The center studies several diseases that affect American wildlife including bat white nose syndrome, chronic wasting disease ( CWD ), avian influenza, and sylvatic plague, among others.
12.
Prey animals are not immune to the disease, and outbreaks of various strains of plague, such as sylvatic plague, have on occasion devastated populations of black-tailed prairie dogs and black-footed ferrets.
13.
Adomestic cat and a bobcat in the nearby community of Keene also died of pneumonic plague, a more contagious and dangerous form of bubonic plague or the sylvatic plague that is endemic among California ground squirrels and other rodents.
14.
This is a major reason for the population decline, though there are other factors, such as " land development, deteriorating rangeland health, the encroachment of woody vegetation, sylvatic plague, and drought . " Conservation efforts include encouraging landowners to improve the health of their rangelands, and compensating farmers who set aside areas the prairie dogs may use.
