Vets ‘at the heart’ of wildlife pharmaceutical overuse, says leading clinician

Vets are “at the heart” of excessive pharmaceutical use during wildlife rehabilitation, a leading clinician has suggested.

BVA senior vice-president Elizabeth Mullineaux spoke at the Animal Welfare Foundation Discussion Forum on Monday in the debate “Wildlife rehabilitation: Good or bad for animal welfare?”.

Representing the latter position, Dr Mullineaux said: “There’s a real argument that wildlife rehabilitation could actually be a welfare harm.

“It’s often too poorly or inappropriately resourced to satisfy the animal welfare requirements.

“Our knowledge and our evidence base are really, really limited, so we can’t be assured that we’re even fulfilling animal welfare in captivity, let alone when we release these animals back to the wild, and we need to find the best way of dealing with this.”

‘A lot of pharmaceuticals’

The RCVS-recognised wildlife medicine specialist argued “things can go badly wrong” due to lack of familiarity with different species and that not enough thought is given to where animals are released.

She added: “We also use a lot of pharmaceuticals in wildlife centres, and I would say that vets are probably at the heart of this problem.

“I think vets just lose their heads when it comes to prescribing for wildlife, and the things that have been used that would just never be used for domestic animals.

“We expose wildlife inappropriately to antimicrobials in captivity, which means when we can release them, we’ve got a risk around [antimicrobial resistance].”

A recent study suggested wildlife could be acting as a “reservoir” of antimicrobial resistance.

Environmental impact

Dr Mullineaux added vets treat parasites “too much” in wildlife immediately before release amid increasing evidence of the environmental impact of substances such as fipronil and imidacloprid.

She also suggested treating animals that would otherwise have died “is really interfering with any form of natural selection” and releasing vaccinated animals back into the wild gives them an “unfair advantage”.

Arguing the opposite case, Scottish SPCA senior wildlife vet Liam Reid said there is an “ethical rationale” for treating wildlife because “a lot of the animals coming into our care aren’t there for natural reasons, they’re there because of humanity”.

He added: “Most of the time, we’re contacted at the point where that animal is under human care, and once that happens, we do have a duty of care for that animal and just letting it go could… be considered abandoning that animal.”

Welfare compromise

Dr Reid argued vets accept temporary welfare compromise for future benefit when treating domestic animals and the same should apply to wildlife, adding: “If we truly wanted to minimise all possible welfare compromises, as a veterinary surgeon, I would advise euthanasia every first vaccination of a puppy or kitten.”

However, he added euthanasia is “a critical and fundamental part of rehabilitation”.

British Wildlife Rehabilitation Council chair Paul Reynolds spoke of the need to change public perception on euthanasia.

He said: “I find the vast majority of the public, regardless of their initial opinion, when they first present [animals] and you speak to them, if you take the time [to] explain to them one-on-one what the reality is, the vast majority end up leaving reassured and comforted.”

He called for “standard messaging” across organisations “so that we can start to shift the narrative for euthanasia being a failure or a lack of care or will to actually being one of the kindest acts you can perform”.