Frontiers in the Environment

Most conversations about wildlife trade focus on conservation and biodiversity, illegal trafficking and the economic burdens of mitigating or eradicating invasive species. But can wildlife trade affect disease transmission to humans, domestic animals and local wildlife? Dominic Travis, IonE resident fellow and associate professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine, and Shaun Kennedy, director of the Food Systems Institute and an adjunct professor in CVM, will discuss a University of Minnesota program that is assessing the pathways by which the trade in wildlife could introduce deadly diseases such as the Ebola virus into the US as well as the challenges of developing a metric for measuring the effects of trade on the animals themselves.