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Cross-species disease transmission between wildlife, domestic animals and humans is an increasing threat to public and veterinary health. Wild pigs are increasingly a potential veterinary and public health threat. Here we investigate 84 pathogens and the host species most at risk for transmission with wild pigs using a network approach. We assess the risk to agricultural and human health by evaluating the status of these pathogens and the co-occurrence of wild pigs, agriculture and humans. We identified 34 (87%) OIE listed swine pathogens that cause clinical disease in livestock, poultry, wildlife, and humans. On average 73% of bacterial, 39% of viral, and 63% of parasitic pathogens caused clinical disease in other species. Non-porcine livestock in the family Bovidae shared the most pathogens with swine (82%). Only 49% of currently listed OIE domestic swine diseases had published wild pig surveillance studies. The co-occurrence of wild pigs and farms increased annually at a rate of 1.2% with as much as 57% of all farms and 77% of all agricultural animals co-occurring with wild pigs. The increasing co-occurrence of wild pigs with livestock and humans along with the large number of pathogens shared is a growing risk for cross-species transmission.

Invasive wild pigs can impose significant economic costs on crop and livestock farms. Many factors influence the incidence and intensity of these losses, making efforts to reduce or eradicate these populations complex. While farm and ranch operators may perceive wild pigs as agricultural pests, other landowners often see them as wild game with recreational value. This study investigates the relationship between landowner practices that attract wild pigs and the likelihood of pig presence and damage on farm and ranch operations. It considers the farmers’ own actions that attract wildlife, neighboring landowner actions, the heterogeneity of the surrounding landscape, and county-level factors. The findings show a significant and positive associations between neighbors’ actions and the probability of wild pig presence and financial losses from wild pig damage. Additionally, increasingly heterogeneous landscapes may further exacerbate this challenge. This research indicates that the choices made by adjacent property owners can undermine the effectiveness of public and private efforts to manage wild pig populations. Conversely, the impacts of wild pig management likely extend beyond specific management areas. Holistic eradication or population control programs should consider these externalities to adequately and efficiently address their impacts.

1. Suppression of pest species via a native predator is a regulating ecosystem service that has the potential to limit crop damage and produce economic benefits. American kestrels Falco sparverius are widespread, highly mobile, generalist predators that hunt in human-dominated habitats and have the potential to provide previously undocumented ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes. 2. We hypothesized that kestrel activity associated with nest boxes and artificial perches acts to increase perceived predation risk that, in combination with direct predation, can reduce fruit-eating bird abundances in orchards. We used counts and observations of fruit-eating birds from fixed-width transect surveys to investigate variation in bird abundances and to estimate sweet cherry loss in cherry orchards with and without active kestrel boxes. We also conducted a benefit-cost analysis of nest box installation and used regional economic modelling to estimate macroeconomic impacts of increased sweet cherry production in Michigan, an important US fruit production region. 3. Fruit-eating bird counts were significantly lower at orchards with active kestrel boxes. Although kestrels used the perches in young orchard blocks and may benefit from them, the presence of perches did not have a significant effect on bird counts. 4. Benefit-cost ratios for kestrel nest boxes indicated that for every dollar spent on nest boxes, $84 to $357 of sweet cherries would be saved from fruit-eating birds. Regional economic modelling predicted that increased sweet cherry production from reduced bird damage would result in 46-50 jobs created and $2.2 million to $2.4 million in increased income for the state of Michigan over a 5-year period. 5. Synthesis and applications. Kestrel nest boxes in sweet cherry orchards provide a highly cost-effective ecosystem service with potential reverberating benefits for a regional economy. Box occupancy rates will undoubtedly vary across landscapes and regions. However, costs to install and maintain boxes are small and, even if box occupancy rates are low, boxes can direct kestrel activity to particular places in agricultural landscapes where they can deter pest birds. Thus, the potential benefits for fruit crops greatly outweigh the costs of this pest management strategy.

Collisions between wildlife and aircraft, commonly referred to as wildlife strikes or bird strikes, are rare events that pose considerable safety and economic risks to the aviation industry. Given the potentially dramatic consequences of such events, airports scheduled for passenger service are required to conduct wildlife hazard assessments and implement wildlife hazard management plans for the purpose of mitigating wildlife strike risk. The evaluation of such management, however, is complicated by imperfect reporting that mediates the relationship between realized wildlife strike risk and wildlife strike metrics. In this paper, we shed light on such phenomena by investigating the staggered adoption of a federal wildlife hazards management program at joint-use airports across the contiguous United States. This research design allowed us to exploit variation in both management presence across airports, over time as well as variation in the quality of wildlife strike reporting within airports. As hypothesized, we found that wildlife hazards management intervention has a significant impact on the quality of reporting, as evidenced by a substantial increase in the number of civil strikes reported over the management period. Where pre-existing reporting mechanisms were more robust, however, we found that wildlife hazards management had a significant impact on realized wildlife strike risk as evidenced by a decrease in strike-induced economic damages among military aircraft. Overall, we found that the estimated economic benefits of the studied airport wildlife hazards management program were 7 times greater than the costs over the management period. Our results have important implications for the measurement of wildlife strike risk and the management of wildlife hazards at airports, as well as important insights pertaining to the use of observational data for causal inference, particularly in the context of risk management.

Rabies remains a significant global public health concern, causing an estimated 59,000–69,000 human fatalities annually. Despite being entirely preventable through vaccination, rabies continues to impose substantial economic burdens worldwide. This study presents a scoping review of the economic research on rabies to determine overlaps and gaps in knowledge and inform future research strategies. We selected 150 studies (1973–2024) to analyze. The review categorizes the literature based on geographic distribution, species focus, and type of study. Findings indicate that economic studies are disproportionately concentrated in developed countries, such as the United States and parts of Europe, where rabies risk is low, while high-risk regions, particularly in Africa and Asia, remain underrepresented. Most studies focus on dog-mediated rabies, reflecting its dominant role in human transmission, while fewer studies assess the economic impacts of wildlife and livestock-mediated rabies. Case studies and modeling approaches dominate the literature, whereas cost–benefit and cost–effectiveness analyses—critical for informing resource allocation—are limited. The review highlights the need for more economic evaluations in rabies-endemic regions, expanded research on non-dog reservoirs, and broader use of economic methods. Addressing these gaps will be crucial for optimizing rabies control and supporting global initiatives to eliminate dog-mediated rabies by 2030.

Exploiting unprecedented reductions in aircraft movements caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, we investigated the relationship between air traffic volume and the frequency of wildlife-aircraft collisions, or wildlife strikes, at the 50 largest airports in the United States. During the COVID-19 months of 2020 (March–December), both air traffic volume and the absolute number of wildlife strikes were reduced. The net effect of these two movements, however, was an increase in the wildlife strike rate from May 2020–September 2020. This increase was found to be most pronounced at airports with larger relative declines in air traffic volume. We concluded that the observed increase in the wildlife strike rate was, at least in part, generated by risk-enhancing changes in wildlife abundance and behavior within the airport environment. That is, wildlife became more abundant and active at airports in response to declines in air traffic volume.

Zoonotic diseases, particularly those originating in wildlife, pose significant public health and economic risks. Rabies, a viral zoonosis with near-100% case fatality in humans, is a prime example of such a threat, especially in regions like North America where wildlife—such as raccoons—serve as key reservoirs. This study assesses the economic efficiency of Ontario, Canada’s raccoon rabies control program, which combines oral rabies vaccination (ORV), trap-vaccinate-release (TVR), and surveillance strategies. Using a spatial agent-based epidemiological model, the study estimates the benefits and costs of intervention compared to a no-intervention scenario over the period 2015–2025. Benefits were quantified as avoided public health costs, including post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), animal testing (AT), and human exposure investigations (INVT), and converted to 2023 CAD. Results show that the intervention prevented significant economic losses, with benefit-cost ratios ranging from 1.5 to 14.16 depending on assumed rates of intervention necessity, confirming the program’s cost-effectiveness. This analysis not only supports continued investment in wildlife rabies control but also provides a scalable economic framework for other zoonotic disease management programs utilizing a One Health approach.

Wild pigs (Sus scrofa) cause damage to agricultural crops in their native range as well as in the portions of the globe where they have been introduced. In the US, states with the highest introduced wild pig populations are Alabama, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas. The present study summarizes the first survey-based effort to value the full extent of wild pig damage to producers of six crops in these eleven US states. The survey was distributed by the USDA National Agricultural Statistical Service in the summer of 2022 to a sample of 11,495 producers of corn (Zea mays), soybeans (Glycine max), wheat (Triticum spp.), rice (Oryza sativa), peanuts (Arachis hypogaea), and sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) in these 11 states. Our findings suggest that the economic burden of wild pigs on producers of these crops is substantial and not limited to the direct and most identifiable categories of crop damage (i.e., production value lost due to depredation, trampling and rooting). We estimate that the annual cost to producers of these six crops in the surveyed states in 2021 was almost USD 700 million.

We present a new modeling tool that can be used to maximize the impact of canine rabies management resources that are available at the local level. The model is accessible through a web-based interface that allows for flexibility in the management strategies that can be investigated. Rabies vaccination, sterilization, chemo-contraception, and euthanasia can be specified and limited to specific demographic groups. Additionally, we allowed for considerable complexity in the specification of management costs. In many areas, the costs of contacting additional dogs increases as management effort increases, and this can have important strategic implications. We illustrated the application of the model by examining several alternative management strategies in an area of Mpumalanga Province, South Africa. Our results based on this dog population suggested that puppies should be vaccinated and sterilization would not be optimal if the spatial extent of management is not large (and perhaps not even then). Furthermore, given a sufficient budget, it was evident that vaccination campaigns should be repeated annually.

Choosing and executing a wild pig management strategy is often a considerable challenge for wildlife managers due to the wide variety of potential strategies and stakeholder preferences. Our research aims to understand management preferences for and tolerance of wild pigs among Texas resident hunters within 8 managerial districts of Texas. We applied the Potential for Conflict Index (PCI₂) to estimate potential management preference conflicts within each district. From 24,201 questionnaires completed in 2019, we found that, on average, 74% of respondents across all management actions in each district were found to be acceptable. Resident respondents were overall intolerant of wild pigs and were least tolerant in the San Angelo district. Study findings are useful in informing socially acceptable and contextually appropriate wild pig management plans. Our research serves as an approach that matches the units of analysis with the units of management for decision-making.