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WINTER 2007
At a Glance
by Sam Fahmy

Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study (SCWDS)

• Founded in 1957 and housed at the University of Georgia’s College of Veterinary Medicine

• A collaboration among the wildlife agencies of 16 states and Puerto Rico, the Biological Resources Division of the U.S. Department of the Interior, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture

• The nation’s first regional diagnostic and research service established specifically to investigate wildlife diseases

• Its four-pronged mission: detect causes of sickness and death in wildlife; define the impact of diseases and parasites on wild animal populations; delineate disease relationships between wildlife and domestic livestock; and determine the role of wildlife in the epidemiology of human diseases

• Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory (SEPRL)

• Established in 1962 as a unit of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) and housed in Athens, Georgia

• Its mission: provide scientific solutions to exotic, emerging and endemic poultry viral diseases through a comprehensive research program that emphasizes basic and applied research in diagnostics, prevention, control strategies, prediction of disease outbreaks, molecular epidemiology and disease pathogenesis

• Located on 32 acres adjacent to and donated by the University of Georgia