Marine mammals can serve as sentinels for public health, and recent research on Southern Hemisphere pinnipeds has focused on their role within the context of One Health (Bossart 2011; Lynch et al. 2011c; Rengifo- Herrera et al. 2012; Tryland et al. 2012; Delport et al. 2014).
Pinnipeds may suffer direct anthropogenic impacts such as entanglement in marine debris or as fisheries by-catch, or may be affected indirectly through contaminants, biotoxins, subclinical microbial infections, parasitism and competing habitat uses, such as prey depletion (Moore et al.
2013). Knowledge of the diversity of pinniped pathogens is expanding rapidly and recent studies have contributed to our understanding of the aetiology, diagnosis and therapy of diseases affecting pinnipeds in managed care.This chapter, complemented by several other chapters and appendices within this volume, presents advances in pinniped medicine since the publication of the first edition of Medicine of Australian Mammals. The medicine and pathology of Australian pinnipeds are comprehensively covered in other texts such as Vogelnest and Woods (2008) and Ladds (2009); this chapter should be read alongside these texts.
More on the topic Marine mammals can serve as sentinels for public health, and recent research on Southern Hemisphere pinnipeds has focused on their role within the context of One Health (Bossart 2011; Lynch et al. 2011c; Rengifo- Herrera et al. 2012; Tryland et al. 2012; Delport et al. 2014).:
-
Veterinarian -