Disease and Antarctic wildlife

Research priorities

So little is known about the natural status of disease in Antarctic wildlife that at the moment it would be impossible to determine whether a disease event in Antarctica was caused by human activity or whether it occurred naturally. The first priority for research is to build an understanding of the types of disease that are naturally present in Antarctic wildlife populations. This information will be used as the basis for monitoring for diseases that could have been introduced by human activity and as baseline data to help explain unusual mass mortality events in future.

Antibodies to some diseases, such as IBDV and Brucella that are known to infect domestic animals, have been identified in Antarctic wildlife. However, it is not known whether these are naturally occurring or whether people have brought them to Antarctica. It is important to find out because if they are naturally occurring and there is no other evidence that human activity has introduced disease then the minimal precautions to prevent disease introduction used in the past may be adequate. However, if there is evidence that these diseases, or others, were bought into Antarctica by people this would be a compelling argument for more stringent precautions. The disease status of animals close to stations is being compared with that of animals remote from human activity to determine whether proximity to stations increases the incidence of disease or antibodies. An increased incidence of disease adjacent to stations would not conclusively prove that stations are the source, however, this could never be proven without baseline information on the diseases present before human activity in Antarctica.

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