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This holiday season, KWIAHT is seeking support for a new initiative advancing the â€œOne Healthâ€ principle by sleuthing newly-emerging wildlife diseases, many of which can â€œjumpâ€ between animals and people.

Once they have established reservoirs in local wildlife populations, bacteria and viruses are transported by parasites such as ticks and keds that can, in turn, hitch long distance rides on people and their pets. Longer, drier summers and milder winters facilitate the spread of parasites.

Climate change also causes hunger and stress in wildlife, making animals more vulnerable to disease. Protecting human health will increasingly depend on how we manage the health of the animals with which we share ecosystems.

We continue to monitor the spread of avian flu in the islands, apparently introduced by last summer by migrating geese, and appreciate the help of Lopezians that contacted us about dead waterfowl and raptors. Disease surveillance is only feasible with community participation.

In 2022, people throughout San Juan County collected 225 ticks for us to screen for pathogens such as Borrelia, the bacteria that causes Lyme Disease. We did not find any Borrelia, but we did detect six other pathogens that can affect people as well as wildlife and pets including Babesia, which produces Lyme-like symptoms and was found in ticks from Lopez, Orcas, and San Juan Islands. The Babesia we found in the islands was sequenced by the CDC, and is most like a species associated with voles. This raises a possibility that it has already established a reservoir in some of the islandsâ€™ abundant vole populations. We need to pursue this clue further!

In 2022, we also discovered â€œbat bugsâ€ in a bat roost on San Juan Island. These relatives of bedbugs can disrupt and disperse bat colonies, and may spread disease among bats as well. If they are widespread in the islands, bat bugs could threaten San Juan Countyâ€™s most diverse and abundant native mammals, and affect batsâ€™ beneficial role in protecting people and gardens from insect pests.

We also want to explore how much we can learn about the health of bats from sequencing the DNA and RNA in fecal pellets - â€œguanoâ€. This approach may be useful as a non-invasive method of monitoring the arrival of any new diseases in bat colonies, and possibly in other island wildlife.

In addition, we hope to expand our research to keds, the biting flies often seen on deer. It remains unclear whether keds play a similar role to ticks in spreading pathogens. Indeed, it has been suggested that keds and ticks may exchange pathogens when they both feast on deer. There is a lot we can learn from keds removed from road-kill deer and deer harvested by hunters.

Moving forward with these studies will depend on financial support from islanders, as well as help finding specimens.

This holiday season, please consider donating to Kwiaht for expanding our One Health program. You can use the DONATE button on our website. Or mail a check to: Kwiaht, PO Box 415, Lopez Island WA 98261.

Best wishes for a safe and healthy holiday season from the scientists at Kwiaht!

Island voles are a possible reservoir for tick-borne diseases that should be monitored.

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