Disease Research & Surveillance
Upon Dr. Sri's retirement from WSU, Dr. Tom Besser was appointed January 1, 2016 to a 3-year term as the WSF Rocky Crate Chair for Wild Sheep Disease Research at Washington State University. Dr. Besser's focus is on Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae, another bacterium implicated in most wild sheep pneumonia die-offs. In Year 1 of Dr. Besser's appointment as Rocky Crate Chair, WSF provided $50,000 to support Tom's programs and research associates. Dr. Besser's research will generate additional informationa and data to aid wild sheep managers in their efforts to improve chronically-poor lamb survival and recruitment, and to work toward effective spatial and temporal separation between domestic sheep and goats and wild sheep.
Disease Research & Surveillance Resources
- Hells Canyon Initiative
- WAFWA Wildlife Health Committee 2014 BHS Heard Health Monitoring Recommendations
- Risk Assessment on the Use of South American Camelids for Back Country Trekking in British Columbia
- Mapping and outfitter correspondence to improve Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae (M. ovi) surveillance in thinhorn sheep populations in Yukon, Canada
