Celebrate ‘One Health Day’ with CROW’s Dr. Barron
CROW is participating in the first ever “One Health Day,” which is planned by the One Health Commission, the One Health Initiative and One Health Platform Foundation, complete with a presentation by Hospital Director Dr. Heather Barron.
“As of this morning (Oct. 19), CROW is the only facility in Florida who has registered to participate in the event,” CROW Education Coordinator Rachel Rainbolt said.
CROW’s participation will include Facebook posts from Monday, Oct. 31, through Friday, Nov. 4, as well as Barron’s presentation on “One Health Day,” at 11 a.m., Thursday, Nov. 3, at the Visitor Education Center.
“On Nov. 3, individuals and groups from around the world, from academic to corporate and nonprofit, students to established professionals, will have the opportunity to implement One Health projects and special events under the auspices of ‘One Health Day,'” Rainbolt said. “Projects will highlight the benefits of a One Health trans-disciplinary approach towards solving today’s critical global-planetary health challenges.”
Barron said a lot of people think of wildlife medicine as a very fringe concept.
“It certainly was apart of mainstream veterinary medicine for a very long time. Then you had some little things come along like west nile virus and those are things that are zoonotic, animal born diseases, that can pass to humans,” she said. “It was actually birds that were traveling from other parts of the world to the United States. All of a sudden wildlife health gained a new level of importance in world health.”
Veterinarians realized that wildlife is kind of the “canary in the coal mine” where if there are disease outbreaks, or something going on environmentally, often times wildlife is the first to let people know there is a problem. Barron said if someone is watching wildlife health, collaborations can be done to protect individuals, their family and the food supply.
“That is really where we feel CROW has a real importance in our community and in the one world, one health concept,” Barron said. “These days we practice a lot of what is known as conservation medicine.”
Conservation medicine, a relatively new concept that was not coined until the late 1990s, is the interface between human health, animal health, whether wild or domestic, and environmental health.
An example includes veterinarians seeing a lot of cases of ear infections in turtles in Virginia. Barron said the type of infection usually only happens to turtles in captivity because of an underlying lack of vitamin A levels in the diet.
“In box turtles it was actually the second most common cause of admission in wildlife centers right behind hit by car,” she said. “What they found was the level of organochlorines in these turtles blood levels were very high. Coincidentally at the same time it was reported by human health departments in the area that they were seeing an unusually large number of ear infections in children. One of the things they are doing right now is looking at organochlorine levels in children in that area because a lot of times that kind of thing comes through water sources.”
Barron said it is really important that people who work with wildlife are able to recognize when these sentinel species are trying to tell them something. She said it is important for a collaborative effort to take place between human health officials, biologists and environmentalist to make sense of these problems when they occur.
A local example is the ranavirus affecting eastern box turtles. Barron said it had not been reported in the state of Florida before CROW reported the virus.
“I think we were able to recognize it and to do the appropriate testing and make the final diagnosis,” Barron said. “That paper was recently presented at a world ranavirus conference.”
Ranavirus is known as the cold blooded killer because it affects cold blooded animals.
“We suspect it has something to do with environmental pressures, so it is a warning flag that maybe your environment is not all it could be in terms of health,” Barron said.
The raccoon roundworm, which Lee County is currently testing negative for, is something else CROW is monitoring. She said it can make people very sick, or in some cases result in death.
“In cooperation with FWC, we are monitoring for the raccoon roundworm, so if it comes to our neighborhood we will know about it,” Barron said. “The thing is to know when it occurs because it changes a lot of the recommendations. If you have a lot of raccoons in your area and even if the poop isn’t visible in the soil anymore, the raccoon roundworm lifecycle is brewing in that patch of your garden. If you are digging in that soil and you are not wearing gloves or washing your hands that could be a problem.”
CROW began practicing One World, One Health when Barron became the hospital director of CROW six years ago this Nov. 1. She said she believes they have gained a tremendous amount of experience and growth in the past five years, but they have a lot more to contribute.
“We are very lucky to have some amazing people that we collaborate with including all of the other conservation organizations here on the island. I am in constant, almost daily communication with SCCF, “Ding” Darling, the Sanibel Sea School, Florida Fish and Wildlife, U.S Fish and Wildlife to try and make sure we are in communication about any projects, conservation issues and diseases,” Barron said. “I stay on the front lines in terms of what is going on with wildlife in the world. If I think there is something that is important that my cohorts need to know about, then I will make sure they are aware.”