When conservation management becomes contraindicated: impact of food supplementation on health of endangered wildlife
When conservation management becomes contraindicated: impact of food supplementation on health of endangered wildlife
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DOI：
10.1890/11-0038.1
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发表时间：
2011-10-01
影响因子：
5
通讯作者：
Garcia-Montijano, Marino
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Blanco, Guillermo;Lemus, Jesus A.;Garcia-Montijano, Marino
了解的条件下，迫使执行管理行动和他们的效率是至关重要的濒危物种的保护。野生动物管理人员正在广泛和越来越多地使用这些物种的食物补充剂，因为潜在的直接利益可能转化为快速的保护改善。补充喂养还可能带来风险，最终导致不受欢迎的、意外的、微妙的或间接的、通常不被注意的影响，而这些影响通常人们知之甚少。二十年来，强化食物补充剂一直被用于试图提高西班牙帝国鹰的繁殖力，Aquila adalberti是世界上最濒危的猛禽之一。在这里，我们研究了这种密集的管理行动对雏鸟健康的影响，包括污染，免疫抑制，以及来自补充技术和提供食物的疾病病原体的收购。与管理层的预期相反，我们发现，喂养的个体往往无意中“用药”与药物（抗生素和抗寄生虫药）所载的补充食品（家兔）。与那些没有或安全的补充饲料使用非药物的野兔相比，与药物兔子喂养的个体表现出免疫系统低下和病原体的高患病率和丰富度。在补充喂养的小鹰中，与健康个体相比，患病个体中存在更高的抗生素（氟喹诺酮类），这直接指向这些药物对疾病和其他健康损害的因果影响。这项研究是一个很好的例子，善意的管理策略，而不是基于健全的科学证据成为一个“禁忌”的行动，有害的影响破坏可能的有益效果，增加了随机因素的影响濒危野生动物的灭绝风险。
Understanding the conditions that force the implementation of management actions and their efficiency is crucial for conservation of endangered species. Wildlife managers are widely and increasingly using food supplementation for such species because the potentially immediate benefits may translate into rapid conservation improvements. Supplementary feeding can also pose risks eventually promoting undesired, unexpected, subtle, or indirect, and often unnoticed, effects that are generally poorly understood. For two decades, intensive food supplementation has been used in attempting to improve the breeding productivity of the Spanish Imperial Eagle, Aquila adalberti, one of the most endangered birds of prey in the world. Here, we examined the impact of this intensive management action on nestling health, including contamination, immunodepression, and acquisition of disease agents derived from supplementation techniques and provisioned food. Contrary to management expectations, we found that fed individuals were often inadvertently "medicated" with pharmaceuticals (antibiotics and antiparasitics) contained in supplementary food (domestic rabbits). Individuals fed with medicated rabbits showed a depressed immune system and a high prevalence and richness of pathogens compared with those with no or safe supplementary feeding using non-medicated wild rabbits. A higher presence of antibiotics (fluoroquinolones) was found in sick as opposed to healthy individuals among eaglets with supplementary feeding, which points directly toward a causal effect of these drugs in disease and other health impairments. This study represents a telling example of well-meaning management strategies not based on sound scientific evidence becoming a "contraindicated" action with detrimental repercussions undermining possible beneficial effects by increasing the impact of stochastic factors on extinction risk of endangered wildlife.