Reframing wildlife disease management problems with decision analysis

• Published in: Conservation biology 2024-08, Vol.38 (4), p.e14284-n/a
• Main Authors: McEachran, Margaret C., Harvey, Johanna A., Mummah, Riley O., Bletz, Molly C., Teitelbaum, Claire S., Rosenblatt, Elias, Rudolph, F. Javiera, Arce, Fernando, Yin, Shenglai, Prosser, Diann J., Mosher, Brittany A., Mullinax, Jennifer M., DiRenzo, Graziella V., Couret, Jannelle, Runge, Michael C., Grant, Evan H. Campbell, Cook, Jonathan D.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Animal diseases; análisis de decisión; applied science; Avian flu; Chytridiomycosis; ciencia aplicada; Context; Coronaviruses; COVID-19; Decision analysis; Decision making; decisiones estructuradas; Disease management; enfermedad infecciosa de fauna; enfermedad zoonótica; Fauna; Influenza; Information management; Knowledge management; knowledge–implementation gap; Respiratory diseases; Severe acute respiratory syndrome; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; structured decision‐making; Uncertainty; Uncertainty analysis; vacío de implementación de conocimiento; Viral diseases; White-nose syndrome; Wildlife; wildlife infectious disease; Wildlife management; zoonotic disease; 决策分析, 结构化决策, 野生动物传染病, 人畜共患病, 应用科学, 知识-实践差距
• ISSN: 0888-8892; 1523-1739; 1523-1739
• DOI: 10.1111/cobi.14284

Contemporary wildlife disease management is complex because managers need to respond to a wide range of stakeholders, multiple uncertainties, and difficult trade‐offs that characterize the interconnected challenges of today. Despite general acknowledgment of these complexities, managing wildlife disease tends to be framed as a scientific problem, in which the major challenge is lack of knowledge. The complex and multifactorial process of decision‐making is collapsed into a scientific endeavor to reduce uncertainty. As a result, contemporary decision‐making may be oversimplified, rely on simple heuristics, and fail to account for the broader legal, social, and economic context in which the decisions are made. Concurrently, scientific research on wildlife disease may be distant from this decision context, resulting in information that may not be directly relevant to the pertinent management questions. We propose reframing wildlife disease management challenges as decision problems and addressing them with decision analytical tools to divide the complex problems into more cognitively manageable elements. In particular, structured decision‐making has the potential to improve the quality, rigor, and transparency of decisions about wildlife disease in a variety of systems. Examples of management of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, white‐nose syndrome, avian influenza, and chytridiomycosis illustrate the most common impediments to decision‐making, including competing objectives, risks, prediction uncertainty, and limited resources. Replanteamiento del manejo de problemas por enfermedades de fauna mediante el análisis de decisiones Resumen El manejo actual de las enfermedades de la fauna es complejo debido a que los gestores necesitan responder a una amplia gama de actores, varias incertidumbres y compensaciones difíciles que caracterizan los retos interconectados del día de hoy. A pesar de que en general se reconocen estas complejidades, el manejo de las enfermedades tiende a plantearse como un problema científico en el que el principal obstáculo es la falta de conocimiento. El proceso complejo y multifactorial de la toma decisiones está colapsado dentro de un esfuerzo científico para reducir la incertidumbre. Como resultado de esto, las decisiones contemporáneas pueden estar simplificadas en exceso, depender de métodos heurísticos simples y no considerar el contexto legal, social y económico más amplio en el que se toman las decisiones. De manera