Author(s) :

Emily Avram, Rakesh Chand.

Volume/Issue :

Abstract :

Rabies is a fatal zoonotic disease that is widely recognized as a public health priority, yet its implications for wildlife conservation remain insufficiently examined. This study assessed whether rabies constitutes a conservation threat by analyzing international surveillance data alongside a narrative synthesis of published evidence on urban–sylvatic transmission. Reported wildlife rabies deaths were extracted from the World Organisation for Animal Health’s World Animal Health Information System (WAHIS) to describe long-term global trends from 2005 to 2024 and recent regional patterns from 2020 to 2024, with species-level records mapped to International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List categories. Surveillance data showed that wildlife rabies deaths have been consistently reported across all major global regions over the past two decades, with a general decline in reported deaths since 2012. Between 2020 and 2024, 4,850 wildlife rabies deaths were reported, including 53 deaths (1.09%) in species classified as endangered, critically endangered, or vulnerable, encompassing multiple taxonomic groups and geographic regions. Although the proportion of reported deaths in conservation-priority species was small, their distribution across vulnerable taxa indicates that rabies exposure extends into populations where even limited mortality may have disproportionate conservation consequences. Interpretation of these findings is constrained by substantial underreporting and uneven surveillance capacity, particularly in resource-limited settings. Overall, the results indicate that rabies represents an underrecognized but meaningful risk to wildlife conservation, especially at domestic animal–wildlife interfaces, and that integrating rabies control measures, particularly mass dog vaccination, with conservation planning and surveillance within a One Health framework may support biodiversity protection while advancing global rabies elimination efforts.