High Influenza A Virus Infection Rates in Mallards Bred for Hunting in the Camargue, South of France

Vittecoq, Marion; Grandhomme, Viviane; Champagnon, Jocelyn; Guillemain, Matthieu; Crescenzo-Chaigne, Bernadette; Renaud, François; Thomas, Frédéric; Gauthier-Clerc, Michel; van der Werf, Sylvie

During the last decade, awareness concerning the intimate links between human and animal health has rapidly increased in the context of disease emergence [1] . Indeed, approximately 80% of the infectious diseases that recently emerged were zoonotic [2] . The role of wildlife in emerging pathogen transmission to humans and domestic animals has in many cases been pointed out [3±5] . Conversely, pathogen transmission from domestic animals to wildlife has received far less attention, although the importance of this issue was often mentioned [6, 7] . Indeed, contacts between wildlife and livestock or their environment sometimes result in wildlife diseases with conservation issues [8, 9] . Besides, handreared animal releases into the wild for either conservation or exploitation purposes represent a particular case in which handreared individuals eventually share natural habitats with their wild congeners. In both cases such releases can dramatically influence disease dynamics in the surrounding wild animal populations [ 10± 14] .