Oral Sylvatic Plague Vaccine Does Not Adequately Protect Prairie Dogs (Cynomys spp.) for Endangered Black-Footed Ferret (Mustela nigripes) Conservation.

ABSTRACT: The plague bacterium Yersinia pestis is lethal to endangered black-footed ferrets (Mustela nigripes, BFF) and the prairie dogs (Cynomys spp., PD) on which they depend for habitat and prey. We assessed the effectiveness of an oral sylvatic plague vaccine delivered in baits to black-tailed PD (Cynomys ludovicianus, BTPD) from 2013 to 2017 on the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge (CMR) in northcentral Montana. We permanently marked BTPD on four paired vaccine (N = 1,349 individuals) and placebo plots (N = 926; 7,027 total captures). We analyzed capture-recapture data under a Cormack-Jolly-Seber model to estimate annual apparent survival. Overall, survival averaged 0.05 lower on vaccine plots than on paired placebo plots. Immediately before n

SUBMITTER: Matchett MR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8742283 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature