badgers

Persistence of disease in territorial animals: insights from spatial models of Tb

Early models of directly transmitted wildlife disease focused on rabies transmission as a travelling wave, usually in a homogeneous density of wildlife. Such models of epi-enzootic diseases paid little attention to local-scale disease prevalence. Historical data on bovine tuberculosis (Tb) in cattle indicates that very localised areas can suffer from frequent repeat breakdowns, indicating that some environmental factors might be the cause.