Environmental health risks of supplementary feeding of game species

Supplementary feeding of wildlife has been a widely debated topic recently, partly due to rapid increases in ungulate populations. Despite the importance of the topic for many stakeholders, research on the health- and environmental effects of supplementary feeding have been basically non-existent. In Finland, feeding is especially popular for hunting of white-tailed deer, roe deer and wild boar. Often used feeds are maize, different cereals, fruits and vegetables. Yet, in addition to the targeted species, the feeding sites lure vast amounts of other species (small mammals and predators) as well due to the variety of available food and/or the increased rodent population.

Supplementary feeding affects the target animals and their populations directly. While beneficial for the animal nutrition and e.g. winter-time survival, the negative effects include the increased risk of pathogen transmission. Indeed, the cascading risk that the gathering of multiple species and animal individuals around the same feeding site causes to disease transmission has been suggested as one of the serious negative risks of feeding. It causes risks to not only the wildlife, but potentially the domesticated animals ranging in the nearby pastures as the transmission probability of animal-borne diseases increases due to increased contact risk of wildlife and domesticated animals.

This project aims at 1.) documenting the range of animal species that visit the feeding sites, 2.) the range of different disease agents and pathogens (e.g. bacteria, viruses, parasites) that are present at the feeding sites, 3.) assess the mechanisms and risks for these diseases to spread from wildlife to domesticated animals in the agroenvironment and 4.) communicate the results openly to all the relevant stakeholders, decision makers as well as the wider public. The project is a joint project between Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke) and Finnish Food Authority (Ruokavirasto)