EAZWV
Heidelberg 2002 Meeting
Conference Report for the fifth meeting of the European Wildlife Disease Association
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General
Following an invitation from Dr. P. Dollinger, Secretary of the European Association of Zoo and Wildlife Veterinarians (EAZWV), the 5th EWDA meeting was held from 8 to 12 May 2002 together with the EAZWV at the German Cancer Research Center DKFZ in Heidelberg (Germany), with “Diseases in European Wildlife” as one of the subjects.
The business meeting of the European Section of the Wildlife Disease Association (EWDA) was called to order by the Secretary, Christian Gortázar at about 2 p.m. on Friday, 10 May 2002 at the DKFZ facilities. In attendance were the Board-members and the delegates that attended the 5th EWDA meeting at Heidelberg. C. Gortázar informed the members about the health of the Chairman, Torsten Mörner, and wished him a speedy recovery. He also explained the new position of Dr Mörner, as Vice-President of the Wildlife Disease Association. Finally, C. Gortázar gave a general explanation of the special nature of EWDA membership (without fees or other formal documents) and the relationship of the EWDA and the WDA.
Presentations
The papers and posters presented by EWDA members at Heidelberg are listed in the table below. Abstracts of these presentations (in pdf format) can be viewed or downloaded by clicking on the appropriate title.
Student Awards
As decided in Zaragoza 2000, three awards were given by the Treasurer, Marc Artois, to the best student presentations at Heidelberg 2002. All papers entered for the award are denoted in the table above by the letter ‘S’, including the three prize winning entries. The first prize was given to Alex Caron, and two second awards were shared by Sophie Rossi and Nicole Latz. The high quality of all EWDA student presentations was emphasised.
EWDA Board
A proposal for a new EWDA Board and the establishment of an EWDA Advisory Board was discussed and accepted with general agreement. The following members were elected - M. Artois, Chairman; K. Frölich, Vice-Chair; U. Höfle, Treasurer; C. Gortazar, Secretary; P. Duff, Newsletter Editor; R. Delahay, Web-site responsibilities. The members of the EWDA Advisory Board are G. Boseret, D. Gavier-Widen, M. Giacometti, T. Kuiken, T. Mörner and R. Orusa.
Website
Richard Delahay covered progress in setting up the EWDA website. This now has several items with more about to be introduced in the near future, and Richard will be helped by Marco Giacometti. Could all EWDA members who would like their details on the web-site please send Richard or Marc their name, institute and research interests; their conference abstract and any other item for the website.
EWDA Working Groups
Marc Artois suggested three particular areas where the EWDA might concentrate efforts in the future. (1) to improve wildlife disease surveillance in Europe in order to get a more formal way of reporting and surveying wildlife disease. (2) to develop European wildlife disease research, including possible topics such as tuberculosis, hares, wild boar, foxes, or migration and diseases. (3) to review the current teaching in wildlife diseases in European countries, in order to produce wildlife disease teaching support. M. Artois, K. Frölich and C. Gortázar, respectively, accepted positions to take the leads in these three fields.
Chairman's Address
Dear colleagues and EWDA fellows,
It is for me a great honor to become chairman of the WDA European Section board. I thank you all for your support. It is nevertheless a hard task to succeed Torsten MORNER who has created this Section and led it for so many years with enthusiasm. It has been Torsten’s honor to obtain recognition of our group both at the European level and overseas. When this story started in the early 90’s, the few of us who were already involved in wildlife disease studies in Europe were persuaded to join the crew with enthusiasm. Since then many new people have been attracted to the organization and enrolled. They are now its rich resource and are prepared for the new challenges ahead.
In the name of all of us, I would thank Torsten for his dedication. I wish him further success in his new duties. We trust that Torsten will remain a supporter and a pre-eminent active member of our Section, mainly acting for the enforcement of our relationship with the main-section of the WDA in North America.
At the same time, the European Union is now increasing its partnership to new country members and one can expect that exciting new trails will be explored by our European Section. But, since on the one hand we are not yet formally organized and on the other, not so numerous, we have to be modest and remain realistic - although to be lucid does not impede creativity and innovation! It is my guess that the citizens of this continent, biologists and wildlife managers as well as our veterinary officers, would expect us, wildlife disease specialists, to organize ourselves in three main domains: - improving wildlife disease monitoring, developing sound science research projects and implementing specific education programs. During the coming years as EWDA chairman, I would like to spend my energy in approaching these three goals, with your help and with contributions from the new board members. I trust that our imagination and involvement shall soon allow our organization to find the necessary official support to achieve these goals. I am confident that our next meeting (possibly in Scandinavia) will give us an opportunity to measure our progress.
Thank you all again for coming to Heidelberg. Thanks to the organizers of this meeting, namely the chairman of our scientific committee, Christian GORTAZAR, to have offered us this nice opportunity to meet each other and share some interests with our zoo colleagues. Congratulations to all the students, who entered the student award, for their excellent presentations. I wish you all a safe trip back home and look forward to meeting you again soon.
Prof. Marc ARTOIS
Our next meeting?
It was suggested that the next EWDA meeting could be in a Scandinavian country, perhaps in Uppsala, Sweden. After the Heidelberg meeting, which was fully organised by the EAZWV without any EWDA input, the members underlined their wish for the next meeting to be organised by the EWDA and to focus on wildlife disease rather than on problems of animals in captivity.