Description
The American Rescue Plan provides financial assistance “for research and extension activities to strengthen early detection, rapid response, and science-based management to address wildlife disease outbreaks before they become pandemics and strengthen capacity for wildlife health monitoring to enhance early detection of diseases that have capacity to jump the species barrier and pose a risk in the United States.” Funding will be used to establish and enhance Tribal, State, and Territorial fish and wildlife agencies’ capabilities to effectively address health issues involving free-ranging terrestrial, avian, and aquatic wildlife and minimize the negative impacts of health issues affecting free-ranging wildlife through surveillance, management, and research to protect the public against zoonotic disease outbreaks. This new federal assistance program is designed to increase readiness for wildlife agencies to protect against future pandemics and encourage them to coordinate their efforts across jurisdictions in a seamless manner. Assistance will be available for a range of activities with the goal of the program being to strengthen the foundation of an interjurisdictional landscape-level wildlife health and disease network to protect wildlife, ecosystems, economies, and the American public. This goal will be supported through the following objectives: Wildlife managers have a current, evidence-based wildlife disease plan which considers: Disease surveillance and techniques for surveillance strategies Diagnostic pathology, microbiology, virology, parasitology, toxicology,, and biosafety Outbreak response Wildlife population management Regulatory and policy response Data management Risk assessment and decision support Training Communication plans so that key stakeholders receive and understand information about wildlife diseases in a timely manner. 2. State, territorial, and Tribal managers in the same regions are connected in an interjurisdictional network of practitioners, including public health and veterinary services. 3. Wildlife managers have access to diagnostic services for wildlife disease. Wildlife managers have capacity to manage wildlife health data, data sharing, and communication. Project length is one to three years. Applicants must fill out a survey at the beginning and end of their project. This survey is designed to evaluate the American Rescue Plan Zoonotic Disease Initiative financial assistance program and will not be used to evaluate individual proposals. Link to survey: https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=urWTBhhLe02TQfMvQApUlC0HVXMNMqBMuU8-Gdn0ea9UNlQ5SjVXTFVCWlBCRURWTUdBSFczUU5QQi4u The following activities are eligible for funding: Allowable Actions Examples Best management practices for fish and wildlife diseases Develop all-inclusive Best Management Practices or issue-specific BMPs for fish and wildlife disease such as feeding wildlife, water quality and quantity management, integrated pest management plans Biosecurity & biosafety Develop biosecurity and biosafety protocols/educational resources for field staff, management practices, animal handling, captive facilities; develop and implement biosecurity protocols Communications, internal and external Develop rapid communication structures and relationships for both routine and emergency disease events (in-state, regional, national; wildlife/agriculture/public health); develop a suite of external (public) communication templates for wildlife disease issues Disease forecasting, risk assessments, horizon scanning Identify current and future needs; assessments to identify gaps in capacity; current and future state associated with climate change; environmental persistence and potential routes of exposure to pathogens; identification of spillover hotspots; identification of highly susceptible species locations; wildlife susceptibility research; research on human health implications and economic impact of wildlife diseases; risk assessment of “reverse zoonotic transmission” from humans or between domestic animals and wildlife Disease management planning Disease contingency plans for regions or organizations for emergency and routine morbidity and mortality events; inclusion of guidance for wildlife disease as part of Wildlife Action Plans; development of disease-specific field responses; carcass disposal protocols and agreements; plans for creating a sustainable, long-term disease management program; systems approaches to develop management actions Disease surveillance design Design enhanced surveillance systems for early detection and monitoring at biologically relevant spatial scales that will provide statistically significant results; environmental surveillance approaches (e.g. aquatic surveillance for waterborne pathogens) Emergency response Emergency response plans; develop inter-jurisdictional response capabilities; clarify agency responsibilities and funding streams for covering the costs of emergency response; ensure agency contacts are up to date; set up mutual aid agreements; table top and field exercises; development of an All-Hazards Incident Management Team with fish and wildlife disease skillset; foreign animal disease outbreak plans; After Action analysis (hot wash) of disease response activities and management interventions; structured-decision making/adaptive management/modeling approach to determine how to move forward in a disease response with a large amount of uncertainty; Design long-term monitoring programs to follow-up on response activities and detect recurrence of the disease issue and/or lasting impacts to the population as a result of the disease or the management response to it Hire staff dedicated to fish and wildlife health duties Hire fish and wildlife biologists and technicians to increase field response capabilities for detection of disease events, sample collection, sample processing, data entry, and response);Hirefish and wildlife veterinarians, ecologists, social scientists, biologists to address fish and wildlife health and disease. Human dimensions Examining tolerance of management interventions (e.g. timing, locations); risk perceptions and how those can be influenced or utilized to address disease issues; what messages and messaging formats are most effective; educational campaigns based on human dimensions research; risk communication; knowledge translation and mobilization; Conflict resolution - working with partners to resolve chronic sources of conflict when addressing fish and wildlife health, focus groups, stakeholder meetings, social science evaluations, training in conflict resolution J. Increasing resilience and protecting environmental services to decrease the impact of disease Prevent or decrease human & domestic animal interactions with wildlife; add a component to wildlife action plan for increasing resilience against disease; safe harbor agreements; collaborations with EPA; addressing invasive and injurious species through prevention, response, control of invasive and injurious species that could serve as reservoirs of disease; water and environmental quality K. Information management systems State/Tribe level data management capability, production of reports, maps, data interpretation and visualization; Conversion of legacy data into electronic formats that can be entered into databases; create data management plan; Data sharing strategies between wildlife agencies, or between wildlife/agriculture/public health agencies L. Jurisdictions & authorities Inventory of existing statutory and regulatory framework; conduct a gap analysis of statutes and regulations from detection to recovery; Resolution of inter-jurisdictional issues; Development of laws, regulations, and ordinances; Ensuring an enabling environment exists for wildlife agencies to enact a wildlife health program (legislative authorities) and that agencies have organizational capacity (plans, people, infrastructure), and technical capacities to enact the program (training, etc.) M. Laboratory network and services Establish new or strengthen existing diagnostic networks; Expansion of diagnostic services available; Join a regional diagnostic lab service as a member (e.g. Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study), or establish agreements with state-level and national labs; Logistics and equipment for sample collection, testing, archiving, and storage N. Partnerships and networks Strengthening existing networks and governance structures, creating new networks and partnerships; formalize partnerships through Memoranda of Understanding or other documents; nurturing a wildlife health community of practice to be inclusive of Federal, State, Territorial, and Tribal agencies; activate citizen scientists for disease detection and response O. Policy and regulation development Develop policies and regulations to prevent disease introduction, decrease disease transmission, respond to disease events, increase resilience, measure success, adaptive management, create sustainable fish and wildlife health programs P. Public and occupational health Create guidelines, policy, and outreach regarding biosafety and public health for personnel, volunteers, and visitors; create linkages and collaborations with local, State, Territorial, and Tribal public health offices for routine and emergency events; hire public health expertise Q. Research to develop disease detection and management tools Projects focused on applied disease prevention, surveillance, management, detection techniques, ways to limit disease transmission, promoting resilience, to support an adaptive management approach R. Tools and management strategies development for climate adaptation and mitigation for disease impacts Systematic collection of health data and integration with climatic and environmental data to determine species and populations at risk from health effects of climate change; Utilization of health promotion and harm reduction approaches in development of adaptation strategies; analysis of wildlife or zoonotic diseases prone to expansion due to climatic changes. S. Training Didactic and hands-on courses for biologists, veterinarians, law enforcement officers, volunteers, rehabilitators, and partners on: Fish and wildlife disease, incident management, biosafety/biosecurity/personal protective equipment use; inter-jurisdictional collaborative training; creating consistency in training across States, Territories, and Tribes; establishment of training programs for wildlife health professionals T. Wildlife rehabilitation Instituting and improving biosecurity & biosafety practices of rehabilitators to prevent or minimize disease transmission; developing release protocols to reduce impacts on ecosystems; increasing disease diagnostics for animals submitted to rehabilitators Award funds cannot be used for real property acquisition or construction.