Report of the WOAH Working Group on Wildlife – December 2022

Summary
The Working Group highlighted that comprehensive needs for health of free-ranging wildlife populations were largely unaddressed by international organisations and agencies. Therefore, WOAH had the opportunity to provide leadership in this area.
The Working Group discussed opportunities for WOAH to play a leadership role in wildlife health in line with its existing mandate and mission.
WOAH could develop standards and/or guidelines that promote wild animal health and conservation within a One Health framework. The current WOAH guidelines and standards could be reviewed to identify opportunities for mutually beneficial outcomes for domestic and wild animal health and to consider wild animals from an environmental and ecological perspective.
Opportunities to play a leadership role in One Health frameworks included better integrating wildlife health and ecosystem health into its operations, in support of the objectives of the WOAH Wildlife Health Framework. Specific activities under the Wildlife Health Framework, included:
i. Enhanced wildlife disease surveillance and reporting
ii. Capacity enhancement:
− Strengthened Collaborating Centre Network to support delivery of the Wildlife Health Framework;
− Inclusion of wild animal considerations and capacity assessment in PVS framework (assessment criteria, experts on missions etc.) to support countries in assessing wildlife health needs.
iii. Education and training:
− Strengthen the wildlife focal point network;
− Extend the WOAH network by including additional partnerships with wildlife health experts and international conservation organisations;
− Consider including Wildlife Value Chain Risk Assessment into WOAH training activities and tools.