Application for UC Davis Global One Health Project Grant 1. Title of ...

Application for UC Davis Global One Health Project Grant
1. Title of Partnership: Enhancing collaboration and social innovation in wildlife disease risk
analysis through the use of virtual communication technologies
2. Project Leader
Dr. Onnie Byers, Executive Director, IUCN/SSC Conservation Breeding Specialist Group (CBSG).
onnie@cbsg.org
U.S. mail address: 12101 Johnny Cake Ridge Rd, Apple Valley, MN 55124-8151
Tel: 952-997-9800, onnie@cbsg.org
3. Project Team Members:
Ms. Caroline Lees, Co-Convener, CBSG Australasia, Auckland, New Zealand
Dr. Richard Jakob-Hoff, Senior Veterinarian, New Zealand Centre for Conservation Medicine; Adjunct
Associate Professor, School of Veterinary and Biomedical Science, Murdoch University, Western
Australia; Co-Convener, CBSG Australasia
Dr. Phil Miller, Senior Program Officer, CBSG
Training Team Members
Dr. Dominic Travis, Associate Professor of Wildlife Epidemiologist, College of Veterinary Medicine,
University of Minnesota
Dr. Stuart Macdiarmid, Principal International Adviser, Risk Analysis, Ministry of Agriculture and
Forestry, New Zealand
Dr. Dan Tompkins, Disease Ecologist, Landcare Research, New Zealand
Prof. Richard Kock, Professor Wildlife Health and Emerging Diseases, Royal Veterinary College
London. United Kingdom; Co-Chair IUCN-SSC Wildlife Health Specialist Group (WHSG)
4. Partnership Goals and Objectives
1. To engage and harness the knowledge and skills of a global trans-disciplinary team.
2. To test and review a range of virtual communication tools to facilitate collaboration of a broad
diversity of people concerned with wildlife disease-related decision-making processes.
3. To collaboratively develop an open access set of processes and tools, endorsed by IUCN, that address
disease threats to biodiversity conservation, including human and domestic animal health.
4. To further harness the team’s creativity, knowledge, and experience in the development of a Wildlife
Disease Risk Analysis (DRA) Training Module.
5. To minimize the negative environmental and financial impacts of our work through decreased air and
ground travel and individual financial burdens.
5. Justification of partnership in terms of global “one health” dilemmas and synergy
Disease is an increasingly serious threat to the sustainability of a growing number of wildlife species. The
continuing expansion of human populations and their domestic animals into wilderness areas is also
fuelling an upsurge of emerging and re-emerging diseases that cross former species boundaries while
global warming is enabling the dispersal of disease vectors into new territories. Thus, in addition to its
significance to conservation, wildlife disease has economic and human health importance. Consequently,
an expanding range of organisations and individuals are concerned with the assessment and analysis of
risks associated with wildlife disease to assist with informed decision making - often with limited data.
However, despite this growing interest in developing the science of conservation medicine, we lack a
coherent collection of qualitative and quantitative tools that those concerned with wildlife disease can use

to systematically assemble relevant data, objectively analyze disease risk, and confidently make informed
management recommendations.
The ‘One Health’ paradigm and new disciplines like Conservation Medicine have emerged in an effort to
address the complexity of disease within a broader ecological context than the currently dominant
individual species focus. The trans-disciplinary and global collaborations required to enable this shift in
direction will be greatly facilitated by the development and use of a range of virtual communications tools.
6. Long-range Potential of Partnership and Potential Sources of Funding for Future Activities
CBSG’s work in conservation is based on a central philosophy that people from many different
backgrounds and perspectives are required to address the global biodiversity crisis. Therefore, CBSG
emphasizes the exchange of information across diverse groups to reach agreement on the important
challenges facing humans and wildlife. Currently, our Disease Risk Analysis initiative is doing this by
bringing people together in interactive, participatory workshops that provide an objective environment,
expert knowledge, and thoughtful group facilitation. Through developing a broad understanding of
challenges and alternative solutions, disease risk workshop participants can produce meaningful and
practical tools that impact wildlife health and generate political and social support for conservation action
– from local communities to national political authorities.
CBSG has evolved greatly in its over 30 years of operation, and is now faced with the opportunity of
taking what could be a most dramatic and significant leap forward. We have always been a participatory,
collaborative organization with a philosophy of openness and inclusiveness. Today, technological tools
are available that will allow us to engage this philosophy on a scale never before imagined. This project is
designed to bring these concepts to the forefront of our thinking, to engage the leaders in the field of
wildlife health in meaningful discussion of the implications of these virtual tools on our work, and to
develop a Wildlife DRA Training Module through the use of this technology. .
7. Strategy to Achieve Objectives
1. Engage and expand the global trans-disciplinary DRA team developed over the last year – see
https://sites.google.com/site/cbsgdratoolkitreview/project-team.
2. With the DRA team, review, test and evaluate the effectiveness of a range of freely and commercially
available virtual communication and collaboration tools.
3. Implement the strategy and timeline for completion of the DRA tools and processes as detailed in the
Disease Risk Analysis Tool Development Workshop Report, April 2011 (attached as PDF).
4. Hire expertise in the development of e-learning resources and adult learning principles to develop and
pilot a Wildlife DRA Training Module.
8. Indicators of Success
1. Identification and introduction to the global wildlife health community, of a powerful, effective, and
easy to use virtual collaboration toolkit.
2. A published guide to the use of this toolkit - including principles of facilitating workshops within a
virtual environment.
3. The production and implementation of an electronic Wildlife Disease Risk Analysis Training Module.
9. Evaluation Methodology
We will apply a Project Logic framework that details, for each objective the rationale, detailed strategy,
evaluation questions and sources of evaluation data. Metrics will include:
Representation of the broad range of wildlife health stakeholder groups
A virtual tool users satisfaction survey following the piloting of the DRA Training Module at a virtual
training workshop
Publication of the Virtual Collaboration Toolkit Guide

10. Budget
Virtual Tools/DRA Program Officer (responsible for oversight of the project, and coordination and
conduct of virtual tool identification, testing and training in the DRA context, and production of DRA
training module); 18 hours/week for one year
US18,000
Purchase of preferred software (est)
Development of e-learning resources, adult learning principles and evaluation
Total
Projected support from One Health Fund
Funds provided from CBSG operating budget
US$1,000
US$4,000
US$23,000
US$10,000
US$13,000
11. Biosketches
Dr. Onnie Byers
Onnie earned her Ph.D. in reproductive physiology from the University of Minnesota and
completed a post doctoral fellowship at the Smithsonian Institution's National Zoo in Washington
D.C. She joined the IUCN/SSC CBSG staff in 1991 as a Program Officer and is currently
serving as the organization’s Executive Director. For over 30 years the CBSG has been the
highly effective mechanism through which zoos and aquariums provide expertise and knowledge
to the IUCN’s Species Survival Commission. In addition to oversight of the CBSG executive
office, Onnie, along with her colleagues, is responsible for organization, design and facilitation of
species conservation planning workshops and strategic planning for conservation organizations.
Onnie is dedicated to the transfer of CBSG’s tools and processes to conservationists around the
world through the establishment and nurturing of regional and national CBSG Networks.
Ms. Caroline Lees
Caroline Lees is a conservation biologist with a particular interest in the application of small
population biology to threatened species recovery. She is currently the Co-convenor of CBSG
Australasia and a member of the IUCN/SSC Conservation Planning Sub-committee. In a
previous role with the regional zoo association she developed principles and processes for widescale,
science-based management of zoo populations towards conservation objectives and
provided training, technical support and quality control for the region’s captive programme
coordinators. Since joining CBSG two years ago she has worked as a population modeller and
facilitator on a number of projects, including meta-population planning for Tasmanian devils and
mala, and conservation planning for mountain bongos and scimitar-horned oryx. She is currently
working on the development of virtual workshop environments for conservation planning and on
the compilation and evaluation of conservation planning tools relevant to the IUCN’s new
species conservation planning protocol.
Dr Richard Jakob-Hoff
Richard Jakob-Hoff is Senior Veterinarian - Conservation and Research at the New Zealand
Centre for Conservation Medicine (NZCCM) at Auckland Zoo. He has also worked in zoos in

England, Jersey, and Australia and has been involved in many captive for release wildlife
conservation programmes. He is co-author of the CBSG publication 'Animal Movements and
Disease Risk' (2002); consultant to NZ Department of Conservation on wildlife health and
disease risk issues - primary application of DRA tools has been in relation to wildlife
translocations within New Zealand but increasingly addressing the growing need to apply these
tools to disease risks to wildlife in situ.
richard.jakob-hoff@aucklandcouncil.govt.nz
Dr. Phil Miller
Phil is a Senior Program Officer with the Conservation Breeding Specialist Group (CBSG), an
international wildlife conservation organization that is part of the Species Survival Commission
of the IUCN. Academically trained as a population geneticist and conservation biologist (PhD,
Arizona State University), Phil integrates the use of computer simulation approaches for
population viability analysis with group facilitation tools to develop conservation strategies
across a broad diversity of endangered wildlife species and against an equally diverse human
cultural background. Through planning and conducting more than 75 risk assessment workshops
in nearly 40 countries around the world, he has helped local people plan for endangered species
conservation in the explicit context of human activities on the landscape. Phil has also been
involved in CBSG’s Disease Risk Assessment project since the mid-1990’s, focusing primarily
on the collaborative development of the disease dynamics simulation model called Outbreak, now
used by CBSG and colleagues around the world to explore the impacts of disease on wildlife
populations. His new area of research involves the integration of population viability analysis
with tools from the field of decision analysis to help local wildlife management officials make
more informed decisions for species and habitat conservation.