Table Of ContentClimate Change and
Animal Health
This benchmark publication assembles information on the current and anticipated
effects of climate change on animal health. It empowers educators, managers,
practitioners, and researchers by providing evidence, experience, and opinions on
what we need to do to prepare for, and cope with, the largest threat ever to have
faced animals on this planet. With expert contributors from across the globe, the
text equips the reader with information and the means to develop sustainable
adaptation or mitigation actions.
After introducing animal health in a climate change context, chapters look at
specific animal health impacts arising from climate change. The book concludes
with suggestions on teachable and actionable ideas that could be used to mobilize
concepts provided into education or advocacy.
This book was written amid the COVID-19 pandemic and in the face of ever-
increasing reports of on-the-ground, real-life climate impacts. Large-scale
wildfire and ocean heat waves killed unprecedented numbers of animals, while
droughts in some areas and floods in others displaced thousands of livestock and
made food scarce for even more. Climate change is real, and it is here. How we
respond will have profound implications for people, biodiversity, welfare,
conservation, societies, economies, and ecosystems.
Today’s veterinary educators are awakening to the need to adapt and train a new
generation of animal health professionals who can understand and plan for
climate change, and this book is an essential resource.
CRC One Health One Welfare
Learning from Disease in Pets: A ‘One Health’ Model for Discovery
Edited by Rebecca A. Krimins
Animals, Health and Society: Health Promotion, Harm Reduction and
Equity in a One Health World
Edited by Craig Stephen
One Welfare in Practice: The Role of the Veterinarian
Edited by Tanya Stephens
Climate Change and Animal Health
Edited By Craig Stephen and Colleen Duncan
For more information about this series, please visit https://www.routledge.com/
CRC-One-Health-One-Welfare/book-series/CRCOHOW
Climate Change and
Animal Health
Edited by
Craig Stephen and Colleen Duncan
Front cover image: Cows who survived Hurricane Florence, stranded on a porch,
surrounded by flood waters. North Carolina, USA. Photograph by Jo-Anne McArthur,
weanimalsmedia.org
Back cover image: A fox watches on while escaping a forest fire which is destroying
wild natural habitat. Photograph by solarseven via Shutterstock.
First edition published 2023
by CRC Press
6000 Broken Sound Parkway NW, Suite 300, Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742
and by CRC Press
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
CRC Press is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
© 2023 Craig Stephen and Colleen Duncan
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and publisher cannot assume responsibility for the validity of all materials or the
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Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to
infringe.
ISBN: 978-0-367-71202-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-71201-3 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-14977-4 (ebk)
DOI: 10.1201/9781003149774
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Contents
Editors.................................................................................................................vii
Preface..................................................................................................................ix
Contributors.........................................................................................................xi
Chapter 1 An Introduction to Current Climate Projections and Their
Use in Climate Impacts Research..................................................1
Jeremy S. Littell
Chapter 2 Overview of Climate Change and Animal Health......................23
Craig Stephen
Chapter 3 Climate Change Action: An Overview........................................41
Craig Stephen
Chapter 4 The Study and Classification of Climate‐Associated Diseases
in Animals....................................................................................67
Colleen Duncan, Michelle Dennis, and Cheryl Sangster
Chapter 5 Climate Change and the Determinants of Animal Health..........87
Carrie McMullen, Jane Parmley, and Craig Stephen
Chapter 6 Finding a Path through Complexity; Embedding the Science
of Climate Change in the Study of Infectious Animal
Diseases......................................................................................113
Simone Vitali and Bethany Jackson
Chapter 7 Zoonoses.....................................................................................141
Nick H. Ogden, L. Robbin Lindsay, and Michael A. Drebot
Chapter 8 Interactions between Climate Change and Contaminants.........157
Julia E. Baak, Rose M. Lacombe, Emily S. Choy,
Kyle H. Elliott, and John E. Elliott
Chapter 9 Climate Change-related Hazards and Disasters: An
Unrelenting Threat to Animal and Ecosystem Health..............181
Christa A. Gallagher and Jimmy Tickel
v
vi Contents
Chapter 10 An Introduction to the Economics of Climate Change and
Animal Health............................................................................197
Gregory Graff, Benjamin Nordbrock, and Andrew Seidl
Chapter 11 The International Response to Animal Health and Climate
Change........................................................................................219
Maud Carron, Tianna Brand, Sophie Muset, Keith Hamilton,
Chadia Wannous, François Diaz, Guillaume Belot,
Stéphane de la Rocque, Julio Pinto, Delia Grace Randolph,
and Ahmed. H. El Idrissi
Chapter 12 Preparing for the Unanticipated.................................................233
Craig Stephen
Chapter 13 Climate Change and Animal Health: The Role of
Surveillance Systems..................................................................247
Katie Steneroden, Colleen Duncan, and Craig Stephen
Chapter 14 Climate Change Leadership: Team Building, Change Agents,
Planning, Strategy......................................................................259
Tim K. Takaro
Chapter 15 Hope for Health in the Anthropocene.......................................269
Chris G. Buse, Maxwell J. Smith, and Diego S. Silva
Chapter 16 Education to Protect Animal Health in a Changing Climate...289
Will Sander and Colleen Duncan
Chapter 17 Protecting Animal Health in Our Changing Climate:
Key Messages.............................................................................307
Craig Stephen and Colleen Duncan
Index.................................................................................................................313
Editors
Craig Stephen is a veterinarian and epidemiologist who has worked at the
interface of human, animal, and environmental health for 30 years. His work
evolved from finding and describing emerging environmental threats around the
globe to helping build the circumstances that permit interspecies and
intergenerational health equity. Dr Stephen has held a variety of One Health
leadership positions, including serving as the founding president and director of
the Centre for Coastal Health, the scientific director of the Animal Determinants
of Emerging Diseases Research Network, the scientific director of the British
Columbia Occupational and Environmental Health Network, a Canada research
chair in Integrating Human and Animal Health and, most recently, the founding
president of a new think tank striving to “future-ready” animal health professionals.
He edited and co-wrote the books Animals, Health, and Society: Health Promotion,
Harm Reduction, and Health Equity in a One Health World and Wildlife Population
Health. He co-edited One Health: The Theory and Practice of Integrated Health
Approaches. Dr Stephen has more than 200 peer-reviewed and technical reports. He
currently operates a One Health and EcoHealth practice while retaining clinical
professorships at the School of Population and Public Health (University of British
Columbia) and the School of Veterinary Medicine (Ross University).
Colleen Duncan is personally and professionally committed to sustainability and
education. Dual-specialized in both veterinary anatomic pathology (ACVP) and
epidemiology (PhD, ACVPM), she has worked in both diagnostics and research on a
wide range of species and diseases. Dr. Duncan is on the veterinary faculty at
Colorado State University and affiliated with the Colorado School of Public Health,
the One Health Institute, and the School of Global Environmental Sustainability.
Her current efforts include the study of animal health impacts associated with
climate change, the protection of animal health from environmental harms, and the
identification of ways to minimize the environmental impact of veterinary care.
vii
Preface
Imagine a future where animal health is protected and promoted and the
unanticipated or undesired effects of climate changes can be prevented, mitigated,
or adapted to. Then ask, what do we need to know, and what must we do to get there?
Those questions were the motivating factor for this book. An esteemed set of authors
has come together to help us think about the challenges climate change is presenting
to animal health and to provide evidence, experience, and opinions on what we must
do to address the largest threat animals on this planet have ever faced. This book is
our contribution to the CRC One Health One Welfare series that focuses on the
interconnections between human well-being, animal health and welfare, and the
environment, with emphasis on interdisciplinary collaboration and solutions.
Each group of authors was selected based on their interest and expertise in
specific topic areas highly relevant to humanity’s efforts to enable evidence-
based action on key subjects driving climate change actions for animal health.
The goal is to help people who are responsible for animal health education,
policies, and practices gain knowledge and confidence about the factors and
decisions that shape their responses to climate change. We asked all authors to
not only summarize existing evidence, experience, and opinions on their subject
matter, but also to focus on key points for action and learning.
This book as written between 2021 and 2022, amid the COVID-19 pandemic
and in the face of ever-increasing reports of on-the-ground, real-life climate
impacts. Large-scale wildfires spread across massive swaths of the northern and
southern hemisphere, killing unprecedented numbers of animals. Ocean heat
waves similarly killed billions of near-shore creatures. Droughts in some areas,
and floods in others, displaced thousands of livestock and made food scarce for
even more. Climate change was real, and it was here. Despite this reality, the
scholarship, advocacy, and policies dealing with ways to mitigate and adapt to
the effects of climate change on animal health remained rare in comparison to the
discourse on its effects on people and human communities. This book makes a
start at collecting information for those interested in and dedicated to confronting
climate change for animal health and the benefits that brings ecosystems and
societies. We have organized this material into three sections:
1. Overview of climate change and animal health (Chapters 1–5): Starting
with an overview of climate change science, these first chapters include
an introduction on how to think about health in a climate change
context, how health will influence patterns of diseases, and how it will
affect the determinants of health. This part of the book also introduces
the idea of climate change action.
2. Specific animal health impacts arising from climate change
(Chapters 6–10): These chapters build on the introductory chapters,
providing more details on potential effects and further insights into the
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