Wildlife Health Reporting Available

New tools that enable the public to report sick or dead wild animals could also lead to the detection and containment of wildlife disease outbreaks that may pose a health risk to people.

The Wildlife Health Event Reporter (WHER) is a new Web site at www.wher.org that enables anyone with an Internet connection to report sightings of sick or dead wildlife.

Researchers in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Wildlife Health Center in Madison created the WHER so that people around the world can easily share information about possible health threats to wildlife and humans.

Users of the WHER create accounts online to register sightings of sick or dead wildlife. Anyone can visit the site to see what others have reported and can subscribe to receive new reports via e-mail.