening was performed using different primer sets targeting highly conserved regions of hepeviruses and HEV RNA, although at low viral loads, was detected in four faecal specimens (3.0%, 4/134) collected from two HEV seropositive sheep herds. Taken together, the data obtained document the circulation of HEV in the geographical area assessed both in wild and domestic ruminants, but with the highest seroprevalence in sheep and goats. Consistently with results from other studies conducted in Southern Italy, circulation of HEV among small domestic ruminants seems to occur more frequently than expected.

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