Kristin Warren

The platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) is a unique monotreme endemic to eastern Australia, yet little is known about the prevalence and impact of protozoan infections in wild populations. This study investigated the occurrence of protozoan parasites and associated health parameters in wild platypuses from New South Wales (NSW), Australia, with a focus on seasonal variation and demographic risk factors. A total of 90 sampling events (79 individuals and 11 recaptures) yielded 72 blood and 81 faecal samples for parasitological screening through targeted molecular techniques. Theileria ornithorhynchi was detected in 100 % of blood samples (95 % CI: 95.01–100), confirming its widespread distribution and high prevalence in NSW platypuses. Trypanosoma spp. were identified in 40.3 % of blood samples (95 % CI: 28.88–52.50), and sequencing confirmed the presence of Trypanosoma binneyi, reported here for the first time in NSW. Toxoplasma gondii was detected in one sub-adult male (1.39 %, 95 % CI: 0.04–7.50). No blood samples tested positive for Plasmodium spp. (0 %, 95 % CI: 0–4.99). In addition, all faecal samples tested negative for Cryptosporidium spp. and Giardia sp. (0 %, 95 % CI: 0–4.45). Boosted Regression Tree (BRT) analysis identified season as the primary risk factor for Tr. binneyi infection (RI 89.5 %), with higher prevalence in summer. Males were also at increased risk (RI 10.5 %), while age class and location (river catchment) had no measurable influence. Season also significantly affected physiological parameters, including tail volume index (TVI) and packed cell volume (PCV). These findings expand the known distribution of protozoan parasites and provide new insights into the seasonal dynamics of parasitic infections in wild platypuses. This study contributes to the understanding of platypus health ecology and highlights the importance of long-term, seasonally informed monitoring programs.

Wildlife toxicology faces increasing threats from pesticide use, yet the impacts on biodiversity remain unclear, as current toxicity thresholds often rely on laboratory data that do not reflect environmental exposure. Here we present a two-step methodology integrating ecotoxicology and movement ecology to investigate pesticide exposure in endangered Carnaby’s cockatoos (Zanda latirostris). Using GPS telemetry and satellite tracking, this study identified pesticide exposure sites and quantified the likelihood and consequences of exposure. A total of 26 pesticides were detected in forage sources (agricultural seed), with 80% of seed samples having one or more pesticides detected. The Maximum Residue Limit (MRL) was exceeded for multiple pesticides including imidacloprid, thiamethoxam, clothianidin, difenoconazole and metalaxyl. Results have highlighted the risks that granivorous birds face being exposed to insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides in agroecosystems. This methodology is broad in scope and applicable across species, providing the ecological realism missing in laboratory-based studies. [Display omitted]

The ability to efficiently derive insights from wildlife necropsy data is essential for advancing conservation and One Health objectives, yet close reading remains the mainstay of knowledge retrieval from ubiquitous free-text clinical data. This time-consuming process poses a barrier to the efficient utilisation of such valuable resources. This study evaluates part of a bespoke text-mining application, DEE (Describe, Explore, Examine), designed for extracting insights from free-text necropsy reports housed in Aotearoa New Zealand’s Wildbase Pathology Register. A pilot test involving nine veterinary professionals assessed DEE’s ability to quantify the occurrence of four clinicopathologic findings (external oiling, trauma, diphtheritic stomatitis, and starvation) across two species datasets by comparison to manual review. Performance metrics—recall, precision, and F1-score—were calculated and analysed alongside tester-driven misclassification patterns. Findings reveal that while DEE (and the principals underlying its function) offers time-efficient data retrieval, its performance is influenced by search term selection and the breadth of vocabulary which may describe a clinicopathologic finding. Those findings characterized by limited terminological variance, such as external oiling, yielded the highest performance scores and the most consistency across application testers. Mean F1-scores across all tested findings and application testers was 0.63–0.93. Results highlight the utility and limitations of term-based text-mining approaches and suggests that enhancements to automatically capture this terminological variance may be necessary for broader implementation. This pilot study highlights the potential of relatively simple, rule-based text-mining approaches to derive insights natural language wildlife data in the support of One Health goals.

Context
Links between tapir health and environmental conditions are well-established, but substantial knowledge gaps on biological and environmental causes of ill-health remain. Furthermore, anthropogenic impacts and climate change effects on disease patterns are escalating issues.

Aims
Our study aimed to build on earlier research on wild lowland tapir (Tapirus terrestris) health and investigate risk factors and potential consequences associated with infectious agents.

Methods
Between 2008 and 2018, 174 samples from 115 wild lowland tapirs across two contrasting locations in Brazil were screened for four infectious agents (bluetongue virus, porcine parvovirus, Leptospira interrogans serovar Pomona, and Trypanosoma terrestris), along with clinical and haematological findings. Generalised linear models and boosted regression trees were applied to evaluate associations with risk factors, likely disease consequences, and meteorological conditions.

Key results
Tapirs in human-modified areas presented higher risk of exposure to livestock pathogens such as bluetongue virus (relative influence (RI) 94.2%) and porcine parvovirus (RI 58.5%), whereas those in pristine habitats exhibited higher risk to Trypanosoma terrestris (RI 92.5%) and Leptospira sp. (RI 39.9%). Bluetongue cases increased from one in Year 2 to 35 in Year 10 (odds ratio 2.90, 95% CI 2.12–3.97, P < 0.001). Significant associations were found between infectious agents and pale mucous membranes (RI 85.5%), high tick burden (RI 78.4%), low red (RI 78.3%) and high white (RI 38.1%) blood cell counts, and presence of wounds (RI 59.1%). Poor body condition was weakly linked to all variables. Elevated alkaline phosphatase, glucose, and total protein levels demonstrated associations with infectious agents, whereas high creatine kinase was linked to capture-related stress. No significant associations with meteorological data were detected.

Conclusions
Our study highlighted the complex influence of biological and environmental conditions on infectious disease dynamics in tapirs. Location emerged as the main risk factor for pathogen occurrence, with biomarkers such as heavy tick burden, pale mucous membranes, presence of wounds, high white blood cell count, and low red blood cell count representing key indicators of tapir health.

Implications
Our research has provided robust scientific evidence addressing long-standing hypotheses on tapir health, supporting practical applications and informing wildlife management and disease surveillance research.

Manual review of necropsy records through close reading and collation is a time-consuming process, leading to delays in knowledge acquisition, communication of findings, and subsequent actions. Text-mining techniques offer a means to reduce these barriers by automating the extraction of information from large volumes of free-text clinical reports, minimizing the need for manual review. Additionally, interactive dashboards enable end users to interrogate data dynamically, tailoring analyses to their specific needs and objectives. Here, we describe the principles underlying an application designed to extract and visualize information from free-text necropsy records within the Wildbase Pathology register. Reflecting the structure of a traditional necropsy review-where each record is examined in detail to identify and collate key observations-the application is divided into three sections. The first allows a user to upload a dataset in comma separated value format as downloaded from the Wildbase Pathology Register. A user can then filter and interrogate selected signalment variables of the population within this dataset. The second section uses established text-mining calculations of word correlations and Latent Dirichlet Allocation to generate visualisations to give a user a subjective sense of common themes found within the uploaded data. The third and final section uses a custom rule-based algorithm to identify and quantify positive occurrences of clinicopathologic findings as input by an end user. The foundational methods employed in this application have the potential for broader application in veterinary and medical pathology, facilitating more efficient and timely access to critical insights.

Population age structure is an important parameter for wildlife population modelling. However, for many species it is not possible to accurately assess the age of adult individuals. We present a hypothetical example to illustrate a previously described method of determining population age structure from the survivorship of individuals of unknown ages that to our knowledge is unused in the fields of zoology and ecology. We then apply this method to data collected over 10 years for a population of wild platypuses (Ornithorhynchus anatinus), a species whose adult individuals cannot be accurately aged and for which only limited data on life history characteristics are available. Our results show a lower mortality rate over the first years of life of platypuses than the one previous study available for comparison, and suggested a Type I or Type III survivorship curve.

Introduction
Physiological responses to anaesthesia are described for the first time in eastern barred bandicoot (EBB; Perameles gunnii) and southern brown bandicoot (SBB; Isoodon obesulus).

Method
Two hundred and six field anaesthetics were carried out on free-ranging bandicoots (82 EBB and 66 SBB) in North West Tasmania. Animals were induced and maintained under general anaesthesia using isoflurane administered via a face mask.

Results
On average, animals required 3% isoflurane for anaesthesia maintenance and recovered within 2–3 min of isoflurane being discontinued. SBB had higher respiratory rates than EBB. Otherwise, we found no significant differences in anaesthetic parameters between the bandicoot species, between sexes or for females with pouch young. Hypothermia was the only anaesthetic-associated adverse event during this study, occurring in 26 anaesthetics (12.6%). At the start of anaesthesia, bandicoots had a mean body temperature of 35.0°C (SEM 0.8, SD 1.2), and 95% of animals lost temperature during anaesthesia. Bandicoots with an initial body temperature of less than 34.5°C had 20 times greater risk (odds ratio 20.52, 95% CI 5.58–77.19) of developing hypothermia (defined as Tb < 33°C). Heart rates ranged from 100 to >300 beats per minute, and respiratory rates ranged from 8 to 64 breaths per minute. Data support a heart rate reference interval of 140–285 (mean 208, SD 42.72) and a respiratory rate interval of 10–34 for SBB (mean 21, SD 8.89) and 8–20 for EBB (mean 12, SD 4.72) during maintenance of inhalant anaesthesia.

Conclusions
With hypothermia the only anaesthesia-related adverse event during this study, results support the safety of this form of chemical restraint in the field and provide empirical data that may be used to guide anaesthesia for bandicoots. Results suggest that standard inhalational anaesthetic protocols are suitable for bandicoots irrespective of weight, sex and reproductive status.

Wildlife necropsy databases often provide data for morbidity and mortality studies of free-ranging species, with implicit relevance for conservation goals, as well as domestic animal and human health. Retrospective reviews are a common way to derive insights from such opportunistic data, despite the methodological difficulties of performing these analyses, alongside findings being prone to bias. This study reviews morbidity and mortality data from Sphenisciformes of Aotearoa New Zealand, using records extracted and manually refined from submissions to the national Wildbase Pathology Register. The review corroborates the broader consensus that hoiho (yellow eyed penguin, Megadyptes antipodes) are most commonly diagnosed with infectious/inflammatory disease (43.1%, 422/978 diagnoses), kororā (blue penguin, Eudyptula minor) with traumatic injuries (42.9%, 156/364 diagnoses), and emaciation being a common finding across both species (33.9%, 393/1463 diagnoses). Further, there are marked spatiotemporal trends in submissions, driven primarily by the affected species and the submitting organisations, highlighting the biases within such databases that must be factored into the application of results. Typographical errors, redundancies from synonymous terms, and missing data are captured as barriers to performing manual reviews of free-text data. Overall, this study highlights strengths and limitations of storage and review of wildlife necropsy data while providing insight into threats faced by the penguins of Aotearoa.

The impact of diseases on tapir mortality and potential implications for preventive medicine and conservation remain unclear. A systematic literature review was conducted using seven databases and grey literature to address these gaps. The PRISMA statement was adopted to report results, and boosted regression tree models were employed for data analysis. After screening 5323 records and removing duplicates, the title and abstract of 2484 records were assessed. Out of 502 eligible studies, only 206 met all inclusion criteria. These were published between 1924 and 2023 in ten languages, comprising mainly case reports (45.1 %) and cross-sectional studies (41.3 %). Infectious diseases were found in 72.9 % of the reports, and 27.2 % presented clinical signs. The most affected systems were gastroenteric (22.7 %), integumentary (22.1 %), and respiratory (17.5 %). Respiratory diseases were associated with increased mortality. Factors affecting tapir mortality included species (relative influence 41.5 %), followed by geographic location (23.5 %) and captivity (16.8 %). Clinical signs were the least important variable (4 %). While infectious diseases were associated with higher mortality risk, tapirs were more likely to become ill from non-infectious than infectious diseases. Captive individuals were also more likely to present with illness than their wild counterparts. When considering external causes, vehicle collisions represented the most significant cause of death (52.2 %), followed by hunting (38.2 %). Diseases (8.7 %) were the third most important, with bacterial infections the leading cause of death. This review represents the most comprehensive overview on tapir health to date and provides novel ways to collate epidemiological data from disparate study designs.

The collection of baseline health data is an essential component of an endangered species conservation program. As for many wildlife species, there are minimal health data available for wild populations of the endangered Carnaby’s cockatoo (Zanda latirostris). In this study, 426 wild Carnaby’s cockatoo nestlings were sampled from nine breeding sites throughout the range of the species over an 11-year period. In addition to a physical examination, samples were collected to test for hematologic and biochemical parameters, psittacine beak and feather disease virus (BFDV), avian polyomavirus (APV), psittacine adenovirus, psittacine herpesvirus, Chlamydia, disease serology and endoparasites. Environmental sampling was performed to screen for BFDV and APV in nest hollows. Descriptive health data are presented for nestlings of this species, with BFDV, APV and Chlamydia infections reported. Reference intervals for hematologic and biochemical parameters are presented in three age groups, and factors affecting blood analytes and body condition index are discussed. This longitudinal dataset provides insights into health parameters for Carnaby’s cockatoo nestlings and a reference for future monitoring of breeding populations.