Canid Conservation Initiative

The Canid Conservation Initiative aims to explore landscape use and disease exposure in free-living carnivores. This research will help show how foxes, coyotes and bobcats are linked to the health of our pets and the environment and how the health of our domestic species may impact their wild counterparts.

The main objectives of this project include: 1) analyze differences in the spatial ecology of the canid species in two ecologically distinct landscapes using the information gathered by the deployment of GPS radio-collars; 2) sample native canids and sympatric carnivores to study the seroprevalence of selected zoonotic diseases (i.e. leptospirosis, Lyme disease, rabies), canid viral diseases (i.e. canine distemper virus, canine parvovirus, canine adenovirus, canine circovirus, canid alphaherpesvirus -1, canine parainfluenza) and vector-borne diseases (i.e. erlichiosis, dirofilariosis, Heartland virus, Bourbon virus) to explore the role of the native carnivore guild as reservoirs for infectious diseases; and 3) explore potential exposure to rodenticides as a silent threat for the canid community.

The project is working in two ecologically distinct study sites: a rural area at the Tyson Research Center, Washington University’s environmental field station near Eureka, Mo.; and a suburban area at the Saint Louis Zoo WildCare Park, located in north St. Louis County.

This Missouri-based project is a collaborative program between the Saint Louis Zoo, the Living Earth Collaborative, Tyson Research Center, and the Endangered Wolf Center.

Project Team

Fernando Nájera, WashU (LEC Post-doc)
Solny Adalsteinsson, WashU (Tyson Research Center)
Karen Bauman, Saint Louis Zoo
Sharon Deem, Saint Louis Zoo
Karen DeMatteo, WashU (Environmental Studies)
Regina Mossotti, Endangered Wolf Center
Lisa Kelley, Saint Louis Zoo
Jamie Palmer, Saint Louis Zoo