Katherine L. D. Richgels Samuel. Michael D. Julia E. Poje Faye Lorenzsonn Jonathan P. Matteson Jesse T. Boulerice Jorge E. Osorio Tonie E. Rocke Gebbiena M. Bron 2018 <p><span>Oral vaccination is an emerging management strategy to reduce the prevalence of high impact infectious diseases within wild animal populations. Plague is a flea-borne zoonosis of rodents that often decimates prairie dog (</span><i class="EmphasisTypeItalic ">Cynomys</i><span>&nbsp;spp.) colonies in the western USA. Recently, an oral sylvatic plague vaccine (SPV) was developed to protect prairie dogs from plague and aid recovery of the endangered black-footed ferret (</span><i class="EmphasisTypeItalic ">Mustela nigripes</i><span>). Although oral vaccination programs are targeted toward specific species, field distribution of vaccine-laden baits can result in vaccine uptake by non-target animals and unintended indirect effects. We assessed the impact of SPV on non-target rodents at paired vaccine and placebo-treated prairie dog colonies in four US states from 2013 to 2015. Bait consumption by non-target rodents was high (70.8%,&nbsp;</span><i class="EmphasisTypeItalic ">n</i><span> = 3113), but anti-plague antibody development on vaccine plots was low (23.7%,&nbsp;</span><i class="EmphasisTypeItalic ">n</i><span> = 266). In addition, no significant differences were noted in combined deer mice (</span><i class="EmphasisTypeItalic ">Peromyscus maniculatus</i><span>) and western harvest mouse (</span><i class="EmphasisTypeItalic ">Reithrodontomys megalotis</i><span>) abundance or community evenness and richness of non-target rodents between vaccine-treated and placebo plots. In our 3-year field study, we could not detect a significant positive or negative effect of SPV application on non-target rodents.</span></p> application/pdf 10.1007/s10393-018-1334-5 en Springer Impact of sylvatic plague vaccine on non-target small rodents in grassland ecosystems article