Health of Antarctic Wildlife

Book excerpt: comprehensively up to date. We are most grateful to these authors and to those we recruited to write the additional chapters necessary to fill the significant gaps. We acknowledge also the sacrifice of some who presented results of original research and have thus suffered a longer time than usual to publication. The timing of publication however has provided the opportunity to highlight recent discussions and resolutions made within the Antarctic Treaty forum to protect wildlife against disease and to include responses by Government and non-Government operators in Antarctica. These developments mostly followed from the Workshop on Diseases of Antarctic Wildlife. The book comprises 17 chapters presented in two parts. Wildlife disease consists of reviews, case studies and health assessments, and External factors covers the environmental, administrative and legal aspects. Each chapter is complete and c- tains all references. Six important documents are provided as Appendices. These present methods, reviews and other documents which are referred to in one or more chapters but are not readily available. There are many related topics we have been unable to cover that would enhance the understanding of health and disease processes in Antarctica. While we ackno- edge their importance they are outside the scope of the present volume. Such topics include epidemiology, new and emerging infectious diseases and the effects of climate change. These topics are referred to in the various chapters where ref- ences to source material are given.