Mecanismo Asignación Oficinas Apoyo de Counters

A key difference in the cases illustrated in Table 6-1 relates to disease progression. Chronic wasting disease has an extended incubation period; animals can be infected with the

Network governance resilience Financial Slack Relational Slack Cognitive Slack Information- seeking Attempt to alter strategy Preoccupation with Failure Awareness of Stakeholder Expectations Federal gov't disposition Disease progression Presence in Livestock Zoonotic disease Chronic Wasting Disease Exhausted over time Exhausted

over time No Yes No Yes

Sensitive to other

gov't departments Unreceptive Protracted Yes No

White Nose Syndrome

Gained some over

time Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Awareness but not

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disease for more than a year before symptoms present (Bollinger et al., 2004). White nose syndrome, on the other hand, is fast moving, killing bats in a matter of months, not years. This disease specific characteristic, and a number of others such as pathogen complexity, the effect on wild animals and livestock, the speed and method of transmission, coloured the network’s ability to respond, in particular its potential for adaptive capacity.

A resilient network should be able to adapt its planning and approaches to match its current circumstances; this is adaptive capacity. However, when tackling emerging diseases like CWD and WNS, the amount of information known to scientists and policy makers limit the available approaches. The speed and severity of WNS’s progress through the Northeastern United States caught the attention of veterinary biologists as well as the media (Munroe, 2012). The unknown nature of the disease was problematic, but the fact that the disease took hold of bats while they were hibernating allowed researchers to have ample access to samples and subjects for testing. The pattern of bats’ migratory routes allowed surveillance teams to identify hibernacula at risk, as well as develop decontamination protocols for cavers and miners who may be transmitting the disease. The disease itself and the mechanisms by which it kills bats were able to be identified in a matter of years. A vaccine against the fungus is currently being tested.

Chronic wasting disease exhibited several opposite characteristics: the disease has a slower progression, leaving a period of years before an infected animal is able to be identified. Cervids are migratory as well, but they do not hibernate. They are less accessible and evidence of disease is found only after they have been killed by hunters or found dead of CWD in nature. The disease itself was only determined to be a prion disease (caused by misfolded proteins in the brain) in 1979 after more than ten years of study (Goñi et al., 2015). There are no treatment options available, however a vaccine is being tested. Despite being present in North America for more than 40 years, CWD has proven challenging to control in both farmed animals and wildlife. Until a treatment or vaccine emerges, culling and environmental decontamination post-cull are the only way to destroy the disease.

The lack of new knowledge about the disease was a particular challenge for the Chronic wasting disease (CWD) Interagency Oversight Committee. The ways in which prions emerge in the brain are unknown, as is the mechanism of transmission. The network gathered experts on prion diseases at the outset of their work to advise them on best practices for prion diseases. This information provided the basis for the management plan the network attempted to implement and

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sell to governments. The plan may very well have been the best option to mitigate with the problem from a veterinary perspective but it was not politically feasible for agricultural interests (as culling farmed animals was the only eradication option) and was not supported by the federal government elected in 2006. There was no progress or improvement in the treatment or

containment options for the disease over the years of network involvement and as such there was no new approach taken by the network. The inability to reframe the disease as a feasible

management target seems to have been a fatal stumbling block for the network.

In the more successful case of WNS, the network took multiple approaches to gain financial support and regulatory protection for bats, while waiting for action from the federal government. The speed of the disease progression, while devastating, provided the opportunity to have bats listed on the Species at Risk registry, which affords them protection and legally

mandates a management plan to either curb the threat or repopulate the species. Partnerships with researchers and U.S. wildlife officials provided access to emerging research and

management practices. These relationships provided the network with new information to hone their planning, in an effort to continually make positive adjustments. The network was able to sustain operations in the WNS case because they were able to adapt their methods to meet the changing political and regulatory landscape they were facing in a way that also tackled the type of problem the disease was creating.

Given the outcomes of these cases, adaptive capacity appears to be limited by external factors to a greater degree than is typically acknowledged. The wildlife health network’s ability to adjust their approaches to meet new circumstances has been stifled by a lack of scientific information, economically feasible management approaches and coordinated authority between farmed animal and wildlife jurisdictions. In other cases, such as when dealing with WNS, these challenges were not present and better outcomes were witnessed.