Raccoon (<i>Procyon lotor</i>) Movements and Dispersal Associated with Ridges and Valleys of Pennsylvania: Implications for Rabies Management

Puskas, Robert B.; Fischer, Justin W.; Swope, Craig B.; Dunbar, Mike R.; McLean, Robert G.; Root, J. Jeffrey

doi:10.1089/vbz.2009.0079

Cited by 14 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…However, raccoons might also inhabit suboptimal habitats at lower densities. It is important to know the drivers of raccoon invasions, the potential habitats, as well as the barriers for their expansion [22] to predict further changes in their distribution and to delineate focal areas for high-priority management.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental drivers of raccoon (Procyon lotor L.) occurrences in Austria - established versus newly invaded regions

Duscher¹,

Zeveloff²,

Michler³

et al. 2018

Arch biol sci (Beogr)

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As we are faced with the imminent spread of the raccoon (Procyon lotor L.), a successful and highly adaptable invader in Europe, it is necessary to identify the drivers of its distribution and focal areas of its future management. Being an omnivorous species, raccoons can exert considerable influence on prey species of various taxa. Species distribution models for this invasive species can be useful tools for its management. Using a presence-only model (MaxEnt) based on environmental variables selected by raccoon experts, the presence of raccoons in Austria was predicted. Core areas of raccoon colonization are mainly located in and around cities and river valleys. Identified ecological drivers of raccoon distribution comprise climate and land-cover variables, with temperature parameters (e.g. the number of hot days, mean January temperature), the proportion of coniferous forests, settlements and elevation mainly influencing the model output. The importance of habitat parameters changes with the stage of invasion. In Austria's established regions, the probability of raccoon presence was best predicted by variables chosen by an expert of the raccoon's native range, while the predictors chosen by an expert in its introduced range better reflected the situation in recently invaded regions. The significance of climate and land cover in understanding the probability of raccoon presence was shown.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental drivers of raccoon (Procyon lotor L.) occurrences in Austria - established versus newly invaded regions

Duscher¹,

Zeveloff²,

Michler³

et al. 2018

Arch biol sci (Beogr)

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“…Landscape and habitat: Landscape and habitat can have a range of impacts on the efficacy of vaccination regimes. Together they result in heterogeneous distributions, densities and dispersal movements/contacts of wild vertebrate species that result in spatially variable uptake of baits (Beasley et al, ; Olson & Werner, ; Puskas et al, ; Reynolds, Hirsch, Gehrt, & Craft, ). If this is not taken into account in the design of vaccination campaigns, reduced efficacy or simply failure may result (Sillero‐Zubiri et al, ).…”

Section: Ecological Considerations In Designing and Implementing Campmentioning

confidence: 99%

Baited vaccines: A strategy to mitigate rodent‐borne viral zoonoses in humans

Mendoza

Warner

Kobinger

et al. 2018

Zoonoses and Public Health

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Rodents serve as the natural reservoir and vector for a variety of pathogens, some of which are responsible for severe and life-threatening disease in humans. Despite the significant impact in humans many of these viruses, including Old and New World hantaviruses as well as Arenaviruses, most have no specific vaccine or therapeutic to treat or prevent human infection. The recent success of wildlife vaccines to mitigate rabies in animal populations offers interesting insight into the use of similar strategies for other zoonotic agents of human disease. In this review, we discuss the notion of using baited vaccines as a means to interrupt the transmission of viral pathogens between rodent reservoirs and to susceptible human hosts.

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“…One hypothesis is that this may be due to the high ridges to the west acting as a physical barrier to raccoon (and virus) movement, 28,29 although studies examining this hypothesis have been equivocal. 30,31 To our knowledge, this is only the second ecological study to examine RRV in WV with an eye toward possible predictors, and clustering, of cases. The prior study indicated that rurality, as derived from the UIC, and percentage of agricultural land use were the only factors significantly predictive of RRV infection, with cases increasing as agricultural land use increased and as counties became less rural.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…30 Interestingly, the same investigators, using telemetry on individual raccoons in the same area, indicated that there was little evidence of animals crossing the ridge and suggested that the spur valleys that tended to run perpendicular to the ridge acted as corridors for raccoon movement. 31 They addressed the seeming contradiction between the two studies by pointing out that they had effectively three populations in their study, one on the ridgetop and one in each of the adjacent valleys, and while their study provided little evidence of contact between the valleys, there was contact by animals from each valley with the ridgetop population. 31 As such, the ridgetop animals acted as a conduit for exchange of genetic material between the valleys.…”

Section: Factors Associated With Spread Of Rrvmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…31 They addressed the seeming contradiction between the two studies by pointing out that they had effectively three populations in their study, one on the ridgetop and one in each of the adjacent valleys, and while their study provided little evidence of contact between the valleys, there was contact by animals from each valley with the ridgetop population. 31 As such, the ridgetop animals acted as a conduit for exchange of genetic material between the valleys. It should be noted that the ridge in these studies had an elevation of 2866 ft. (874 m), which is comparable to, or exceeded substantially by, the mean elevation of several counties in eastern West Virginia.…”

Section: Factors Associated With Spread Of Rrvmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Exploratory Longitudinal, Spatial and Spatiotemporal Evaluation of the Raccoon Variant Rabies Virus in West Virginia, 2000- 2015

Plants¹

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Background and Objectives: Rabies is an almost invariably fatal viral disease of mammals. In West Virginia, there are two variants of the rabies virus, bat and raccoon. Raccoon rabies (RRV) was introduced subsequent to a release by hunters, and has since spread throughout the Northeastern United States and into Canada. There has been a notable lack of westward movement, however. The objectives of these studies are to 1) examine the behavior of RRV temporally during the study period 2) determine whether there are spatial determinants that may be associated with RRV incidence and 3) examine whether the change of spatial determinants with time over the study period can be correlated with changes in RRV incidence. Secondary objectives included evaluation of the oral rabies vaccine program, determination of whether clustering of disease occurred in the state, and examination of whether there were changes in RRV behavior in varying animal hosts. Methods: County-level surveillance data were obtained from the West Virginia state health department and combined with geographic data from a number of publicly available databases. In the first study, RRV case numbers were examined to determine any trends over the study period, 2000-2015, and trends were compared for counties where oral rabies vaccination had occurred and those without vaccination program implementation, using negative binomial regression techniques and z-score comparisons. The second study evaluated several geospatial characteristics of the counties for association with disease incidence and clustering of disease, using Poisson spatial conditional autocorrelation regression within a Bayesian environment and local indicators of spatial autocorrelation. In the third study, integrated nested Laplace approximation (INLA) and negative binomial regression were utilized to allow simultaneous adjustment for the random effects of both time and space. In each study, analyses were performed for the data as a whole, in addition to analyses of various host subpopulations. Results: Study 1. Analyses found statistically significant (p < 0.05) reductions in case numbers over the study period and showed that incidence rates were declining at significantly higher rates in counties where oral rabies vaccination had been deployed. Incidence showed significant declines for all animals in the study and the raccoon only subpopulation, but similar declines could not be shown in non-raccoon wildlife or domestic animals. Study 2. Statistically significant clustering of RRV cases was demonstrated for all host types examined, with clustering tending to occur in the eastern portion of the state and overlapping for the various host types. Several geospatial variables were shown to be significantly associated (credible intervals did not include 0) with RRV incidence, with several of the variables recurring among the host types. Study 3. Regression analyses that compensated for spatial and temporal autocorrelation showed that many of the variables found to be associated in study 2 did not r...

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Raccoon (Procyon lotor) Movements and Dispersal Associated with Ridges and Valleys of Pennsylvania: Implications for Rabies Management

Cited by 14 publications

References 19 publications

Environmental drivers of raccoon (Procyon lotor L.) occurrences in Austria - established versus newly invaded regions

Environmental drivers of raccoon (Procyon lotor L.) occurrences in Austria - established versus newly invaded regions

Baited vaccines: A strategy to mitigate rodent‐borne viral zoonoses in humans

Exploratory Longitudinal, Spatial and Spatiotemporal Evaluation of the Raccoon Variant Rabies Virus in West Virginia, 2000- 2015

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