[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                       PREVENTING PANDEMICS THROUGH 
                        U.S. WILDLIFE-BORNE DISEASE 
                        SURVEILLANCE

=======================================================================

                           OVERSIGHT HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

              SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS

                                 OF THE

                     COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES
                     U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                        Thursday, April 28, 2022

                               __________

                           Serial No. 117-20

                               __________

       Printed for the use of the Committee on Natural Resources
       
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        Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
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          Committee address: http://naturalresources.house.gov
          
                              __________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
47-453 PDF                 WASHINGTON : 2022                     
          
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                     COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES

                      RAUL M. GRIJALVA, AZ, Chair
                JESUS G. ``CHUY'' GARCIA, IL, Vice Chair
   GREGORIO KILILI CAMACHO SABLAN, CNMI, Vice Chair, Insular Affairs
                  BRUCE WESTERMAN, AR, Ranking Member

Grace F. Napolitano, CA              Louie Gohmert, TX
Jim Costa, CA                        Doug Lamborn, CO
Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan,      Robert J. Wittman, VA
    CNMI                             Tom McClintock, CA
Jared Huffman, CA                    Garret Graves, LA
Alan S. Lowenthal, CA                Jody B. Hice, GA
Ruben Gallego, AZ                    Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen, AS
Joe Neguse, CO                       Daniel Webster, FL
Mike Levin, CA                       Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon, PR
Katie Porter, CA                     Russ Fulcher, ID
Teresa Leger Fernandez, NM           Pete Stauber, MN
Melanie A. Stansbury, NM             Thomas P. Tiffany, WI
Nydia M. Velazquez, NY               Jerry L. Carl, AL
Diana DeGette, CO                    Matthew M. Rosendale, Sr., MT
Julia Brownley, CA                   Blake D. Moore, UT
Debbie Dingell, MI                   Yvette Herrell, NM
A. Donald McEachin, VA               Lauren Boebert, CO
Darren Soto, FL                      Jay Obernolte, CA
Michael F. Q. San Nicolas, GU        Cliff Bentz, OR
Jesus G. ``Chuy'' Garcia, IL         Vacancy
Ed Case, HI                          Vacancy
Betty McCollum, MN
Steve Cohen, TN
Paul Tonko, NY
Rashida Tlaib, MI
Lori Trahan, MA

                     David Watkins, Staff Director
                       Luis Urbina, Chief Counsel
               Vivian Moeglein, Republican Staff Director
                   http://naturalresources.house.gov
                   
                                 ------                                

              SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS

                        KATIE PORTER, CA, Chair
                   BLAKE D. MOORE, UT, Ranking Member

Nydia M. Velazquez, NY               Louie Gohmert, TX
Jesus G. ``Chuy'' Garcia, IL         Jody B. Hice, GA
Steve Cohen, TN                      Vacancy
Jared Huffman, CA                    Bruce Westerman, AR, ex officio
Raul M. Grijalva, AZ, ex officio

                              ----------
                                 
                                CONTENTS

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

Hearing held on Thursday, April 28, 2022.........................     1

Statement of Members:

    Moore, Hon. Blake D., a Representative in Congress from the 
      State of Utah..............................................     4

    Porter, Hon. Katie, a Representative in Congress from the 
      State of California........................................     2
        Prepared statement of....................................     3

Statement of Witnesses:

Panel 1

    Kinsinger, Anne, Associate Director for Ecosystems, U.S. 
      Geological Survey, Reston, Virginia........................     6
        Prepared statement of....................................     7
        Questions submitted for the record.......................    10

Panel 2

    Carlson, Colin, Assistant Research Professor, Center for 
      Global Health Science and Security, Georgetown University 
      Medical Center, Washington, DC.............................    23
        Prepared statement of....................................    24
        Questions submitted for the record.......................    28

    Semcer, Catherine, Research Fellow, Property and Environment 
      Research Center, Chevy Chase, Maryland.....................    37
        Prepared statement of....................................    39

    Stallknecht, David, Director, Southeastern Cooperative 
      Wildlife Disease Study, Professor in Wildlife Health, 
      College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Georgia, 
      Athens, Georgia............................................    31
        Prepared statement of....................................    32
        Questions submitted for the record.......................    35

    Thorstenson, Julie, Executive Director, Native American Fish 
      and Wildlife Society, Northglenn, Colorado.................    42
        Prepared statement of....................................    44
        Questions submitted for the record.......................    45

Additional Materials Submitted for the Record:

    Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies, Statement for the 
      Record.....................................................    57

    Preventing Pandemics at the Source and the U.S. Wildlife and 
      Health Alliance, Joint Statement for the Record, dated May 
      11, 2022...................................................    59

    List of documents submitted for the record retained in the 
      Committee's official files.................................    59
                                     


 
 OVERSIGHT HEARING ON PREVENTING PANDEMICS THROUGH U.S. WILDLIFE-BORNE 
                          DISEASE SURVEILLANCE

                              ----------                              


                        Thursday, April 28, 2022

                     U.S. House of Representatives

              Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations

                     Committee on Natural Resources

                             Washington, DC

                              ----------                              

    The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m. in 
room 1334, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Katie Porter 
[Chair of the Subcommittee] presiding.
    Present: Representatives Porter, Cohen, Huffman; Moore, and 
Hice.
    Also present: Representatives Soto, Dingell, Axne, and 
Quigley.

    Ms. Porter. The Subcommittee on Oversight and 
Investigations will come to order. The Subcommittee is meeting 
today to hear testimony on preventing pandemics through U.S. 
wildlife-borne disease surveillance.
    Under Committee Rule 4(f), any oral opening statements at 
hearings are limited to the Chair and the Ranking Minority 
Member, or their designees. This will allow us to hear from our 
witnesses sooner and help Members keep to their schedules.
    Therefore, I ask unanimous consent that all other Members' 
opening statements be made part of the hearing record if they 
are submitted to the Clerk by 5 p.m. today, or the close of the 
hearing, whichever comes first.
    Hearing no objection, so ordered.
    I ask unanimous consent that the following Members be 
permitted to ask questions of the witnesses at today's hearing: 
the Member from Florida, Representative Soto; the Member from 
Iowa, Representative Axne; the Member from Illinois, 
Representative Quigley; and the Member from Michigan, 
Representative Dingell.
    Without objection, the Chair may also declare a recess, 
subject to the call of the Chair.
    As described in the notice, statements, documents, or 
motions must be submitted to the electronic repository at 
[email protected]. Members physically present should 
provide a hard copy for staff to distribute by e-mail.
    Please note that Members are responsible for their own 
microphones. As with our fully in-person meetings, Members can 
be muted by staff only to avoid inadvertent background noise.
    Finally, Members or witnesses experiencing technical 
problems should inform Committee staff immediately.
    We will begin with my opening statement, and then I will 
turn to Ranking Member Moore.

    STATEMENT OF THE HON. KATIE PORTER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
             CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

    Ms. Porter. We are here today to discuss a topic with 
consequences we all know too well: the threat of wildlife-borne 
diseases becoming pandemics. Scientists believe that COVID-19 
likely originated from a virus that jumped from wildlife to 
humans. We have, unfortunately, all learned that late detection 
can cost lives.
    The virus that causes COVID-19 occurs in 29 species that we 
know of, likely more. And it is not just COVID-19. Sixty 
percent of emerging infectious diseases in humans come from 
animals. Although most of those diseases come from animals in 
the wild, Congress provides far less funding for the Department 
of the Interior to monitor diseases in wildlife than it does 
for the Department of Agriculture to monitor diseases in 
domesticated animals. That is a use of taxpayer dollars that we 
need to correct.
    Recent scientific discoveries have made clear that wildlife 
continue to play a role in the pandemic. A study last month 
found that new variants of the coronavirus were created in 
Canada after being circulated in wild deer. The same study 
showed that deer have likely spread COVID-19 to humans. With an 
estimated 30 million deer in the United States, that means 
there is no shortage of opportunities for the virus to mutate 
and then be passed back to people.
    Researchers conducting a study of deer in Iowa found that 
they were infected with the coronavirus at a rate as high as 80 
percent. The study was only possible because the state of Iowa 
had been tracking deer for a different wildlife-borne disease: 
chronic wasting disease. The researchers use the state's 
archived samples and had to break through many barriers to test 
them. While this example shows how a little surveillance can go 
a long way, it also shows that we need to be more intentional 
about monitoring the health threats in our own backyards.
    These outbreaks of wildlife-borne diseases shouldn't come 
as a surprise. Experts have been warning about them for years. 
Those same experts are now telling us that two of the biggest 
drivers of risk from wildlife-borne diseases are climate change 
and the frequency of interactions between wildlife and people. 
Both of those drivers are accelerating, which means we should 
expect more risk in the future, not less.
    Even wildlife-borne diseases we know well, such as the 
bubonic plague, need to be tracked so we can prevent them from 
causing catastrophic harm. Scientists, including Dr. Carlson, 
who is testifying here today, have found that the risk of 
bubonic plague is increasing and spreading to new areas in the 
West due to climate change. Experts warn that if we don't 
monitor the risk of bubonic plague closely, response times will 
be slower and outbreaks will be deadlier.
    The good news is that when we commit to systematic 
surveillance and rapid response, we can contain outbreaks of 
wildlife-borne diseases. Through regular monitoring of 
migratory birds, the source of highly pathogenic avian flu in 
the United States, we have managed the risk of bird flu. If 
that spread had been unchecked, it would have posed a 
significant risk to human health, been economically devastating 
to commercial poultry operations, and resulted in the deaths of 
an unimaginable number of animals.
    I am proud that this Committee provided $45 million in the 
American Rescue Plan for states and tribes to improve 
surveillance of wildlife-borne diseases and rapid response 
efforts. This funding has already helped states prepare better 
for potential public health crises.
    But this one-time funding doesn't address the fragmented 
nature of surveillance in the United States right now, and much 
more is necessary to meet the need. Wildlife-borne diseases do 
not know state boundaries, so we need Federal coordination and 
funding to address this problem. If we want to control 
outbreaks of wildlife-borne disease, we have to be able to see 
them.
    Tracking wildlife-borne disease helps us identify the 
source of an outbreak and predict where the next viral 
spillover into people will be. It could also help us stop the 
creation of new variants of a disease and prevent a pathogen 
from establishing itself in a species, as the coronavirus has 
in deer.
    There is already a well-funded, highly organized effort to 
track wildlife-borne diseases overseas, but we have no such 
effort here at home. I plan to change that with the help of 
experts like the ones testifying today.
    Thank you for appearing before this Committee, and I look 
forward to your testimony.

    [The prepared statement of Ms. Porter follows:]
   Prepared Statement of the Hon. Katie Porter, a Representative in 
                 Congress from the State of California
    We are here today to discuss a topic with consequences we all know 
too well: the threat of wildlife-borne diseases becoming pandemics. 
Scientists believe that COVID-19 likely originated from a virus that 
jumped from wildlife to humans. We've unfortunately all learned that 
late detection can cost lives.
    The virus that causes COVID-19 occurs in 29 species that we know 
of--likely more. And it's not just COVID-19. Sixty percent of emerging 
infectious diseases in humans come from animals. Although most of those 
diseases come from animals in the wild, Congress provides far less 
funding for the Department of the Interior to monitor diseases in 
wildlife than it does for the Department of Agriculture to monitor 
diseases in domesticated animals. This is a poor use of taxpayer 
dollars that we need to correct.
    Recent scientific discoveries have made clear that wildlife 
continue to play a role in the pandemic. A study last month found that 
new variants of the coronavirus were created in Canada after being 
circulated among wild deer. The same study showed that deer have likely 
spread COVID-19 to humans. With an estimated 30 million deer in the 
United States, that means there is no shortage of opportunities for the 
virus to mutate, and then be passed back to people.
    Researchers conducting a study of deer in Iowa found that they were 
infected with the coronavirus at a rate as high as 80 percent. The 
study was only possible because the state of Iowa had been tracking 
deer for a different wildlife-borne disease--Chronic Wasting Disease. 
The researchers used the state's archived samples, and had to break 
through many barriers to test them. While this example shows how a 
little surveillance can go a long way, it also shows that we need to be 
more intentional about monitoring the health threats in our own 
backyards.
    These outbreaks of wildlife-borne diseases shouldn't come as a 
surprise. Experts have been warning about them for years. Those same 
experts are now telling us that two of the biggest drivers of risk to 
people from wildlife-borne diseases are climate change, and the 
frequency of interactions between wildlife and people. Both of those 
drivers are accelerating, which means we should expect more risk in the 
future, not less.
    Even wildlife-borne diseases we know well, such as the bubonic 
plague, need to be tracked so that we can prevent them from causing 
catastrophic harm. Scientists, including Dr. Carlson, who is testifying 
here today, have found that the risk of bubonic plague is increasing 
and spreading to new areas throughout the West due to climate change. 
Experts warn that if we don't monitor the spread of bubonic plague 
closely, response times will be slower and outbreaks will be deadlier.
    The good news is that when we commit to systematic surveillance and 
rapid response, we can contain outbreaks of wildlife-borne diseases. 
Through regular monitoring of migratory birds, the source of Highly 
Pathogenic Avian Flu in the United States, we have managed the risks of 
bird flu. If the spread had been unchecked, it would have posed a 
significant risk to human health, been economically devastating to 
commercial poultry operations, and resulted in the deaths of an 
unimaginable number of animals.
    I am proud that this Committee provided $45 million in the American 
Rescue Plan for states and tribes to improve surveillance of wildlife-
borne diseases and rapid response efforts. This funding has already 
helped states better prepare for potential public health crises. But 
this one-time funding doesn't address the fragmented nature of 
surveillance in the United States right now, and much more is necessary 
to meet the need. Wildlife-borne diseases do not know state boundaries, 
so we need Federal coordination and funding to address this problem.
    If we want to control outbreaks of wildlife-borne disease, we have 
to be able to see them. Tracking wildlife borne diseases helps us 
identify the source of an outbreak and predict where the next viral 
spillover into people will be. It could also help us stop the creation 
of new variants of a disease and prevent a pathogen from establishing 
itself in a species, as the coronavirus has in deer.
    There is already a well-funded, highly organized effort to track 
wildlife-borne diseases overseas. But we have no such effort here at 
home. I plan to change that, with the help of experts like the ones 
testifying today. Thank you for appearing before this Committee, I look 
forward to your testimony.

                                 ______
                                 

    Ms. Porter. I now recognize Ranking Member Moore for his 
opening statement.

   STATEMENT OF THE HON. BLAKE D. MOORE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
                CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF UTAH

    Mr. Moore. Thank you, Chair Porter. We are facing several 
crises in America today.
    Whether it is a health crisis, a border crisis, or an 
energy crisis, the work of this Subcommittee should prioritize 
the most pressing issues at hand. As Americans face 
skyrocketing inflation and rising gas prices, we seem to spend 
time on hearings about almost anything other than addressing 
President Biden's ongoing energy crisis, most relevant to this 
Committee's jurisdiction.
    The Biden administration continues to push policies that 
stifle domestic energy production and leaves us dependent on 
adversarial nations for energy. From canceling the Keystone 
pipeline, to refusing to hold statutorily mandated lease sales 
for over a year, the Biden administration hamstrings American 
energy production at every possible turn.
    The Interior Department should be answering for the delays 
they have caused in the permitting and leasing process for 
energy production on Federal lands, which is why I introduced 
the Protecting Energy Independence and Transparency Act. 
Despite an even greater need for American energy, thousands of 
permits to drill and rights-of-ways are languishing before the 
Interior Department waiting for approval, and we would like to 
know why. The Administration must be held accountable for its 
counterproductive announcement on onshore lease sales earlier 
this month.
    The Administration is raising royalty rates and only 
offering a small fraction of the acreage nominated for leasing. 
In my home state of Utah, the BLM is offering one parcel for 
sale--one. Requiring higher royalty rates on these parcels will 
only drive up the cost of production at a time when Americans 
are paying record prices for gas.
    With rising energy costs and global insecurity threatening 
supply, now is the time to unleash American production. Yet, 
the Majority elected to present a narrow topic for today's 
hearing: the prevention of pandemics through disease 
surveillance in the United States. The Majority's first and 
only government witness is from the U.S. Geological Survey, the 
USGS, to testify.
    As American families are forced to make their dollars 
stretch at home, I look forward to seeing if the USGS is 
appropriately stewarding taxpayer dollars and avoiding 
duplicative work, just as one of the many Federal agencies that 
conduct wildlife surveillance.
    While we can all agree preventing the next pandemic is 
important, we cannot simply limit our discussion to wildlife 
surveillance in this country. We know pandemics have global 
implications. Therefore, common sense dictates that combating 
the next pandemic will require international strategies to 
address these disease outbreaks and coordination among 
countries' surveillance efforts. Today, Ms. Catherine Semcer 
will share her vast expertise, highlighting the importance of 
responsible management of ecosystems on the international 
stage.
    I look forward to discussing how conservation efforts 
eliminating illegal wildlife trafficking and accountability for 
bad actors all play a role in reducing the risk of the next 
pandemic. Ms. Semcer's research on wildlife trafficking, 
environmental security, and the geopolitical implications of 
conservation will highlight the international ties woven into 
the pandemic prevention efforts.
    Responsible environmental management plays a crucial role 
in reducing the risk of disease spillover between species. When 
ecosystems are destroyed, species lose their habitats and are 
then crowded together. The close proximity of animals increases 
the chances of disease transformation between different 
species. For example, China's Belt and Road Initiative and the 
resulting practices of Chinese logging companies in Africa 
highlight this risk.
    As companies' activities result in deforestation with the 
Congo Basin, ecosystems are destroyed and animals lose their 
home. The continuation of irresponsible logging practices will 
lead to greater habitat destruction. Ultimately, effective 
pandemic prevention is tied to responsible management and 
development of our natural resources.
    Equally as important to pandemic prevention is combating 
illegal wildlife trafficking. This illicit practice heightens 
the risk of disease spread between species. Traffickers evade 
health inspections and crowd animals together as they transport 
them, increasing disease spillover.
    China is recognized as a leading consumer of wildlife 
products, including illegally trafficked products. Rather than 
relying on the Chinese Government to change their laws, we 
should assess steps the United States and other international 
allies can take to curtail illegal wildlife trafficking. These 
efforts to curb illegal wildlife trafficking, however, should 
not focus on blanket wildlife trade bans, but instead on 
targeted enforcement that is coordinated with local 
governments.
    If we are serious about preventing the next pandemic, bad 
actors must be held accountable. Until we successfully counter 
China's and other bad actors' dangerous practices, we will 
continue to face increased risks of wildlife-borne pandemics.
    With that I yield back. Thank you.

    Ms. Porter. Thank you very much, Ranking Member Moore. Now 
I would like to turn to our first panel and introduce our 
Government witness.
    Ms. Anne Kinsinger is the Associate Director for Ecosystems 
at the U.S. Geological Survey.
    Let me remind the witnesses that under Committee Rules, 
they must limit their oral statements to 5 minutes, but their 
entire statement will appear in the hearing record.
    When you begin, the timer will begin, and it will turn 
orange when you have 1 minute remaining. I recommend that 
Members and witnesses joining virtually pin the timer so that 
it remains visible.
    After your testimony is complete, please remember to mute 
yourself to avoid any inadvertent background noise.
    The Chair is now happy to recognize Ms. Kinsinger to 
testify.

STATEMENT OF ANNE KINSINGER, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR FOR ECOSYSTEMS, 
            U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY, RESTON, VIRGINIA

    Ms. Kinsinger. Good morning. Chair Porter, Ranking Member 
Moore, and members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the 
opportunity to appear today to testify on wildlife diseases, 
especially zoonoses, which are pathogens that spread between 
humans and animals.
    As Chair Porter has already noted, this is a critically 
important issue, and a review of emerging human infectious 
diseases going back to the 1949s found, as she said, that 
approximately 60 percent of human diseases were zoonotic in 
nature and, of those, more than 70 percent of them originated 
in wildlife.
    USGS conducts disease surveillance and research, supporting 
the Federal response to zoonotic diseases that circulate in 
wildlife and in the environment. Our efforts to support a One 
Health approach that calls for close collaboration between the 
human health, domesticated animal, and wildlife sectors. In 
particular, it supports improved biosurveillance of wildlife 
diseases.
    As with many complex challenges, a whole-of-government 
approach is needed, and USGS scientists are working closely 
with other Federal and State agencies, including the U.S. Fish 
and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, USDA, the Centers 
for Disease Control, and the Association of Fish and Wildlife 
Agencies.
    For example, we and our partners are developing a network 
that encompasses all aspects of wildlife disease surveillance, 
including incident reporting, prediction of threats, assessment 
of impacts, and selection of management options. This will 
strengthen the capabilities of all network partners: Federal 
agencies, States, Tribes, academia, and our international 
partners to predict, assess, and respond to disease threats 
quickly and effectively.
    Enhanced capabilities and additional science could better 
ensure that our stakeholders, such as resource managers, 
emergency responders, and the public health community receive 
early warning and actionable science to inform disease response 
efforts. We are already moving forward on this endeavor by 
working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to begin 
development of a National Wildlife Disease Database to provide 
early warning of wildlife diseases. This was funded under the 
American Rescue Plan.
    In addition, DOI funding provided by the CARES Act was used 
by USGS to initiate biosurveillance of coronaviruses in 
wildlife, in the environment, and municipal wastewater. This 
includes integrating SARS-CoV-2 surveillance into wildlife 
cause-of-death investigations and active field surveillance, 
such as sampling around mink farms to support a USDA response.
    The USGS also incorporated SARS-CoV-2 sample collection 
into existing bat surveillance studies to ensure rapid 
detection should infections occur.
    Funds were also used to partner with the CDC National 
Wastewater Surveillance System to provide local public health 
agencies with tests for community-level infections during a 
COVID-19 surge.
    The USGS can be nimble and responsive to these requests due 
to the capacity that has been built over decades to support the 
Federal response to zoonotic diseases and to inform mitigation 
strategies which help protect both wildlife and the public 
health. The USGS maintains several important labs across the 
country, including the National Wildlife Health Center in 
Madison, Wisconsin, which is the only Federal biosafety-level 
three lab dedicated to wildlife health.
    We also support two aquatic labs that study disease: our 
Western Fisheries Research Center in Seattle, Washington; and 
our Eastern Ecological Science Center in Kearneysville, West 
Virginia.
    Our labs, along with USGS wildlife disease experts located 
across the United States, are supporting our partners with 
research, technology, and tools to tackle current and ongoing 
zoonotic diseases found on land and in water environments. 
These include coronaviruses, avian influenza, chronic wasting 
disease, rabies, sylvatic plague, brucellosis, rabbit 
hemorrhagic disease, salmonellosis, Lyme disease, avian 
malaria, and many others.
    In conclusion, the USGS, along with our partners, is 
leading research on wildlife disease and spearheading 
monitoring efforts that address diverse stakeholder needs. As 
the One Health approach implies, understanding wildlife disease 
is a crucial step in protecting the public from known and 
emergent diseases. That idea of studying the natural world to 
benefit all people is very much within the USGS tradition.
    Thank you for this opportunity to testify today, and I am 
happy to answer any questions that you may have.

    [The prepared statement of Ms. Kinsinger follows:]
     Prepared Statement of Anne Kinsinger, Associate Director for 
     Ecosystems, U.S. Geological Survey, Department of the Interior
    Chairman Porter, Ranking Member Moore, and Members of the 
Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear today to testify 
on wildlife diseases, including zoonoses, which are pathogens that 
spread between humans and animals. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) 
conducts wildlife disease surveillance and research, supporting the 
Federal response to zoonotic diseases that circulate in wildlife and 
the environment. As the science agency of the Department of the 
Interior (DOI), USGS research supports other bureaus, including the 
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and National Park Service (NPS), 
to protect the health of wildlife and the health of both employees and 
visitors to our public lands. Furthermore, the USGS fills a unique role 
in supporting national zoonotic disease efforts led by the Department 
of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of Health and Human Services.
    A review of emerging human infectious diseases going back to the 
1940s found that approximately sixty percent were zoonotic, and more 
than seventy percent of those originated in wildlife.\1\ Because of 
this, USGS wildlife disease surveillance and research support a One 
Health approach to national zoonotic disease response. The Centers for 
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines One Health as ``a 
collaborative, multisectoral, and transdisciplinary approach--working 
at the local, regional, national, and global levels--with the goal of 
achieving optimal health outcomes recognizing the interconnection 
between people, animals, plants, and their shared environment.'' \2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ Jones K., Patel, N., Levy, M. et al. Global trends in emerging 
infectious diseases. Nature 451, 990-993 (2008). https://doi.org/
10.1038/nature06536.
    \2\ One Health Zoonotic Disease Prioritization Workshop Report. 
December 2017. www.cdc.gov/onehealth/pdfs/us-ohzdp-report-508.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    One Health recommends that the Nation improve biosurveillance of 
wildlife diseases, including zoonoses. The USGS is working with 
partners to develop a network that encompasses all aspects of wildlife 
disease biosurveillance including prediction of threats, assessment of 
their impacts, and selection of management options to apply scientific 
findings more quickly. This effort is being undertaken in collaboration 
with the USFWS, the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, and 
other partners who have also identified expanded biosurveillance needs 
as a priority. As with many complex challenges, a whole-of-government 
approach is ideal. Most of the examples we will discuss today 
illustrate that enhanced capabilities and additional science could 
better ensure stakeholders receive early warning and sound data to 
inform disease response efforts. The national wildlife disease 
biosurveillance network envisioned by USGS would be adaptively refined 
as scientific gaps are identified. This will strengthen the 
capabilities of all network partners, Federal agencies, States, Tribes, 
academia, and our international partners, to predict, assess, and 
respond to disease threats quickly and effectively.
    The USGS has taken the first steps toward developing this network. 
Through an interagency agreement with USFWS, the USGS has begun 
development of a national wildlife disease database as called for under 
the American Rescue Plan Act. The database will include two components: 
first, the enhancement of the Wildlife Health Information Sharing 
Partnership-Event Reporting System (WHISPers) database, and second, 
development of the new Aquatic Disease and Pathogen database 
(AquaDePTH). In addition to the situational awareness provided by 
AquaDePTH and WHISPers, there are also collaborative tools for Federal, 
State, and Tribal partners to share information, and we are working to 
increase participation in those databases. Using the national wildlife 
disease database, the USGS will be able to provide an early warning for 
wildlife diseases, including those species that serve as sentinels for 
ecosystem health. The USFWS added a requirement to its upcoming 
zoonotic disease grant program that agencies receiving funding utilize 
the WHISPers platform, further enhancing the national wildlife disease 
database. The USFWS also maintains the National Wild Fish Health 
Survey, which partners with natural resource managers to assist in 
inspections, diagnoses, and publishing results of aquatic diseases.
    DOI funding provided by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic 
Security Act (CARES Act) was used to initiate biosurveillance of 
coronavirus in wildlife and the environment. This included integrating 
SARS-CoV-2 surveillance into USGS cause-of-death investigations as well 
as active field surveillance, including sampling wildlife around mink 
farms to support USDA's response. USGS took advantage of bat ecology 
research that includes white-nose syndrome surveillance to also collect 
samples for SARS-CoV-2 surveillance.
    These are recent examples of the role the USGS plays, providing 
scientific information to resource managers and planners, emergency 
response officials, and the public. Over the decades, USGS science has 
supported federal responses by detecting zoonoses, improving our 
understanding of their ecological dynamics, and informing mitigation 
strategies which help protect both wildlife and public health.
    To do this, the USGS and the USFWS maintain several important labs 
across the country. The National Wildlife Health Center (NWHC) in 
Madison, Wisconsin, which was established in 1975, is the only Federal 
biosafety-level three (BSL-3) lab dedicated to wildlife health, and it 
is an affiliate lab in several national and international networks. The 
USGS also has two aquatic high-containment laboratories, the Eastern 
Ecological Science Center (EESC), in Kearneysville, West Virginia, and 
the Western Fisheries Research Center, in Seattle, Washington. The 
USFWS has six fully functional Fish Health Centers conducting regular 
inspections, diagnostics, and cutting-edge research to actively manage 
diseases in captivity and the wild.
    In addition to these facilities, the USGS and the USFWS develops 
innovative technologies and methods to support response to zoonoses. A 
well-known example is our development of capabilities to detect and 
track wildlife species and pathogens using environmental DNA, or eDNA. 
This is an example of investments we have made in new methods for 
monitoring invasive species, which can spread zoonoses. Our research on 
toxins and contaminants and their spread through the environment 
includes pathogens, and we maintain a variety of remote sensing 
capabilities to monitor environmental conditions that inform 
assessments of zoonotic disease spread. We have even helped design 
better citizen science campaigns to improve the collection of data. 
Also, the USFWS hosts a Genetics Community of Practice well known for 
advancing new technologies and applying them to actively managed fish 
and wildlife populations. Their expertise in eDNA protocol development, 
applied to fish and wildlife management and detection of aquatic 
invasive species, will play a critical role in future disease 
surveillance.
    The NWHC has made significant contributions to national zoonotic 
disease surveillance efforts in wildlife including SARS-CoV-2, avian 
influenza, and West Nile virus. For example, the USDA confirmed NWHC 
preliminary positives for the first U.S. detections of West Nile virus 
and highly pathogenic avian influenza in wild birds. Following the 
first detections of those diseases in the U.S., the USGS has 
collaborated with the USDA and the CDC on surveillance of these 
zoonoses in wildlife. Notably, experimental research demonstrated that 
West Nile virus could be transmitted from crow to crow when it was 
previously thought that it could only be spread by mosquitoes. 
Additional research and surveillance capacity would be needed to 
investigate the role of wildlife in other vector-borne diseases. 
Wildlife vector-borne disease surveillance and research can also 
enhance management of wildlife diseases like avian malaria, which is 
the leading driver of population declines and extinctions in Hawaiian 
forest birds. Five years before the first U.S. detection of highly 
pathogenic avian influenza, USGS experimental research found that 
infected native raptors could develop neurological disease and die, 
providing early warning for the need to monitor raptors in addition to 
waterfowl. Further research is needed to enhance avian disease risk 
prediction, mapping, and forecasting tools to inform wild bird 
management decisions.
    USGS disease ecology research provides insight into how zoonoses 
behave in the environment and affect wildlife. For more than twenty 
years, we have collaborated with the USDA to support management of 
bovine brucellosis, a zoonotic disease that circulates in bison and elk 
as well as domestic cattle, especially in the Greater Yellowstone 
Ecosystem. The USGS has shown how elk are a key host of this disease 
and that it affects their reproduction. The spread of the disease can 
be influenced by the length of the elk supplemental feeding season and 
elk migratory movements that are linked to greening-up in the spring. 
USGS science has also shown that maintaining scavenger populations 
(such as coyotes, foxes, or eagles) can help reduce the spread of 
brucellosis.
    Another example is USGS research into avian influenza ecology. It 
has provided insights on the genomics of viral lineages that circulate 
in migratory birds, which informs USDA poultry outbreak traceback 
investigations and surveillance strategies. USGS waterfowl telemetry 
and modeling have demonstrated the interface between wild birds and 
poultry, enhancing situational awareness and risk assessments. USGS 
research has also confirmed the persistence of infectious avian 
influenza viruses in surface waters in northern wetlands and determined 
that diving ducks can play a role in the dynamics of this disease.
    USGS science that supports the mitigation of zoonoses can also help 
protect public health. For example, sylvatic plague is a zoonotic 
bacterial disease that affects pets, like cats and dogs; wildlife, such 
as prairie dogs and the endangered black-footed ferret; and also causes 
several human deaths each year. In addition to improving our 
understanding of plague ecology, the USGS has developed innovative 
tools to mitigate this disease in wildlife. The NWHC developed and 
tested a plague vaccine given to prairie dogs through a peanut-butter 
flavored oral bait. The license to produce this vaccine was awarded to 
a U.S. company, Colorado Serum, with a conditional license from the 
USDA. The USGS also collaborated with the CDC to identify flea 
resistance to deltamethrin dust, an insecticide and a long-standing 
plague management tool. We are investigating other options, such as 
fipronil pellets, for reducing flea abundance in prairie dog burrows. 
In another example of vaccine development, the USGS and our partners 
developed a rabies vaccine that has been shown in the lab to be 
effective in big brown bats, providing a proof-of-concept for a white-
nose syndrome vaccine, which is now in field trials.
    These and other examples of USGS research contribute to public 
health and inform our understanding of impacts humans have on wildlife. 
For example, the USGS published an online tool \3\ to provide rapid 
SARS-CoV-2 risk assessments for human-to-bat transmission (i.e., 
reverse zoonosis) to guide decision-making for bat biologists, wildlife 
rehabilitators, and animal control operators who regularly work with 
bats. In the case of the Zika virus, the USGS provided science to guide 
management actions that reduce risk to non-target species, like 
pollinators, but allow for control of insect vectors, such as mosquitos 
and ticks. We have also helped integrate mathematical models and 
statistical tools based in natural resource management for COVID-19 
public health mitigation planning.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \3\ www.usgs.gov/apps/SARSCOV2BATRISKCALC/.
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    Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a good example of a One Health 
approach. CWD is a fatal neurological disease of deer, elk, and moose 
caused by infectious prions. While CWD has not been shown to affect 
humans, variants of other animal prion diseases do, such as Creutzfeld-
Jakob disease. The USGS has worked with the NPS, the USFWS, USDA, 
States, and Tribes for many years to enhance the understanding of CWD 
dynamics in deer and elk and develop tools for monitoring the spread of 
CWD and making management decisions. Our work has focused on mitigating 
the spread of CWD in wild cervid populations, including reducing 
environmental prion contamination, and developing customizable 
surveillance and mitigation planning tools for States and Tribes. 
Currently, the science community is hopeful that a test will soon be 
deployed that can be used to detect small numbers of prions, that is 
achieve early detection, in live cervids rather than the current 
testing standard that uses post-mortem tissues. All of this requires 
collaboration across all levels of government and robust public 
outreach efforts--and it all needs to be done not just for known 
diseases but also for novel, emerging pathogens yet to be discovered.
    The USGS, along with our partners, is leading research on wildlife 
disease and spearheading monitoring efforts that address diverse 
stakeholders needs. As the One Health approach implies, understanding 
wildlife disease is a crucial step in protecting the public from known 
and emergent diseases. That idea, of studying the natural world to 
benefit all people, is very much within our tradition. Thank you for 
this opportunity to testify today. I would be happy to answer any 
questions you may have.

                                 ______
                                 

  Questions Submitted for the Record to Ms. Anne Kinsinger, Associate 
            Director for Ecosystems, U.S. Geological Survey
              Questions Submitted by Representative Moore
    Question 1. In the passage of ``America's Conservation 
Enhancement'' Act, the U.S. Geological Survey was instructed to work 
with the Agriculture Department, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the 
National Academies of Science to conduct an interagency study on 
Chronic Wasting Disease.

    (a) Can you provide us an update on the progress of that study?

    (b) When do you anticipate that study will be complete?

    Answer. The Department of the Interior Chronic Wasting Disease 
(CWD) Task Force, which was set up prior to enactment of the America's 
Conservation Enhancement Act (Act), has been collaborating with the 
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to work with the National 
Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to develop a CWD 
transmission study, as called for in the Act. A statement of task has 
been completed for the first Phase. The U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. 
Fish and Wildlife Service, and USDA are each contributing $200,000 for 
this Phase I study. We anticipate the Phase I study will be completed 
by FY2024.

                                 ______
                                 

    Ms. Porter. Thank you very much for your testimony.

    Reminding Members that Committee Rule 3(d) imposes a 5-
minute limit on questions, the Chair will now recognize Members 
for any questions they may wish to ask the witness.
    Mr. Soto, if you are ready, I will recognize you first and 
will delay my questioning to make sure we can keep Members on 
their schedule. I am glad to have you here.
    Mr. Soto. Thank you, Chair Porter.
    And I appreciate you being here, Ms. Kinsinger.
    Just as a preliminary discussion of how we have gotten this 
right over the years, in 2016, we had a screw worm outbreak 
among Key deer in Florida that would have been a huge issue for 
our cattle ranches throughout Florida. Yet, because of the good 
work of U.S. Fish and Wildlife, we were able to get that under 
control. Sadly, 135 deer had to be killed to be able to bring 
that under control, but it shows that good work can be done to 
help out.
    But we did see a more troubling menace in the Zika 
outbreak, which we saw starting in places like South America, 
and eventually getting to my family's native island of Puerto 
Rico.
    Ms. Kinsinger, in your testimony, you mentioned that the 
USGS provided guidance to the Puerto Rico Government about how 
to do mosquito control without killing off pollinators during 
the Zika outbreak, which is an important balance to strike. Can 
you tell me more about the specifics of that guidance, and why 
were pollinators at risk?
    Ms. Kinsinger. Yes. We have some limited research in the 
Zika virus, not only what you were talking about, but also in 
understanding the disease--the ecology of mosquitoes, which, of 
course, are what cause Zika.
    We have a role in understanding the ecology of species, 
including pollinators, throughout the United States, in 
understanding the ecological pathways of disease. So, our work 
here was to try to understand the unintended consequences of 
chemical applications to control mosquitoes.
    Mr. Soto. I know this Committee released a report in 2016 
showing that forced budget cuts in Puerto Rico compromised the 
island's own ability to protect itself from the Zika virus, 
something that threatened our great state of Florida, as well. 
That outbreak was devastating for Puerto Rico.
    The kind of expertise and experience that you describe 
strikes me as something the Puerto Rico Government could not be 
expected to provide under those circumstances. So, having the 
assistance of USGS in a situation like that is essential.
    Does USGS continue to provide assistance to the island on 
Zika, chikungunya, or other wildlife-borne diseases? And, if 
so, what kind of assistance?
    Ms. Kinsinger. I don't believe we have any active Zika 
projects at the moment.
    Mr. Soto. Is there any other wildlife-borne disease that 
you are assisting with down in Puerto Rico?
    Ms. Kinsinger. I will have to get back to you on the record 
on that. I don't know.
    Mr. Soto. And what are some other examples of services that 
USGS provides the states and territories to help them manage 
wildlife-borne diseases?
    Ms. Kinsinger. I did mention biosurveillance, which is key, 
and we are developing, with our partners, a number of tools, 
including genetic tools like the measuring genetic components 
in environmental DNA and RNA. And we continue to do that sort 
of horizon scanning to see when emergent diseases are detected.
    We also do investigations of outbreaks at our National 
Wildlife Health Center that I mentioned earlier in my oral 
testimony.
    And then, again, ecological research is a key piece of 
this, as we understand both the vectors and the species that 
are at risk, understanding their distribution, changes in their 
migratory patterns perhaps due to climate change, and other 
factors such as that.
    Mr. Soto. And Ms. Kinsinger, big picture, with a warming 
climate in states like Florida and territories like Puerto Rico 
and Virgin Islands getting warmer weather, what does that mean, 
ultimately, for the threat of vector-borne diseases, and how 
can we help you all address them?
    Ms. Kinsinger. In our Fiscal Year 2023 budget, we do have 
an increased proposal to look at the effects of climate on 
wildlife diseases. We have a couple of instances in the United 
States where we have been working on this, precisely the types 
of areas I have already outlined.
    One is in the Northeast, looking at the distribution and 
movement of ticks that cause, of course, Lyme disease, deer 
ticks, and looking at the effects of climate on the tick 
distribution, and ultimately on wildlife health, such as moose 
in the Northeast.
    Going far across the country to the West, we have worked in 
Hawaii with our partners in Fish and Wildlife Service, National 
Park Service, and others, looking at the spread of avian 
malaria in critically endangered Hawaiian forest birds. And 
what we are doing there is we are seeing that the mosquitoes 
are spreading up as climate warms and changes. They are moving 
up the mountains that are the last refugia for these critically 
endangered birds. So, we are in a multi-agency effort to look 
at both the ecological conditions and potential control 
technologies to stop that further spread.
    Mr. Soto. Thank you, and I yield back.
    Ms. Porter. Thank you very much. We now turn to Ranking 
Member Moore for his 5 minutes of questioning.
    Mr. Moore. Thank you, Chair.
    Thanks for being here, thanks for joining us today, 
Associate Director Kinsinger.
    I would like to start today by getting a better 
understanding of how the U.S. Geological Survey works with 
other Federal agencies to meet our wildlife surveillance goals. 
I am going to ask questions about coordination, how you work 
where there is duplicative nature. Let me just say on the front 
end, this frustration of mine predates today. It predates my 
time in Congress. I have served in Federal agencies before, and 
this is a problem across our entire government.
    But we are going to focus on specifically your area today. 
This is something we have to get better. We just have to do 
this better, because we are wasting taxpayers' dollars every 
single day by having way too much duplicative work and making 
it too difficult for us to get to the root of the problem.
    In your testimony, you highlighted the U.S. Geological 
Survey's collaboration with several agencies which also conduct 
wildlife surveillance. For example, the Fish and Wildlife 
Service just announced $9 million in grants focused on 
addressing zoonotic outbreaks, and the Agriculture Department 
received $6 million to study COVID-19, a specific zoonotic 
disease, in deer.
    Please describe the relationship between your agency and 
others conducting wildlife surveillance, including the Ag. 
Department and the Fish and Wildlife Service. How often do you 
communicate with each other? Please provide some context here.
    Ms. Kinsinger. OK, thank you. As I noted in my oral 
testimony, such collaboration is absolutely critical, and we do 
work very closely with the agencies that I named and many 
others.
    The niche for the U.S. Geological Survey is in the study of 
wildlife diseases and the ecological condition that leads to 
spread of diseases, and we do work very closely with USDA. The 
example I would give you there is an avian influenza. When we 
do outbreak investigations at our National Wildlife Health 
Center to detect avian influenza, we then send those samples to 
the USDA for verification, and we have a closely coordinated 
communication strategy in which the USDA does make those 
announcements.
    So, again, the focus of USDA is on domesticated animals, 
and our focus is on wildlife disease in free-ranging animals in 
the wild.
    Another example would be chronic wasting disease. I sit 
with USDA on the Chronic Wasting Disease Task Force that is 
managed out of the Department of the Interior. It has USDA 
APHIS, the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, and many 
sister DOI bureaus in which we discuss new findings of chronic 
wasting disease detection, priorities, spread of the disease, 
mapping, and so on. So, we do share information, I think quite 
well, when it comes to chronic wasting disease.
    Mr. Moore. And could you share also steps you take to make 
sure this work is not duplicative in nature?
    Ms. Kinsinger. It is through those coordination meetings.
    Again, I think we have a special niche that deals with 
wildlife disease, and both the human health community and the 
agricultural community do look to us for that specialized 
expertise.
    Mr. Moore. With respect to a cross-cut budget analysis, to 
your knowledge has the DOI, the Department of the Interior, 
conducted a cross-budget analysis of all the Department's 
wildlife surveillance programs?
    Ms. Kinsinger. I don't know, so I will get back to you on 
that.
    Mr. Moore. OK. Yes, without that type of budget--please do 
get back to us. If there is one, we would love to be able to 
have a copy of it and dig into it with some of my staff.
    But without that, can you be confident the taxpayer dollars 
are being efficiently used if there is no assessment of how 
money is being spent through separate agencies working toward 
the same goal?
    Ms. Kinsinger. I think that analysis could be useful, but I 
am confident, because of the degree of coordination and 
collaboration and communication that we have, that we are 
spending taxpayer dollars wisely.
    Mr. Moore. Professor Carlson, a witness on the next panel 
noted in his testimony that because wildlife disease 
surveillance is ``fragmented across these institutions,'' that 
it could take a researcher months or years to find the data 
necessary to answer one question--kind of my prelude here when 
I started this questioning, the issue that I have. It is 
unacceptable.
    Your testimony noted that your agency had begun developing 
a National Wildlife Disease Database. How will you prioritize 
addressing the problem highlighted here by Professor Carlson as 
you create this database?
    Ms. Kinsinger. Thank you for that question. The National 
Wildlife Disease Database is built on a current system that we 
have called WHISPers, Wildlife Incident Reporting System, at 
our National Wildlife Health Center. It already serves as a 
centralized place where incidents can be reported and 
additional information be included.
    So, we are building from that outward to a system that will 
be accessible to all, where incidents can be reported, but also 
where we can combine ecological and environmental information 
and work with the community to develop risk assessments, look 
at adaptive management strategies, and generally just help 
managers bring the science together to address these concerns.
    Mr. Moore. Yes, thank you.
    Thank you, Chair.
    Ms. Porter. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from 
California, Mr. Huffman.
    Mr. Huffman. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Ms. Kinsinger, I appreciate you being here. And I noted you 
made a passing reference in your testimony to mink farming and 
to some surveillance work the USGS is doing. I think, if we are 
going to try to get our heads around this subject of animal 
wildlife-borne diseases in the context of this current 
pandemic, we need to talk about mink a little bit more.
    I am told that even though there are some anecdotes about 
cats and big cats getting COVID, mink are really the species 
where we know it has gone back and forth between humans, and 
actually mutated within mink populations, and then come back to 
us. Meanwhile, we produce millions of minks in mink farms in 
the United States for export, I am told, mainly to China.
    So, I wonder if you could tell us a little more about the 
level of concern we should have about these mink farms as a 
vector for the spreading of COVID, and potentially creating a 
mutation laboratory almost here in the United States, simply so 
that we can sell furs to China.
    Ms. Kinsinger. Yes, I do think it is a serious concern, as 
it is with other animals, both domesticated and wild, that not 
only are affected by COV-2, but also can serve as reservoirs 
for potential transmission back to humans and also to other 
wildlife.
    The USGS role in the mink farm surveillance really did 
focus on wildlife surrounding the mink farms. And we did test a 
large number of animals--I think the number was 365--and it did 
show quite a lot of presence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in those 
animals.
    Mr. Huffman. So, what are you doing about that?
    We are continuing to raise and export these minks, as I 
understand it, back and forth to China of all places, in the 
middle of this pandemic. Isn't this something that we should be 
sounding the alarm about, looking into taking action?
    Ms. Kinsinger. Well, I think, as I say, the USGS role 
really is in looking at the wild animals. We work closely with 
those who do make those sorts of management and policy 
decisions, but I wouldn't want to speak for them.
    Mr. Huffman. So, you are purely looking at the wildlife in 
the area around the mink farms. Do I understand that correctly?
    Ms. Kinsinger. That is correct, yes. And that response is 
being led by USDA. So, our information has been given to USDA 
to help in their very difficult management decisions.
    Mr. Huffman. And, I think, in your words, you said you were 
finding quite a bit of COVID just in that surrounding wildlife 
tracking that you are doing. Is it fair to assume that the 
level of COVID within the mink farm itself, where these animals 
are confined and presumably don't even have a lot of 
interaction with the surrounding environment, wouldn't it be 
fair to assume that we might have an even bigger problem within 
the mink farms?
    Ms. Kinsinger. Well, it is definitely true that animals 
that congregate do have higher levels of transmission. Yes.
    Mr. Huffman. OK. I am a little surprised, frankly, that we 
are not hearing more from you about that, but maybe that is 
just a function of USGS and jurisdictional lines that constrain 
you. So, maybe there are other witnesses that can speak to 
this, but are there other authorities or resources that you 
would want to do more about what seems like a pretty clear and 
present danger posed by these mink farms?
    Ms. Kinsinger. Well, I think, as I mentioned, in the 2023 
budget we do have some ample funding to look at wildlife 
diseases in the wild. We did receive some specific increases in 
our 2022 omnibus bill, as well. But there is always room to 
expand our capacity.
    And as I said, these are decisions that are informed by the 
science of USGS, but there are a lot of factors that go into 
making those decisions.
    Mr. Huffman. All right. Well, I appreciate your testimony, 
and I understand the limitations that you are under there.
    But my understanding is that, of all the animals that we 
might concern ourselves with, mink should be perhaps at the top 
of the list in terms of the known transmission of this virus 
back and forth between minks and humans, and the known 
mutations that have already arisen from that, and the volume of 
mink farming, and the trade back between the United States and 
China. I mean, these are all huge red flags.
    Madam Chairman, thanks so much. I yield back.
    Ms. Porter. Thank you very much. The Chair now recognizes 
the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Hice.
    Dr. Hice. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. The USGS 
collaborates with numerous other partners to conduct wildlife 
surveillance. I would like to go there, if we can, for a few 
moments.
    What type of metrics do you have in place to assess the 
value of these partnerships?
    Ms. Kinsinger. That is a really good question. I don't 
think we have been using specific quantitative metrics. 
Certainly, I think it can be measured by the rapidity of our 
response to detected outbreaks, to the ability to communicate 
quickly and effectively with those who do have to make 
difficult public health and agricultural sector decisions. But 
I am not aware of any particular metrics that we have been 
using to measure our success.
    Dr. Hice. So, you just kind of play it by ear and determine 
the whole?
    Ms. Kinsinger. Well, I don't know if we are playing it by 
ear, because we do have plans such as the avian influenza 
response plan, and many other plans in place that are----
    Dr. Hice. But there are no metrics to determine the overall 
value?
    Ms. Kinsinger. Not to my knowledge.
    Dr. Hice. What about on the funding side of things? What 
kind of tracking mechanisms are in place to monitor funds that 
are awarded to partners for wildlife surveillance?
    Ms. Kinsinger. I think that is a question better put to the 
granting agencies.
    We were involved, for example, in the criteria that were 
developed for the Fish and Wildlife Service grants to states 
and tribes to look at wildlife disease. And we did ask that 
those measures include information being put into the National 
Wildlife Disease Database I mentioned.
    But I am not familiar with what metrics they are using for 
success----
    Dr. Hice. So, again, there is no real tracking of the 
funding of it all, either.
    Ms. Kinsinger. No, I believe there is tracking. I am just 
not familiar with it because they aren't----
    Dr. Hice. OK. Well, if we could get that information----
    Ms. Kinsinger. I would be happy to do that.
    Dr. Hice. It has come up with others about duplicate-type 
scenarios here. How do you prevent partners from duplicating 
wildlife surveillance work?
    Ms. Kinsinger. Well, as I mentioned in my oral testimony, I 
think we are doing a better and better job. I wouldn't say we 
are where we need to be, but a better and better job of a 
national coordinated biosurveillance effort.
    As one example, the Association of Fish and Wildlife 
Agencies, which represents state fish and wildlife agencies 
across the country, passed a resolution in support of 
biosurveillance of disease. I sit on their National Fish and 
Wildlife Health Steering Committee. I sit on their Steering 
Committee for the National Wildlife Health Initiative, and we 
have been working closely on making sure that we bring our 
information together and that the Federal agencies, which don't 
manage a lot of these species, serve as a support function for 
the state agencies in doing things like risk assessments, and 
doing things like----
    Dr. Hice. Well, that is good. If I may, because I don't 
have much time, that is good that you are doing that. But the 
question is, how do you prevent duplicating? You are not really 
answering that question. How is that prevented?
    Ms. Kinsinger. I believe it is prevented through the 
regular meetings and collaborations we have.
    Dr. Hice. OK. Are there any metrics to determine the 
effectiveness of those meetings to make sure duplicative work 
is not occurring?
    Ms. Kinsinger. Again, I am not aware of any quantitative 
metrics. I think the quality of our response is probably the 
best way to look at that.
    Dr. Hice. Do you think it would be a good idea to have some 
metrics?
    Ms. Kinsinger. I could definitely take that back to our 
community and get back to you on that.
    Dr. Hice. OK. I think that would probably be a good idea.
    I would like to transition, if I can, about how your agency 
provides information to the CDC. Can you kind of walk us 
through that process from USGS--when you detect a disease to 
when your agency alerts the CDC of the findings? What is the 
process there?
    Ms. Kinsinger. So, there are different processes, depending 
on the disease. As I mentioned with avian influenza, our 
primary partner there is the USDA. But for other diseases, we 
have a vast network of collaborators that we share our results 
with all the time.
    We also release what we call technical bulletins from our 
National Wildlife Health Center that goes out to all the key 
decision makers in multiple Federal and state agencies.
    Dr. Hice. What kind of steps are taken to verify your 
findings before initiating the process?
    How do you know that you know what you are doing?
    Ms. Kinsinger. We certainly try to design our research so 
it is replicable, and we do multiple tests when we do them. And 
in some cases, we do have independent labs like the USDA verify 
our results.
    Dr. Hice. OK, thank you.
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Ms. Porter. Thank you very much. The Chair now recognizes 
the gentlelady from Michigan, Mrs. Dingell, for 5 minutes.
    Mrs. Dingell. Thank you, Madam Chair. I really want to 
thank you and Ranking Member Moore for convening this important 
and timely hearing on wildlife-borne disease surveillance.
    It is important to note that, in addition to COVID-19, we 
have to be mindful of spillovers of other zoonotic diseases 
that could pose significant public health risks to Americans. 
In fact, even prior to the current pandemic, there was a 
historic outbreak of eastern equine encephalitis in Michigan in 
2019 that infected 10 people, killing 6, and leaving at least 
one survivor with permanent disabilities. For comparison, in an 
average year there are seven cases of this disease in the 
entire United States.
    So, we have to take seriously this potential threat to 
America's public health and ensure that there are appropriate 
systems in place for surveillance and detection of these types 
of diseases.
    Ms. Kinsinger, in your testimony, you speak about how 
experimental research discovered the potential for previously 
unknown wildlife-to-wildlife transmission in the West Nile 
virus, another mosquito-borne disease. Could more wildlife 
disease research help warn us about the new risks to human 
health, and how?
    Ms. Kinsinger. Yes, I believe greater surveillance could 
help in warning about the risk.
    And, specifically, I mentioned the use of genetic 
capabilities. So, not a disease example, but, for example, 
learning to detect Asian carp in the Great Lakes, we developed 
these field tests where samples could be analyzed on the spot 
to detect for the presence of Asian carp. And I think tools and 
technologies like that would be a significant boost to our 
national network of biosurveillance.
    Mrs. Dingell. So, building on that, in your testimony you 
talk about the development of a test for eDNA. Is that the same 
eDNA that has been essential in tracking invasive carp near the 
Great Lakes?
    Ms. Kinsinger. Yes.
    Mrs. Dingell. How has that technology changed the way we 
manage invasive carp?
    Ms. Kinsinger. Yes, that is the technology I was referring 
to. Environmental DNA is when you search for DNA in waters, 
soils, and plants, and the like.
    And I think that is essential for early detection because 
if you wait for--well, in the case of chronic wasting disease, 
for example, animals don't appear to be sick, don't show 
symptoms for months at a time. So, it is really important to 
detect these disease agents early on, either in the live 
animals or in the environment.
    Mrs. Dingell. But then how does that technology help us 
manage it better? Yes, detect, but how does it help manage? 
What do we do?
    Ms. Kinsinger. So, a couple of examples: (1) the key is, 
particularly as I mentioned, combining our ecological research 
which understands how animals move, where they go--we have done 
work in avian influenza, for example, to look at the overlap 
between wild and domesticated birds and certainly human 
interactions. So, all of those factors where these diseases 
might occur before they get there, and then we can put in place 
the biosecurity measures to prevent that spread.
    Mrs. Dingell. Last question: Can you discuss USGS's 
WHISPers Database? How does this help track the sorts of public 
health concerns we have discussed today?
    Ms. Kinsinger. The WHISPers Database is a wildlife incident 
reporting system. It is housed at our National Wildlife Health 
Center. And what it does is serve as a central place for 
reports of incidents of wildlife disease that occur throughout 
the nation. So, it is a widely used database right now for 
people to scan and do this sort of horizon scanning to detect 
incidences as they occur in real time.
    We are also building on that WHISPers Database for our 
National Wildlife Disease Database to add in additional 
information, ecological information, environmental information, 
and the capacity to employ even more predictive tools and 
technologies.
    Mrs. Dingell. Thanks for the work that you are doing and, 
Madam Chair, for having this hearing. Michigan has been a place 
that we saw the transmission of COVID, as well, from mink, and 
we care a lot about this.
    I yield back the balance of my 7 seconds. Thanks, Madam 
Chair.
    Ms. Porter. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from 
Tennessee, Mr. Cohen, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Madam Chairman, for having this 
hearing. We had three committees going concurrently, so we 
thank you for your efforts in this important panel.
    Approximately 25 months ago, we learned about coronavirus, 
and it was a scary, worldwide health issue, and it was 
estimated that maybe 400,000 or so people might die around the 
world. Well, now we have seen already a million people die. 
That virus has told us a lot about pathogens and how they can 
infect humans, as well as animals. We have had over 80 million 
confirmed cases in the United States, with almost a million 
deaths. Worldwide it is more like 6.2 million.
    We need to ensure that the United States understands how 
the interaction with climate change, wildlife, and humans can 
have an impact on diseases and potential future pandemics.
    Ms. Kinsinger, you may be aware--I hope you are--of an 
unknown pathogen that has killed at least 85 horses at the 
Bureau of Land Management's Canyon City Wild Horse and Burro 
Facility in Colorado since Saturday, April 23. I attended a 
meeting of individuals, quite a few in Washington, for a 
national conference on horse management and wild burros, and 
they brought this up, brought this to my attention.
    The infected horses are initially identified with 
respiratory difficulties, and then they suffer neurological 
effects. The Bureau of Land Management has reported that 
Federal and private veterinarians are working to determine the 
cause, but they haven't figured it out yet.
    The facility currently holds 2,500 horses. Now it is down 
to approximately 2,400. So, 3.5 percent of the horses in that 
confinement have died in the last week. Bob Baffert has not 
been seen around those horses. These horses are kept in close 
quarters. If they were not penned, it is entirely possible the 
pathogen would have not spread nearly as quickly.
    Are these types of outbreaks that the USGS ecosystem 
program typically studies?
    Ms. Kinsinger. We do study disease outbreaks, and I am 
aware of this outbreak in wild horses, although that is not 
something that we have been involved in. I did put out a 
request to our National Wildlife Health Center to see if they 
had been involved, and they have not to date. But we have a 
very close working relationship with the Bureau of Land 
Management. We have done other non-disease-related work on wild 
horses, so I would be happy to keep the Committee apprised of 
any additional information that comes out of that.
    Mr. Cohen. If you would, the disease and the death is 
certainly disturbing, and that is the subject of this hearing. 
But I am concerned about the horses and the burros in general. 
So, if you could keep us informed on that, I would appreciate 
it.
    And we know they could affect, other than the horses, we 
don't know. And the Bureau of Land Management has certainly not 
been very effective in this process.
    The ranchers like to use that land out there, which they 
pay ridiculously low fees for, $1 per cow a month, which hasn't 
been changed, that fee, for a couple of decades. And the cows 
are about twice as large now, so they eat a lot more. But it 
should be more like $20, based on 20 years and the size of the 
cows. But we subsidize it. You've heard the expression, there 
is no such thing as a free lunch? Well, when the Bureau of Land 
Management is involved with cattle ranchers, it seems like 
there is such a thing as a free lunch.
    And then they move the horses away because they say the 
horses are eating the raw materials there, and the horses get 
penned up and taken, and sometimes they end up being shipped 
off to Mexico. However, people buy them--at least not supposed 
to. But the horses, the burros are at risk. The programs they 
have had--we will be looking into having a hearing on this to 
see that this is done in a humane fashion, and that the burros 
and the horses are looked upon with--they should have rights on 
those lands to graze. They are an American treasure.
    Do you have any other information or knowledge of the BLM 
and their horse-burro policy?
    Ms. Kinsinger. I can't speak to their specific policies. 
But as I said, USGS has worked with BLM on a couple of things. 
One is in helping to improve their monitoring protocols so that 
we understand how many horses are out there in the wild, and 
then looking at reproductive capacities, reproductive 
techniques for slowing the reproduction of the horses.
    Mr. Cohen. Well, thank you very much. On behalf of Trigger 
and all the other horses of past and present, I appreciate your 
looking into that.
    I yield back the balance of my time.
    Ms. Porter. Thank you very much. The Chair now will 
recognize herself for her questions.
    Ms. Kinsinger, you said earlier that there is always room 
to expand capacity, and you made a kind of general statement 
that there is the potential to improve.
    I agree with my Republican colleague, Mr. Moore. Taxpayers 
deserve to know that their money is being spent effectively. 
And public health is an investment. It can save money. 
Pandemics are devastatingly expensive, which is something that 
I think we can find bipartisan agreement about. It is fiscally 
responsible to give USGS the necessary funding and to hold it 
to account on how it uses that funding. So, I want to invite 
Mr. Moore to work with me in a bipartisan way on legislation to 
try to improve coordination, save resources, and be able to do 
a better job with the funding that we are giving to prevent 
future pandemics.
    I want to ask you to be as specific as you can be with the 
Committee. If we were to give you more funding, what would you 
do differently? How would it protect the American economy and 
the American public?
    Ms. Kinsinger. I will take that last piece first. We often 
talk about the direct effects of pandemics. For example, the 
billions of dollars in poultry that have to be destroyed during 
an avian influenza outbreak. But there is also a huge cost 
associated with preparing for pandemics and preparing to 
respond to pandemics. It is probably an even larger price tag 
than folks realize.
    In terms of what we would do with additional capacity, that 
would be on several fronts. One would be to expand on our 
outbreak investigations, to be there at the table immediately, 
for example, when a wild bird is found dead, to be able to test 
it immediately for any disease. We would do tests on a suite of 
diseases. The other, as I have mentioned several times, is in 
the biosurveillance realm, the ability to develop these rapid 
markers for detecting disease.
    And, by the way, this is also very useful in invasive 
species, as well, which are a $1 billion cost to the economy.
    And then also continue to invest in ecological research, 
because it is critically important to understand how animals 
move, how they interact with domesticated animals and humans.
    And just to give one example of that, we have been studying 
migratory birds for decades now, started with the hunting 
community, and making sure that we could work with state 
managers on their harvest strategies. But when the avian 
influenza appeared in 2006, USGS was right there with the 
worldwide maps of migratory patterns. We were able to quickly 
see the areas of migratory bird layovers and areas that had 
avian influenza outbreaks were critical sources for avian 
influenza entering the United States.
    We established a monitoring program in Alaska with the Fish 
and Wildlife Service so that we could test birds coming in on 
that flyway, the Pacific Flyway, to try to rapidly detect AI.
    So, I think there is a lot that can be done in the 
ecological research, as well.
    Ms. Porter. I hear you say develop rapid markers, 
ecological research, which I think you did a terrific job of 
explaining. Our next panel is going to talk, I think, a lot 
about data. So, I wanted to ask you specifically about central 
repositories of data, about WHISPers, the database. If you 
could explain that to the Committee and talk about how we could 
improve that.
    And then, specifically, I would invite you to respond in 
more detail to what Mr. Moore raised about the Department of 
Agriculture and coordination across departments, because I hear 
a strong willingness to coordinate. I would like to know, if we 
gave you more resources, could you coordinate better, and what 
would that look like?
    Ms. Kinsinger. I will answer the last first, and I may have 
to ask you to repeat the first.
    We have significantly ramped up our coordination with 
Agriculture, and I think I have talked about that. I think the 
most important mechanisms are to have specific pathways for 
sharing information. We have some really specific protocols in 
place, as I mentioned, for avian influenza. We can do that with 
multiple diseases in early detection. We have, as I say, as 
part of that strategy, a joint communication strategy. We 
understand who conducts the first test, who validates that, and 
then, most importantly, who communicates that and how. And that 
has, particularly with diseases that have significant economic 
impacts, we have to be very thoughtful about how we communicate 
those diseases.
    And with apologies, could you repeat the first question?
    Ms. Porter. Yes, the first question was about WHISPers and 
centralized data.
    Ms. Kinsinger. Yes, yes. So, it is really important to have 
a central source of data. I think that that is a huge cost 
alone, just to have researchers out there looking for where 
they can find collaborators and information. The WHISPers 
Database has been in place for some time at the National 
Wildlife Health Center. The WHISPer stands for Wildlife 
Incident Reporting System. And we already are used by many, 
many partners who not only input data on the incidence of 
disease, but also use it to conduct health assessments, risk 
assessments, and the like.
    With the ARPA funding, which $45 million went to the Fish 
and Wildlife Service. Of that, $6.5 million came from Fish and 
Wildlife to USGS to expand that system into a National Wildlife 
Disease Database.
    So, we will build on the incident reporting capacity that 
we already have in place in WHISPers, but become even more of a 
decision support tool by incorporating environmental data, 
ecological data, and, most importantly, some web-based tools so 
that folks can get in there, see the incident, conduct risk 
assessments, and use that information to make their on-the-
ground management decisions.
    Ms. Porter. Thank you very much. I think we are now, unless 
there are any other Members who wish to question on this panel, 
I think we are ready to transition to our second panel. Thank 
you very much, Ms. Kinsinger, for your testimony.
    We will now pause while we reset for the second panel.
    [Pause.]
    Ms. Porter. All right, we are now going to go ahead with 
the second panel.
    Before introducing our witnesses, I want to remind non-
Administration witnesses that they are encouraged to 
participate in the Witness Diversity Survey created by the 
Congressional Office of Diversity and Inclusion. Witnesses may 
refer to their hearing invitation for further information.
    Now, I am going to introduce our witnesses. We have Dr. 
Colin Carlson. He is an Assistant Research Professor at the 
Center for Global Health Science and Security at the Georgetown 
University Medical Center.
    We have--I am going to get this one wrong--Dr. David 
Stallknecht. There you go. Dr. David Stallknecht is the 
Director of the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study 
and a Professor in Wildlife Health at the College of Veterinary 
Medicine at the University of Georgia.
    Ms. Catherine Semcer is a Research Fellow at the Property 
and Environment Research Center.
    And Dr. Julie Thorstenson is the Executive Director of the 
Native American Fish and Wildlife Society.
    As with the first panel, oral statements will be limited to 
5 minutes, but your entire statement will be made part of the 
hearing record.
    When you begin, the timer will start. It will turn orange 
when you have 1 minute remaining, and red when your time has 
expired.
    After the witnesses have testified, Members will be given 
the opportunity to ask questions. We are going to start now 
with Dr. Carlson. The Chair recognizes you for your testimony.

   STATEMENT OF COLIN CARLSON, ASSISTANT RESEARCH PROFESSOR, 
   CENTER FOR GLOBAL HEALTH SCIENCE AND SECURITY, GEORGETOWN 
           UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER, WASHINGTON, DC

    Dr. Carlson. Good morning. Thank you, Chair Porter, Ranking 
Member Moore, and distinguished members of the Subcommittee, 
for the opportunity to testify in today's hearing.
    My name is Colin Carlson. I am an Assistant Professor at 
Georgetown University. I am an author on the most recent report 
of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. And I am the 
Director of Verena, a scientific research team working to 
predict and prevent viral emergence. I want to share three 
conclusions with you today that I have drawn about how we can 
better monitor for disease emergence within the borders of our 
nation.
    First, the United States faces a substantial threat, both 
from zoonotic disease and from complacency about the domestic 
risk it poses. It is easy to imagine pandemics are someone 
else's problem. The risk of disease emergence is higher in 
tropical countries with more biodiversity, weaker health 
systems, and high-risk interfaces like wildlife markets that 
allow viruses to jump from animals to humans.
    But risk only goes so far when you are planning for a once-
in-a-generation event. We live alongside wildlife and alongside 
zoonosis, even here in the nation's capital. In March, the CDC 
reported that, in 2018, our local rat problem was responsible 
for two cases of hemorrhagic fever called Seoul hantavirus. 
Only a few weeks later, a rabid fox bit Representative Bera 
just outside this building. Thanks to the miracle of vaccines, 
the Congressman is safe, healthy, and back at work. But the 
stakes of these encounters can be much higher and deadlier.
    In fact, the deadliest pandemic in recent history started 
within our borders. Though it is often called Spanish flu, the 
1918 pandemic of influenza was first detected on a military 
base in Kansas and is believed to have originated on a nearby 
farm. This could happen again today. The pandemic can start 
anywhere.
    Second, the risk posed by zoonotic disease is growing 
rapidly. One reason in particular stands out. One of the 
Subcommittee's mandates is to investigate the sources and 
impacts of climate change, the single biggest issue that 
affects every aspect of the Committee's work. A growing body of 
evidence now suggests that climate change could also become the 
single biggest issue for pandemic prevention and preparedness.
    In a study published only a few hours ago today in the 
journal Nature, our team reports that as mammal species are 
forced to track warming temperatures toward the Arctic and up 
mountainsides, zoonotic diseases will arrive at new places and 
encounter new animals, some of which will serve as a stepping 
stone to reach a human host. Every simulation we conducted was 
unambiguous: climate change is creating innumerable hotspots of 
future pandemic risk right in our backyard.
    We also believe this process is well underway. In 2004, a 
virus closely related to measles called phocine distemper virus 
was first reported in Alaskan sea otters. Working with State 
and Federal agencies, a team of researchers has spent the last 
15 years monitoring wildlife health throughout the northern 
Pacific. They found that melting Arctic sea ice appears to have 
removed barriers to animal movement, allowing the virus to 
spread between otters, seals, and sea lions.
    Now, phocine distemper virus is unlikely to ever pose a 
threat to human health. But as we spotlight in our study, the 
same process will happen to the hosts of Ebola virus, and 
coronaviruses, and any other zoonotic disease, even here at 
home in the United States.
    Third, to face that growing risk, the most urgent priority 
is surveillance. Our country leads the world in zoonotic 
disease research, but modernizing our surveillance system, 
sharing data more openly, and increasing connections among 
State and Federal agencies would do immeasurable good.
    For example, in a recent study, we found that since 1950, 
climate change has increased the risk of bubonic plague in the 
western United States by up to 40 percent in some areas. We 
were only able to detect that thanks to decades of both human 
case surveillance by public health agencies and the wildlife 
data collected by the USDA's National Wildlife Disease Program.
    However, data also accounts for our study's biggest 
limitation. The California Department of Public Health has long 
curated its own independent surveillance system for plague, and 
the absence of that data creates a noticeable hole in our risk 
maps.
    Any steps we take toward more comprehensive, connected, and 
open zoonotic surveillance will massively benefit scientific 
efforts to predict and prevent the next pandemic. It is easy to 
miss in all the other pandemic science, but our field is 
currently headed into something of a scientific revolution. We 
can do things today we couldn't do a decade ago, like identify 
animal viruses with zoonotic potential only hours after we have 
sequenced their genome. We are headed in leaps and bounds 
toward true prediction.
    All of that exists by the grace of scientific data and the 
patchwork of programs the Federal Government funds consolidate, 
collect, and immortalize that data. Building a more centralized 
infrastructure for zoonotic disease surveillance could easily 
be the lowest-cost, highest-return way to make our country more 
prepared, not just for pandemics, but for climate change.
    I look forward to discussing this with you further and will 
gladly answer any questions the Committee may have.

    [The prepared statement of Dr. Carlson follows:]
 Prepared Statement of Prof. Colin J. Carlson, PhD Assistant Research 
       Professor, Center for Global Health Science and Security,
     Department of Microbiology & Immunology, Georgetown University
                             Medical Center
Introduction

    Good morning. Thank you, Chair Porter, Ranking Member Moore, and 
distinguished members of the subcommittee for the opportunity to 
testify in today's hearing. My name is Colin Carlson, and I am an 
assistant professor at Georgetown University's Center for Global Health 
Science and Security, as well as the director of Verena 
(viralemergence.org), a National Science Foundation-funded scientific 
research team working to predict and prevent future viral emergence. 
Today I want to share three conclusions about how we can better monitor 
for disease emergence within the borders of our nation.
Zoonotic risk in the United States

    First, the United States faces a substantial threat both from 
animal infections that can be transmitted to humans (zoonotic 
diseases), and from complacency about the domestic risk that they pose. 
Historically, the United States has handled pandemics in a paradigm 
that treats the risk of emergence within our borders as comparatively 
low. The risk of disease emergence is generally believed to be higher 
in tropical countries with more animal biodiversity (1), weaker health 
systems (2), and high-risk interfaces like wildlife markets (3) that 
allow viruses to jump from animals to humans. But risk only goes so far 
while planning for a once-in-a-generation event.
    We live alongside wildlife, and alongside zoonosis, even here in 
the nation's capital. In March, the CDC reported that in 2018, our 
local rat problem was responsible for two cases of a haemorrhagic fever 
called Seoul hantavirus (4). Only a few weeks later, a rabid fox bit 
Representative Ami Bera just outside this building. Thanks to the 
miracle of vaccines, the Congressman is safe, healthy, and back at 
work. However, the stakes of these encounters can be much higher. In 
fact, the deadliest pandemic in recent history started within our 
borders. Though it's often called ``Spanish flu,'' the 1918 pandemic of 
influenza was first detected on a military base in Kansas, and is 
believed to have originated on a nearby farm. As one 2004 historical 
account wrote: ``If the virus did cross into man in a sparsely 
populated region of Kansas, and not in a densely populated region of 
Asia, then such an animal-to-man cross-over can happen anywhere.'' (5) 
This remains true today; a pandemic can start anywhere. It might start 
here next time.
    As the country with by far and away the greatest total number of 
poultry chickens, it remains entirely possible another influenza 
pandemic could start in the United States. A recent surge of domestic 
cases of high pathogenicity avian influenza in poultry, particularly in 
the Midwest, speaks to this possibility--but also to the strength of 
existing outbreak surveillance and transparent reporting in the 
agricultural sector.
    On the other hand, the domestic emergence risk of wildlife viruses 
is considered less often. Coronaviruses are generally thought of as a 
low risk for emergence in the United States, because the lineage of 
viruses related to SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 are not currently known to 
circulate in bats in the Americas; however, another lineage that 
includes viruses like the Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome 
coronavirus (MERS-CoV) has been detected in bats in Mexico (6), and 
other species of bats throughout the Americas are suspected to possibly 
host similar viruses (3, 7). It is likely that further zoonotic 
surveillance throughout North America will uncover similar viruses in 
coming years. Similarly, a high number of rodent species are known to 
be reservoirs of zoonotic diseases in the United States, including 
respiratory and haemorrhagic pathogens like hantaviruses (8, 9); a 2015 
study predicted that the global hotspot of undiscovered reservoirs 
might be in Kansas and Nebraska (10). Overall, the Americas are 
believed to have a large number of undiscovered mammal viruses (11)--a 
pattern driven by gaps in zoonotic surveillance that are, in turn, 
driven by lower perceived urgency of zoonotic risk. (For example, the 
USAID PREDICT project's work sampling for wildlife viruses and building 
a surveillance workforce in Latin America was mostly concluded several 
years before the main program ended in Africa and Asia.)
    Further risks exist in terms of the possibility of importation 
immediately before or after spillover takes place at the animal-human 
interface. Wildlife trade, and the pet trade in particular, poses a 
major risk, underscored by the 2003 outbreak of monkeypox to the United 
States originating in imported African rodents. These risks were also 
recently discussed in a Senate hearing (``Stopping the Spread: 
Examining the Increased Risk of Zoonotic Disease from Illegal Wildlife 
Trafficking''; July 22, 2020). Pathogens also cross borders with 
humans: a recent study reported that several medical professionals had 
traveled to Haiti in 2017 to assist in Zika virus outbreak response, 
and returned with an unknown illness. Both the outbreak and its cause--
canine coronavirus, a well-known virus not generally believed to infect 
humans until last year--were essentially unknown to the world until 
reported in an October 2021 study. It remains possible that the next 
coronavirus pandemic could be the United States' to prevent.
Climate change and zoonotic risk

    Second, the risk posed by zoonotic disease is growing rapidly. One 
reason in particular stands out: one of the Subcommittee's mandates is 
to ``investigate the sources and impacts of climate change, the single 
biggest issue that affects every aspect of the Committee's work.'' A 
growing body of evidence now suggests that climate change could also 
become a global crisis for pandemic prevention.
    In a study published only a few hours ago today in the journal 
Nature, our team reports that, as mammal species are forced to track 
warming temperatures toward the Arctic and up mountainsides, zoonotic 
diseases will arrive in new places, and encounter new animals, some of 
which will likely serve as a stepping stone to reach a human host. 
Every simulation we conducted was unambiguous: climate change is 
creating innumerable hotspots of future zoonotic risk right in our 
backyard.
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7453.001


    .epsFigure 1. Climate change makes zoonotic disease emergence a 
global problem. As a result of climate change, by 2070, predicted 
hotspots of viral host jumps among mammal species (red) will sometimes 
coincide with human settlements (blue), including in several parts of 
the United States (purple). (From Carlson et al., ``Climate change 
increases cross-species viral transmission risk'', Nature, 2022)

    We also believe this process is already likely underway in some 
ecosystems. In 2004, a virus closely related to measles called phocine 
distemper virus was first reported in Alaskan sea otters. Working with 
several state and federal agencies, a team of researchers spent the 
next 15 years monitoring wildlife health throughout the northern 
Pacific (12). They found that melting Arctic sea ice appears to have 
removed barriers to animal movement, allowing the virus to spread 
between otters, seals, and sea lions. Phocine distemper virus is 
unlikely to ever pose a threat to human health, but as we spotlight in 
our study, the same process will happen to the hosts of Ebola virus, 
and coronaviruses, and any other zoonotic disease--even here at home, 
in the United States.
Benefits of strengthening and integrating domestic surveillance systems

    Third, to face that growing risk, the most urgent priority is 
surveillance. Our country leads the world in zoonotic disease research, 
but modernizing our surveillance system, sharing data more openly, and 
increasing connections among state and federal agencies would do 
immeasurable good.
    For example, in a recent study, my colleagues and I found that, 
since 1950, climate change has increased environmental suitability for 
bubonic plague in the western United States by up to 40% in some areas 
(13). We were only able to detect that signal thanks to decades of both 
human case surveillance by public health agencies and the wildlife data 
collected by the USDA's National Wildlife Disease Program. However, 
data also accounts for our study's biggest limitation: the California 
Department of Public Health has long curated its own independent 
surveillance system for plague, and the absence of that data creates a 
noticeable hole in our risk maps. Other studies have also used these 
data to assess potential consequences of climate change for plague 
transmission in California (14), leading to a fragmented picture of 
total impacts.
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7453.002


    .epsFigure 2. Gaps in zoonotic disease surveillance create gaps in 
preparedness. A map of plague reservoirs based on wildlife antibody 
data (green) misses key at-risk areas in California, which are 
identifiable from county-level human case surveillance (purple). 
California maintains its own system of wildlife plague surveillance 
separate from USDA. (From Carlson et al., ``Plague risk in the western 
United States over seven decades of environmental change'', Global 
Change Biology, 2022)

    Any steps we take toward more comprehensive, connected, and open 
zoonotic surveillance will massively benefit scientific efforts to 
predict and prevent the next pandemic. It's easy to miss in all the 
other pandemic science, but our field is currently headed into 
something of a scientific revolution. We can do things today we 
couldn't do a decade ago, like use artificial intelligence to identify 
animal viruses with zoonotic potential only a few hours after we've 
sequenced their genome (15). Teams like Verena are working toward 
further advances in what we can do with machine learning, particularly 
when we harness the genomic revolution, big data, and private sector 
advances in technology. We're headed in leaps and bounds toward true 
prediction: knowing which viruses pose a threat, and which animals we 
need to test; building early warning systems that predict disease 
spillover like the weather; and using that information to develop and 
deploy countermeasures like universal vaccines that can stop an 
outbreak in its tracks. That vision offers renewed hope the Covid-19 
pandemic could, in fact, be the last one.
    All of that exists by the grace of scientific data, and the 
patchwork of programs the federal government funds to collect, 
consolidate, and immortalize that data. Many of the most important 
programs the United States funds are the cornerstone of open scientific 
research not just here but around the world: particularly notable is 
the National Center for Biotechnology Information, where a small core 
staff works tirelessly to maintain GenBank, the scientific database of 
record for all genetic and genomic data around the world. Programs like 
these foster transparency in scientific research, and the data they 
store have an incalculably high return on investment, not just to 
prevent outbreaks but during outbreak response as well.
    The same can be said of the immense value of disease surveillance 
conducted by several federal agencies, including CDC, USDA, USGS, and 
USFWS; other federal agencies and agencies in every state and 
territory; and by NIH- and NSF-funded scientists in the academic 
sector. However, the mandate of domestic surveillance for zoonotic 
disease is fragmented across these institutions, and as a result, 
researchers might nevertheless be forced to spend months or years 
hunting for the data they need to answer one scientific question. 
Building a more centralized infrastructure for zoonotic disease 
surveillance could easily be the lowest-cost, highest-return way to 
make our country more prepared for both the pandemic era and the health 
hazards of a warming world.
    I look forward to discussing this with you further, and will gladly 
answer any questions that the Committee may have.

Citations

1. T. Allen, K.A. Murray, C. Zambrana-Torrelio, et al. Global hotspots 
and correlates of emerging zoonotic diseases. Nat. Commun. 8, 1124 
(2017).

2. D.M. Pigott, A. Deshpande, I. Letourneau, et al. Local, national, 
and regional viral haemorrhagic fever pandemic potential in Africa: a 
multistage analysis. Lancet. 390, 2662-2672 (2017).

3. S.J. Anthony, C.K. Johnson, D.J. Greig, et al. Global patterns in 
coronavirus diversity. Virus Evol. 3, vex012 (2017).

4. N. Ravi-Caldwell, P. Iyengar, J. Davies-Cole. Notes from the Field: 
First Reports of Locally Transmitted Seoul Hantavirus Infection--
District of Columbia, May 2018-December 2018. MMWR Surveill. Summ. 71, 
359-360 (2022).

5. J.M. Barry. The site of origin of the 1918 influenza pandemic and 
its public health implications. J. Transl. Med. 2, 3 (2004).

6. S.J. Anthony, R. Ojeda-Flores, O. Rico-Chavez, et al. Coronaviruses 
in bats from Mexico. J. Gen. Virol. 94, 1028-1038 (2013).

7. D.J. Becker, G.F. Albery, A.R. Sjodin, et al. Optimising predictive 
models to prioritise viral discovery in zoonotic reservoirs. Lancet 
Microbe (2022), doi:10.1016/S2666-5247(21)00245-7.

8. N. Mull, R. Jackson, T. Sironen, K. M. Forbes. Ecology of Neglected 
Rodent-Borne American Orthohantaviruses. Pathogens. 9 (2020), p. 325.

9. N. Mull, C.J. Carlson, K.M. Forbes, D.J. Becker. Virus isolation 
data improve host predictions for New World rodent orthohantaviruses. 
J. Anim. Ecol. (2022), doi:10.1111/1365-2656.13694.

10. B.A. Han, J.P. Schmidt, S.E. Bowden, J.M. Drake. Rodent reservoirs 
of future zoonotic diseases. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 112, 7039-
7044 (2015).

11. K.J. Olival, P.R. Hosseini, C. Zambrana-Torrelio, et al. Host and 
viral traits predict zoonotic spillover from mammals. Nature. 546, 646-
650 (2017).

12. E. VanWormer, J.A.K. Mazet, A. Hall, et al. Viral emergence in 
marine mammals in the North Pacific may be linked to Arctic sea ice 
reduction. Sci. Rep. 9, 15569 (2019).

13. C.J. Carlson, S.N. Bevins, B.V. Schmid. Plague risk in the western 
United States over seven decades of environmental change. Glob. Chang. 
Biol. 28, 753-769 (2022).

14. A.C. Holt, D.J. Salkeld, C.L. Fritz, et al. Spatial analysis of 
plague in California: niche modeling predictions of the current 
distribution and potential response to climate change. Int. J. Health 
Geogr. 8, 38 (2009).

15. N. Mollentze, S.A. Babayan, D.G. Streicker. Identifying and 
prioritizing potential human-infecting viruses from their genome 
sequences. PLoS Biol. 19, e3001390 (2021).

                                 ______
                                 

 Questions Submitted for the Record to Colin J. Carlson, Ph.D., Center 
  for Global Health Science & Security, Georgetown University Medical 
                                 Center
              Questions Submitted by Representative Porter
    Question 1. In your testimony, you said that ``Building a more 
centralized infrastructure for zoonotic disease surveillance could 
easily be the lowest-cost, highest-return way to make our country more 
prepared for both the pandemic era and the health hazards of a warming 
world.'' Could you elaborate on the kind of infrastructure and data-
sharing needed? Will the expansion of the U.S. Geological Survey's 
Wildlife Incident Reporting System fill this gap, or is more needed?

    Answer. Through the planned expansion, the Wildlife Health 
Information Sharing Partnership (WHISPers) system takes an important 
step toward consolidating wildlife disease surveillance in the United 
States. The WHISPers database is relatively unique as a public 
scientific repository, and stores infectious disease data in a format 
compatible with other important causes of animal mortality (e.g., 
poisonings, accidents, or unknown causes). For wildlife health 
professionals, this is critical infrastructure. WHISPers also offers 
several important features that are critical for government work--in 
particular, the ability to share data with partial confidentiality 
(e.g., precise locations). At present, WHISPers is used unevenly across 
pathogens, hosts, and regions, but has been particularly useful so far 
for tracking panzootics that threaten wildlife conservation (i.e., 
white-nose syndrome in bats; chytrid fungi in amphibians) and avian 
influenza die-offs in wild birds. To date, it has been used less for 
zoonotic surveillance, perhaps both because a mortality-focused 
resource may not be immediately applicable to some zoonotic reservoirs 
(which often tolerate diseases that are deadly in humans), and because 
its availability as a resource has been underpublicized in the zoonotic 
disease research community.
    The expansion of WHISPers will be an important step toward 
integrated disease surveillance in the United States--even just by 
bridging the gap between the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Fish 
and Wildlife Service--and offers a key opportunity to connect state 
agencies not just with federal infrastructure but also with each other. 
Expanding inputs into WHISPers will empower the partnered federal 
agencies in their mission, and the availability of more data in a 
standardized location will empower the broader research community. 
WHISPers' user base in academic research is currently much smaller than 
it could be; establishing the database as the definitive data hub for 
wildlife mortality data in the United States would go a long way to 
also identifying the USGS-FWS partnership as the coordinating federal 
authority on these issues. Outreach to academics is important to 
complement adoption by current and future USGS partners, and--for 
maximum efficacy--USGS would benefit from additional dedicated support 
for the community building and outreach dimension of its mission with 
the database. To bring more scientists' attention to this resource, 
agencies might also consider digitizing and sharing existing data 
sources through WHISPers that have historically been restricted in 
their sharing, such as various long-term surveillance projects by the 
USDA's National Wildlife Disease Program.
    At the same time, these changes are only a first step toward a 
truly coordinated national infrastructure for disease surveillance. The 
simple fact is that data sharing infrastructure is only as valuable as 
the investments made to generate data itself that can then be shared, 
stored, reanalyzed, and used to spot trends and risks. Perhaps the most 
important step forward would be to allocate more dedicated funding to 
scientific research on disease transmission in wild animals within the 
United States, with a focus on (1) known zoonotic pathogens, and more 
broadly, key systems that introduce high-risk respiratory pathogens 
into human populations (e.g., influenza and the interface among wild 
birds, poultry, and swine; coronaviruses and bats; hantaviruses and 
rodents); (2) climate change, land degradation, and urbanization as key 
drivers of zoonotic risk within the United States; (3) collection of 
new field data that monitors for geographic shifts in pathogen 
intensity (rather than perpetual re-analysis of existing data, which 
has finite value for real-time monitoring); and, perhaps most 
challenging, (4) integration of wildlife disease surveillance with 
efforts to monitor for outbreaks in human populations. Funding for the 
wildlife and human aspects of these problems are fragmented by a 
conventional divide between the mandate of the U.S. National Science 
Foundation (which funds most wildlife research) and the U.S. National 
Institutes of Health (which traditionally handles more research that 
directly relates to human health). Recent efforts like the recent NSF 
Pandemic Intelligence for Pandemic Prevention program, or the long-
standing NSF/NIH/USDA Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases 
program, have been an important step toward bridging that divide, and 
are useful models for future funding programs.
    In conjunction with an expansion of scientific research, data 
sharing requirements (as appropriate) would be an important step to 
ensure federal investments lead to a greater baseline of available 
disease surveillance data. Encouraging researchers to deposit data in 
WHISPers could be very valuable if acute outbreaks are detected in the 
course of routine federally-funded wildlife research. Other databases 
also address other key dimensions of surveillance: for example, genetic 
sequence data generated by federally-funded research is already 
regularly deposited in NCBI's GenBank repository. Enhancement of NCBI's 
resources might also be considered, given that the core team 
maintaining these resources has historically been very small, relative 
to their indisputably global role in keeping scientific research 
afloat.
    Question 2. Is there any additional information about your views on 
domestic U.S. surveillance of wildlife-borne diseases for future 
pandemic prevention that you would like to share for the record?

    Answer. Thanks kindly for the opportunity to answer this question. 
One of the biggest threats to domestic health security is the delayed 
notification, reporting, or publication of key information about 
zoonotic disease--not just in animals, but also in humans. Several 
recent instances speak to the need not just to share more information, 
but to share information faster:

     In 2018, two unconnected patients in Washington, D.C. both 
            tested positive for Seoul hantavirus, an uncommon 
            haemorrhagic fever not previously known to be a risk in the 
            region. The findings remained unpublished until 2022.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ Ravi-Caldwell, N., Iyengar, P. and Davies-Cole, J., 2022. Notes 
from the Field: First Reports of Locally Transmitted Seoul Hantavirus 
Infection--District of Columbia, May 2018-December 2018. Morbidity and 
Mortality Weekly Report, 71(9), pp.359-360.

     Between May 2017 and April 2018, researchers screened 
            samples from patients in North Kivu Province, Democratic 
            Republic of the Congo, for various diseases. They found 
            that several had antibodies to Ebola virus, despite the 
            fact that spillover had not previously been observed in 
            this region. In July 2018, a devastating epidemic of Ebola 
            virus disease started in Kivu, and would continue until 
            July 2020. The scientists' results were finally published 
            in November 2020.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \2\ Goldstein, T., Belaganahalli, M.N., Syaluha, E.K., et al., 
2020. Spillover of ebolaviruses into people in eastern Democratic 
Republic of Congo prior to the 2018 Ebola virus disease outbreak. One 
Health Outlook, 2(1), pp.1-10.

     In 2017, multiple medical professionals returning to 
            Florida from Haiti, where they had been engaged in Zika 
            outbreak response, presented with a mild but unusual 
            illness. After ruling out Zika and other likely 
            explanations, scientists identified the presence of an 
            unknown coronavirus, but waited to publish research until 
            confident in its specific identity (a recombinant canine 
            coronavirus); the description of the viral spillover was 
            published in 2021.\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \3\ Lednicky, J.A., Tagliamonte, M.S., White, S.K., et al., 2021. 
Isolation of a novel recombinant canine coronavirus from a visitor to 
Haiti: further evidence of transmission of coronaviruses of zoonotic 
origin to humans. Clinical Infectious Diseases, available online.

    Each instance reflects the painstaking work scientists must 
undertake to identify and trace zoonotic spillover with confidence, but 
the broader picture speaks to how academic publishing is insufficient 
for rapid information sharing with the U.S. government and the global 
public. These delays increase the risk of another pandemic, and have 
ripple effects that limit the ability of animal surveillance to keep 
pace with shifting priorities: scientists have only recently learned 
they should be monitoring for hantaviruses in D.C.'s rats, or for 
recombinant canine coronaviruses in domestic and wild animals 
worldwide.
    These delays reflect several intersecting challenges: broad effects 
of funding scarcity on publishing speed; the limitations of for-profit 
journals, and the under-incentivization of transparency processes like 
preprints; and, perhaps most notably, the fact that the vital work of 
epidemiology and zoonotic spillover detection often falls on academic 
scientists, instead of the severely under-resourced federal agencies, 
like the CDC, that should be better empowered to lead this 
surveillance. A distributed network of well-trained academic 
epidemiologists and veterinarians across the country has much greater 
total capacity than, for example, CDC's Epidemic Intelligence Service 
or USDA's National Wildlife Disease Program--but has fewer formal 
reporting channels available, and less ability to mobilize resources if 
an event that threatens public health is detected. Greater investment 
in federal capacity for both wildlife and human disease surveillance, 
and increased opportunities for government-academic partnerships in One 
Health outbreak investigations, would be key to solving this problem.
    These delays also speak to another challenge: the need to promptly 
and transparently share information about domestic zoonotic 
surveillance and outbreaks with the rest of the world. In light of 
growing evidence that spillover risk is increasing worldwide--and after 
multiple years of extensive scrutiny on China's early outbreak 
response--it seems obvious that the United States must lead the world 
in transparent reporting of human and wildlife disease surveillance, 
including notifications to the World Health Organization (WHO) and 
World Animal Health Organization (OIE) about key events. The current 
international system for disease outbreak notifications is severely 
limited, and is designed to only set a response in motion after an 
emergency starts--rather than earlier, in the key moments when an 
emergency might be prevented. A promising opportunity for reform exists 
in discussions of a Pandemic Treaty or similar multilateral agreement 
with the goal of preventing and preparing for future pandemics. This 
instrument will likely address several important issues, among them: 
curbing human drivers of zoonotic emergence; tracking pre-emergence 
pandemic pathogens in animals, and detecting spillover into humans 
earlier; building better emergency response plans and supply 
stockpiles; and otherwise fixing the unforced errors that made the 
Covid-19 pandemic a disaster. Negotiations have already begun on this 
treaty, and are being discussed in the coming weeks at the World Health 
Assembly.
    For transparent and effective surveillance of wildlife-borne 
disease, a Pandemic Treaty offers a chance to redefine obligations that 
include data sharing outside of acute emergencies, and connect our 
disease surveillance infrastructure to other surveillance systems 
around the world. It is vital that the United States be a full Party to 
such a Treaty, and that the final agreement includes provisions that 
address wildlife and human disease surveillance data sharing. The 
United States owes the world the same that we ask of other nations: 
rapid and transparent sharing of information about zoonotic disease, a 
threat that is fundamentally transboundary in nature.

                                 ______
                                 

    Ms. Porter. Thank you very much, Dr. Carlson.
    The Chair will now recognize Dr. David Stallknecht to 
testify.

    STATEMENT OF DAVID STALLKNECHT, DIRECTOR, SOUTHEASTERN 
   COOPERATIVE WILDLIFE DISEASE STUDY, PROFESSOR IN WILDLIFE 
HEALTH, COLLEGE OF VETERINARY MEDICINE, UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA, 
                        ATHENS, GEORGIA

    Dr. Stallknecht. Thank you for the opportunity to testify 
for the Subcommittee. I am currently employed by the University 
of Georgia as a Professor and Director of the Southeastern 
Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study.
    I am giving this testimony today not as a representative of 
UGA or SCWDS, but as an individual with over 40 years of 
experience conducting surveillance and research related to 
diseases affecting wildlife, domestic animals, and human 
health. Much of this work has centered on zoonotic pathogens 
that were not present in North America or known to exist when I 
began my career.
    Discussions related to wildlife and pandemic prevention 
require perspective. To provide this, I will address three 
questions.
    Can pandemics be prevented? I have lived through at least 
five pandemics in my lifetime, and all of them have involved 
viruses that originated from wildlife. These included three 
influenza pandemics: 1957, H2N2; 1968, H3N2; 2009 pandemic, 
H1N1, originating from wild birds and domestic animals; and HIV 
in 1981, from old world primates; and COVID-19 in 2019, 
presumed to originate from bats. None of these were predicted.
    With known pathogens and defined drivers of pathogen 
emergence, however, prevention may be possible. But with an 
unknown inventory of perhaps millions of potential and ever-
changing pathogens in nature and in human-impacted ecosystems, 
pandemic prevention might be as futile as attempting to prevent 
a hurricane. However, like a hurricane, there is much that can 
be accomplished with preparedness to better protect the public 
and reduce impacts. Prevention should be the ultimate goal, but 
preparedness is probably a more realistic and practical 
approach in the near future.
    How can wildlife health professionals and improved 
infrastructure contribute to pandemic prevention and 
preparedness? The involvement and inclusion of wildlife health 
professionals is needed for many reasons. Zoonotic diseases and 
impacts are shared between wildlife, domestic animals, and 
humans. Pandemic prevention and preparedness are dependent on a 
comprehensive understanding of the natural history of these 
pathogens in wildlife reservoirs and understanding the 
potential for human and interspecies infection.
    Knowledge and expertise in basic wildlife biology, wildlife 
health, and an understanding of the human wildlife interactions 
are needed to fully understand these complex interactions. 
Laboratory and diagnostic capabilities specifically directed at 
wildlife also offer unique challenges, and these capabilities 
need to be in place and work-ready.
    Finally, wildlife health professionals are on the front 
line related to disease detection and identification of 
problems associated with wildlife-human interactions.
    What are the current gaps related to building pandemic 
prevention and preparedness capabilities? A broader wildlife 
health perspective is needed. It is important not to 
compartmentalize our efforts and capabilities into diseases 
only affecting wildlife--diseases affecting wildlife and 
domestic animals and zoonotic diseases. There is significant 
overlap in the necessary skills, training, and field and 
laboratory infrastructure needed to understand diseases in 
wildlife populations are the same, regardless of the host at 
risk.
    Support for both surveillance and research are needed. 
Surveillance approaches, capabilities, and effectiveness cannot 
be improved or even understood or developed without a basic 
understanding of infection, disease, or transmission processes. 
Sustainable funding is needed, and recognition that success 
most often requires a long-haul approach.
    Goals related to pandemic prevention and preparedness 
cannot be achieved through a boom-and-bust funding trajectory 
based on a short-term response to the current crisis.
    And, finally, within-state wildlife health infrastructure 
and professional resources need to be better supported. This is 
perhaps the biggest gap. State wildlife health professionals 
are the frontline troops and are the critical part of our 
national wildlife disease network. But with few exceptions in-
state capabilities are not even close to being adequate.
    Thank you for your attention.

    [The prepared statement of Dr. Stallknecht follows:]
     Prepared Statement of Dr. David E. Stallknecht, Southeastern 
  Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study, College of Veterinary Medicine,
                         University of Georgia
Preventing Pandemics through US Wildlife-borne Disease Surveillance

    Thank you, Chair Porter and the subcommittee for calling this 
hearing an inviting me to testify. I am currently employed by the 
University of Georgia (UGA) as a professor and Director of the 
Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study (SCWDS). I am giving 
this testimony not as a representative or UGA or SCWDS but as an 
individual with over 40 years of experience conducting surveillance and 
research related to diseases affecting wildlife, domestic animal and 
human health. Much of this work has centered on zoonotic pathogens 
(Lyme Disease, West-Nile virus, SARS-Cov-2, Eurasian highly pathogenic 
H5 influenza A virus) that were not present in North America or known 
to exist when I began my career. All of these involve wildlife.
    Wildlife are important reservoirs for zoonotic diseases. This holds 
for both endemic and emerging zoonoses as well as zoonotic diseases 
with pandemic potential. It is also important from a natural-resources 
perspective to recognize that wildlife populations can also be 
adversely affected by these same diseases. Discussions related to 
wildlife and pandemic prevention require perspective. To provide this, 
I will address three questions: Can pandemics be prevented? How can 
wildlife health professionals and infrastructure contribute to pandemic 
prevention and preparedness? What is needed to improve our existing 
wildlife health infrastructure related to pandemic prevention and 
preparedness.

    Can pandemics be prevented? I have lived through at least five 
pandemics in my lifetime and all of them have involved viruses that 
originated from wildlife. These include three influenza pandemics 
(1957-H2N2; 1968-H3N2, 2009-pH1N1) originating from wild birds and 
domestic animals, HIV (1981) from old-world primates, and Covid-19 
(2019) presumed to originate from bats. There have also been two 
possible near misses, Ebola (2014-2016) from bats and SARS (2003) from 
bats. Unfortunately, while we know that such events will continue, our 
current predictive abilities and capabilities to react are not 
sufficient to assure prevention. Prevention is dependent on eliminating 
human exposure to known or potential zoonotic agents, eliminating or 
reducing risk factors that lead to infection or increased virulence, 
early detection of human cases, and actions designed to break 
transmission cycles. With known human pathogens and defined drivers of 
disease emergence, pandemic prevention can be possible. Influenza and 
Ebola are examples. However, with an unknown inventory of perhaps 
millions of potential and ever-changing pathogens that are present in 
nature and in human-impacted ecosystems, pandemic prevention in many 
cases might be as futile as attempting to prevent a hurricane. However, 
like a hurricane, there is much that can be accomplished with 
preparedness to better protect the public and reduce impacts. 
Prevention should be the ultimate goal, but preparedness is probably a 
more realistic and practical approach for the near future.

    How can wildlife health professionals and infrastructure contribute 
to pandemic prevention and preparedness? Currently, a basic 
infrastructure to conduct surveillance and supporting research related 
to the role of wildlife species in zoonotic diseases is in place; 
however, there are significant gaps that need to be filled related to 
building more effective, inclusive, and comprehensive capacity. The 
existing and basic infrastructure includes a loose network of Federal, 
State, and academic professionals and laboratories. On the Federal 
side, the USDA and USGS carry much of the responsibility with diseases 
that involve wildlife. However, state involvement in this network 
includes state veterinary diagnostic labs, state Fish and Wildlife 
Agencies, and regional wildlife disease labs such as ours (SCWDS) that 
provides wildlife disease expertise to multiple state and Federal 
agencies. Collaborative expertise and resource support also are often 
provided by others agencies and institutions such as USFWS, Centers for 
Disease Control, National Institutes for Health, state departments of 
agriculture, public health, and natural resources, and public and 
private academic institutions. The involvement and inclusion of this 
vast array of expertise and jurisdictions are justified and needed for 
many reasons; wildlife and wildlife disease professionals play an 
important part in this team effort. Zoonotic diseases and impacts are 
shared between wildlife, domestic animals, and humans and prevention 
needs to be addressed at all of these levels. Pandemic prevention and 
preparedness are dependent on a comprehensive understanding of wildlife 
reservoirs, vectors, and risk factors that provide an avenue for 
potential human or interspecies infection. Understanding basic wildlife 
biology and the human/wildlife interactions that may enhance zoonotic 
pathogen transmission are critical components of zoonotic disease 
prevention and both fall within the expertise and jurisdiction of 
wildlife-health professionals. Effective surveillance and research for 
zoonotic diseases also require a specialized and high level of 
technical and scientific skills that needs to be in place when needed. 
These skill sets not only relate to the collection of relevant data but 
also to providing a comprehensive and realistic interpretation of these 
data and the development of practical mitigation practices or policies. 
Finally, laboratory and diagnostic capabilities needed to conduct 
wildlife-related zoonotic disease surveillance and research also need 
to be in place when needed not after a problem is encountered. In 
emergency situations, these diagnostic capabilities can easily be 
redirected to other new or emerging problems. Wildlife health 
professionals are on the front line related to discovery of new 
pathogens and diseases in wildlife and provide invaluable expertise 
related to understanding these potential pathogens in these populations 
and at the human/wildlife interface.
What is needed to improve our existing wildlife health infrastructure 
        to contribute to zoonotic and pandemic preparedness?

    A broader wildlife health perspective is needed: We tend to 
compartmentalize wildlife disease to those that affect wildlife, 
diseases that are maintained in wildlife but can spillover from 
wildlife to domestic animals, and to those affecting humans. These can 
be further compartmentalized to diseases that are established and well 
known, diseases that are ``new'', and diseases and potential pathogens 
yet to be discovered. Those of us involved in wildlife health recognize 
these different perspectives, but also recognize that extensive overlap 
between these ``compartments'' occurs. For example, West Nile Virus 
(WNV) was a well-known zoonotic pathogen originally described in 
Africa. It gained ``new status'' when introduced into North America in 
1999. It was initially recognized as something new when it affected 
American crows. Although not considered a pandemic its global range 
expanded rapidly and included the entire Western Hemisphere in 4-5 
years. This is a zoonotic disease, a domestic animal disease and a 
disease responsible for significant wildlife mortality. Federal 
investment for WNV surveillance was primarily justified by this virus's 
zoonotic potential but the information gained also was applicable to 
domestic animal and wildlife health. Effective national WNV 
surveillance was made possible by including a network of human, 
domestic animal and wildlife health laboratories. Our lab was involved 
in these efforts and very quickly mobilized to provide WNV diagnostic 
support related to detecting infections in wilds bird and mosquitos for 
Georgia and several southeastern states; we are still doing some of 
this work today. The information gained not only helped to inform 
public health, but also informed wildlife health and domestic health 
professionals as related to wild bird mortality and equine disease. It 
also resulted in the local detection of other viruses such as equine 
encephalitis and other vector-borne zoonotic viruses. In addition, 
isolates of WNV were shared with other labs to provide research 
material to understand how the virus was evolving and potentially 
changing. With proper planning and creativity, the value of 
surveillance can far exceed any immediate objectives. SARS-CoV-2 and 
Eurasian HP H5N1 both are examples of viruses with known or potential 
pandemic capabilities where impacts to wildlife, domestic animals, and 
humans are shared and where an efficient response includes all of these 
perspectives and expertise. It is important to understand that many of 
the processes that allow a pathogen or diseases to emerge are similar 
between diseases affecting wildlife and those that can expand their 
host range to domestic animals and humans. Knowledge can often be 
translatable related to disease epidemiology regardless of host 
populations and such existing knowledge can be invaluable in quickly 
addressing ``new'' problems. For example, our abilities to identify new 
pathogens and to quickly develop and validate diagnostic tools are 
greatly enhanced by the wealth of genetic sequences and biological 
collections of both pathogenic and non-pathogenic viruses and 
microorganisms from wildlife species.

    Support for both surveillance and research is needed; problems 
cannot be understood or solved without both: Effective surveillance 
needs to be science based and should always be improved with time, 
additional data, and a better understanding of the epidemiology of the 
target pathogen or disease. It is important that surveillance efforts 
be supported by state-of-the-art diagnostics. These technologies are 
rapidly changing and require research to develop and validate. 
Surveillance technologies also should not stagnate and goals and 
approaches need to be constantly modified and improved relative to new 
information and increased understanding provided by supportive 
research. Wild bird surveillance for WNV provides a relevant example. 
One year after the detection of WNV, an improved understanding of 
pathogenesis provided a scientific basis to support a more streamline 
and safe wild bird sampling and testing protocol. After four years of 
wild bird surveillance in Georgia, a very consistent and predictable 
pattern of when WNV transmission occurred was identified. Based on 
this, the ``early warning'' provided by testing birds was no longer 
needed and preventive measures by public health could be safely and 
less expensively be scheduled on a calendar year. Though supportive 
research, we and others identified specific avian and mosquito species 
that were important amplifying hosts for this virus. This allowed for 
develop of efficient and better targeted surveillance and field 
research designs to better understand local risk factors, mitigate 
risk, and determine the effectiveness of preventive measures. With 
influenza, basic knowledge on the epidemiology of our North American 
low pathogenic influenza a viruses (IAV) is providing a foundation to 
better understanding the impacts, risk factors, and prevention and 
mitigation possibilities associated with the current Eurasian HP H5N1 
outbreak in the United States.

    Sustainable funding and recognition that success often requires a 
long-haul approach are needed: Funding for wildlife health often 
follows a ``boom and bust'' trajectory, however, pandemics may take 
years to evolve. Short-term funding to build infrastructure and 
capacity can certainly be used effectively to reinforce our ability to 
detect, understand, and respond to zoonotic disease treats. Such 
funding also is needed in emergency situations such as outbreaks and 
pandemics. However, we all recognize that these threats and the 
discovery of future threats are often unpredictable and require 
continuous vigilance. In addition, an effective response to a disease 
emergency requires work-ready facilities, equipment, and most 
importantly skilled people. Our regional lab is very fortunate to have 
a business model that includes reliable annual support from state fish 
and wildlife agencies. This is something that we have benefited from 
for more than 60 years and our member states willingness to support us 
over these decades speaks loudly relative to the success of this model. 
It is important to note that this invaluable base support ($750K/year) 
is modest considering that it provides wildlife disease detection 
capabilities and support for 17 states. The advantages provided by such 
base funding are significant not only in relation to completing our 
day-to-day work but also by providing a foundation for a rapid response 
to address the next disease issue and to fill gaps and maintain a 
workforce of skilled biologist and scientists during unpredictable 
funding cycles. It also promotes discovery-based science as new 
clinical syndromes can be investigated immediately and not be dependent 
on obtaining new funding for every new pathogen, disease, or problem 
encountered.

    Within state infrastructure and professional resources are vital to 
functional network: Surveillance is dependent on professional ground 
troops, and with wildlife, these are the wildlife biologist and 
wildlife veterinarians that work in our fifty states, tribal lands, and 
Federal lands. These professionals are the ones who initially detect 
wildlife disease problems, who gather the samples and data needed to 
support surveillance, who submit the data, who provide the biological 
and local expertise to understand the natural history of these 
pathogens in wildlife populations, who understand and can identify 
local risks, who are responsible for developing and implementing 
response plans, who understand what research is needed to deal with 
local situations, who provide field and collaborative support for 
research, and who are the ones who communicate face to face with the 
public and deal with any local issues that occur. Unfortunately, the 
level of wildlife expertise within individual states is highly 
variable, but even under the best circumstances is probably grossly 
inadequate to meet current needs. Dealing with chronic wasting disease 
which is at present only a potential zoonotic issue is a timely example 
of the intense personnel and financial demands that a disease may 
create. Personnel support for wildlife health professionals is needed, 
and infrastructure support to develop even simple field laboratories 
are essential to developing an effective network. Almost all of our 
work at SCWDS is done in collaboration with state wildlife health 
professionals who are the ones who detect and submit all of our 
clinical cases from which we diagnose zoonotic pathogens such as 
rabies, tularemia, Salmonella, zoonotic helminths, assorted 
encephalitis related viruses, and antimicrobial resistant bacteria. 
Finally, our surveillance and research with such potential and existing 
zoonotic and pandemic pathogens such as influenza and SARS-CoV-2 
viruses are dependent on support, samples, and data provided by our 
state partners.
    In summary, zoonotic prevention and preparedness require a network 
of skilled scientists, laboratories, and health practitioners across 
many disciplines. Wildlife health professionals can and are 
contributing to these efforts and are a necessary and valuable part of 
this network. However, improvements need to be made to more sustainably 
support these efforts, especially at the state level. From a ``One 
Health'' perspective, investment will not only improve our capabilities 
related to zoonotic and pandemic diseases prevention and preparedness 
but also will serve to improve our overall capabilities related to 
wildlife and domestic animal health.

                                 ______
                                 

       Questions Submitted for the Record to David E. Stallknecht
              Questions Submitted by Representative Porter
    Question 1. During the hearing, you mentioned how the highly 
pathogenic avian influenza is harming bald eagle populations. In your 
experience, are there sufficient resources available for research 
focused on disease in wildlife themselves? Do research organizations 
like yours or the states you work with have any issues accessing 
funding for purely wildlife-focused disease surveillance?

    Answer. This is the area that I am concerned about because funding 
for this type of work falls often between the cracks. NIH funding needs 
a human health connection. USDA funding needs a domestic animal health 
connection with relatively low competitive funding levels and limited 
opportunity. NSF does not fund basic disease-related studies that cover 
many of the types of research that are needed (such as understanding 
pathogenesis or developing diagnostics). Likewise, funding provided to 
USDA Wildlife Services for influenza, Covid-19, and feral swine disease 
surveillance are magnitudes higher that anything available for research 
and surveillance directed at pathogens known to affect wildlife health, 
some of which (white-nose syndrome) have threatened entire species. 
This leaves USGS and the States. Both partner with labs such as ours 
but funding levels are relatively low and often cannot be sustained. I 
really worry about the level and reliability of funding when the 
primary concern is wildlife health. I cannot speak for the states but 
from a personal standpoint we (SCWDS) do not see a lot of Federal 
funding opportunities in this area. As I mentioned in my response to 
Representative Cohen, discussions related to revising the ``National 
Fish and Wildlife Health Initiative'' though AFWA may provide some 
potential and perhaps innovative paths to address this problem.

    Question 2. Is there any additional information about your views on 
domestic U.S. surveillance of wildlife-borne diseases for future 
pandemic prevention that you would like to share for the record?

    Answer. One of the things we struggle with when justifying funding 
and work related to wildlife diseases in the context of pandemic 
prevention or preparedness, is that we cannot promise deliverables that 
provide immediate or even timely solutions. It is possible that 
surveillance and research ``may'' provide key information to predict 
the next pandemic. We ``may'' be able to prevent the next pandemic, 
human or domestic animal disease, or the next wildlife disease if we 
know what potential pathogens are out there and what the drivers for 
emergence are. We ``may'' be able to even mitigate disease impacts in 
the event of a new disease. We can honestly only present these as 
``potential'' deliverables. What we can guarantee, however, is that 
without additional knowledge provided by research, and additional field 
intelligence provided by surveillance, we ``will not'' be able to 
accomplish any of them.

              Questions Submitted by Representative Cohen
    Question 1. How does having ecologists and wildlife experts--boots 
on the ground--involved in planning and implementing U.S. surveillance 
of animal diseases improve how we respond to disease outbreaks?

    Answer. Surveillance is dependent upon gathering relevant data and 
the collection and testing of samples. The interpretation of 
surveillance data also is dependent on local, biological, and technical 
knowledge. We spend a lot of time thinking about the need for big data 
and national labs dedicated to animal disease diagnostics and 
surveillance but an equal consideration needs to be dedicated to the 
acquisition of the samples and data that effective and comprehensive 
surveillance programs depend on. The goals of surveillance are to 
detect and understand the epidemiology of diseases not only to prevent 
diseases events but also appropriately respond to them. Diseases are 
the product of interactions between three things: the agent, the host, 
and the environment. This is a basic epidemiological concept. With 
diseases involving wildlife, who better than a wildlife biologist or 
ecologist to provide needed information on host and the environments 
where these agents and wildlife hosts interact. On a more practical 
side, wildlife biologists are the ones who know how to effectively 
collect samples, how to obtain supportive population metadata needed to 
understand disease interactions in wildlife populations, who manage 
wildlife populations and habitats, and who work daily at the human/
wildlife interface. They also provide a ``local'' presence that 
provides needed perspective to understand community risks, guide 
surveillance objectives and approaches, and provide a community based 
professional to interact and communicate with the public. It is 
important to always remember that any success related to surveillance 
or response is dependent on community understanding and support. In my 
testimony I centered on States, but this also applies to Tribal 
jurisdictions.
    Question 2. What are the biggest areas of need when it comes to 
improving surveillance?

    Answer. There are several:

     State infrastructure related to meeting wildlife disease 
            surveillance and research needs and capacity need to be 
            improved in all states. These needs vary considerably 
            between states. This is a funding issue at both State and 
            Federal levels.

     Surveillance efforts should be ongoing and provide both 
            general (new diseases or syndromes) and targeted (specific 
            problems such as influenza, rabies) objectives. Both are 
            important. With targeted surveillance, clear objectives 
            need to be in place. More general surveillance is dependent 
            on sustainable funding.

     Discussions are needed related to building a more 
            effective Federal/State/Academic/Tribal network. There is 
            no ``one size fits all'' model, but perhaps some new 
            approaches should be discussed such as the development of 
            regional labs or improved funding models. Fortunately, this 
            is starting to be addressed through an American Fish and 
            Wildlife Agencies attempt to revise the ``National Fish and 
            Wildlife Health Initiative''. The steering committee for 
            that initiative include Federal, State, Academic, and 
            Tribal representatives and hopefully will provide some 
            guidance and possibilities.

     As per question 1, there needs to be more State/Tribal 
            involvement in prioritizing, planning, and implementing 
            wildlife disease surveillance and research initiatives.

                                 ______
                                 

    Ms. Porter. Thank you very much.
    The Chair now recognizes Ms. Catherine Semcer to testify.

 STATEMENT OF CATHERINE SEMCER, RESEARCH FELLOW, PROPERTY AND 
       ENVIRONMENT RESEARCH CENTER, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND

    Ms. Semcer. Good morning, Chair Porter, Ranking Member 
Moore, and members of the Committee. Thank you for the 
opportunity to testify today.
    The annual threat assessment by the U.S. Director of 
National Intelligence has identified pandemic disease as one of 
the pre-eminent threats to the security of the United States. 
The assessment has also identified the degradation of 
ecosystems as a contributing factor to this threat. This threat 
is embodied in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
    While the exact origins of the pandemic are still unknown, 
the majority of U.S. intelligence agencies and a large body of 
peer-reviewed literature has expressed confidence that those 
origins are likely natural, with a genesis in wildlife.
    The global tragedy we are witnessing indicates how 
permeable the line is between our civilization and those parts 
of the world we deem wild. Wildlife-borne pathogens, capable of 
incapacitating millions and shutting down the global economy, 
have shown themselves to already be inside our door. Scientists 
warn that diseases capable of far more reaching destruction may 
await us in the planet's remaining wild lands, areas our 
civilization has increasing contact with via the pathways 
created by unsustainable development.
    Disturbances to wild landscapes, such as road building and 
land clearing like that often pursued by Chinese interests in 
Africa, increase the chance of viral spillover occurring 
because they increase opportunities for human contact with 
wildlife-hosting diseases or disease variants that pose a risk 
to public health. These disturbances can also increase the 
density of wildlife, more likely to be considered a high risk 
for disease transmission and spillover, such as bats, by 
altering the habitat to one more favorable to these species.
    For example, recent outbreaks of the Ebola virus, which is 
carried by bats in Central and West Africa, have shown a strong 
correlation with deforestation events. For this reason, the 
maintenance of intact, healthy ecosystems is considered a first 
line of defense against future pandemics. By keeping remote 
areas remote, the likelihood of people coming into contact with 
wildlife carrying pathogens that present a risk to public 
health is reduced, and the stated objective of the current U.S. 
National Security Strategy to contain bio-threats at their 
source is advanced.
    A proven way to maintain intact, healthy ecosystems is with 
incentives provided by the legal trade in wildlife and wildlife 
products. Economic and livelihood benefits provided by wildlife 
trade can encourage people to avoid the kinds of intrusions and 
land clearing that can impair the ecosystems the traded species 
rely on for their survival. A prominent example of this is the 
international trade in hunting trophies from African countries. 
This trade involves the sale and transport of tens of thousands 
of hides and horns around the world annually, with revenues 
from their sale accruing to landowners, communities, and 
national conservation authorities. This trade has been credited 
with providing the economic incentive to conserve more than 344 
million acres of remote areas, including those in countries 
considered to be hotspots of emerging wildlife-borne diseases.
    Unlike black markets, regulated legal trade provides the 
opportunity to have checkpoints to ensure disease is not being 
spread. To ensure that African hunting trophies are not a 
pathway by which wildlife-borne diseases spillover into the 
human population, the United States requires that unfinished 
hides and feathers be processed by an establishment approved by 
USDA to ensure that any pathogens which may be present are 
destroyed.
    This requirement is one reason why there is no documented 
case of African hunting trophies contributing to the spread of 
wildlife-borne diseases. It also demonstrates that we can put 
into place policies and programs that limit the likelihood of 
future pandemics that ``save lives, protect livelihoods, and 
safeguard nature,'' as the Intergovernmental Science Policy 
Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services has 
recommended.
    USDA-approved facilities handling hunting trophies are 
potentially important nodes in the information network 
contributing to disease surveillance. With the right tools and 
relationships, these facilities can document the presence and 
trends of pathogens that may be present in specific species or 
from specific areas. This information can then be used to alert 
wildlife and public health officials to potential problem areas 
and emerging threats.
    Working with African nations to fully engage these 
facilities as partners in disease surveillance programs should 
be a priority. And these partnerships should then be looked to 
as a potential model for how to marry legal, sustainable 
wildlife trade with disease surveillance.
    The threat of pandemics stemming from wildlife-borne 
diseases is ever present. Conserving intact, healthy ecosystems 
at home and abroad is our first line of defense against this 
threat. The example of African hunting trophies demonstrates 
that legal trade in wildlife can enable ecosystem conservation 
and can be managed to ensure its safety. The regulatory 
structure of this trade also provides opportunities for 
expanded disease surveillance partnerships that could serve as 
a model for other forms of trade in wildlife and wildlife 
products. These opportunities should be explored further to 
reduce the likelihood of future pandemics. Thank you.

    [The prepared statement of Ms. Semcer follows:]
 Prepared Statement of Catherine E. Semcer, Research Fellow, Property 
                    and Environment Research Center
Main Points

     The spillover of wildlife-borne diseases and related 
            potential for pandemic is a national security threat to the 
            United States.

     The conservation of intact, healthy ecosystems is the 
            first line of defense against the spillover of zoonotic 
            diseases.

     Regulated and legal trade in wildlife and wildlife 
            products is a proven, incentive-driven, means to encourage 
            the conservation of intact, healthy ecosystems.

     Regulated, legal, wildlife trade allows for the 
            institution of safeguards and monitoring that can reduce 
            the risk of wildlife-borne diseases spilling over.

     Wildlife-borne disease surveillance is important to 
            ensuring confidence in the safety and sustainability of 
            regulated trade in wildlife and wildlife products, and 
            ensuring trade's continued ability to contribute to 
            ecosystem conservation.

     Surveillance programs should be seen as a compliment to 
            ecosystem conservation efforts, not a substitute, and be 
            carried out in ways that do not unnecessarily discourage or 
            impair the regulated and legal trade in wildlife and 
            wildlife products that encourages ecosystem conservation.

Introduction

    Good morning Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ranking Member, and members of the 
committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is 
Catherine Semcer and I am a research fellow with the Property and 
Environment Research Center based in Bozeman, Montana and the African 
Wildlife Economy Institute at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. 
I am also a member of the Sustainable Use and Livelihoods Specialist 
Group of the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
    My testimony today will discuss the value of legal, regulated, 
trade in wildlife and wildlife products and how they enable emerging 
markets to conserve intact healthy ecosystems, thereby increasing the 
likelihood that biothreats remain close to their points of origin, and 
how this trade does and can enable the surveillance of wildlife-borne 
diseases.
Discussion

    In 2022, the Annual Threat Assessment by the U.S. Director of 
National Intelligence identified pandemic disease as one of the 
preeminent threats to the security of the United States. The same 
assessment also identified the degradation of ecosystems as a 
contributing factor to this threat, as well as threat in-and-of 
itself.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ Office of the Director of National Intelligence. February, 
2022. Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community. Office 
of the Director of National Intelligence. Washington, DC.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    This threat is embodied in the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, which has 
claimed 988,000 American lives, made 80 million sick,\2\ and which the 
Congressional Budget Office projects will cost our economy upwards of 
$7.9 trillion over the next decade.\3\ While the exact origins of the 
pandemic are still unknown, a majority of U.S. intelligence agencies 
have expressed confidence that those origins are likely natural,\4\ an 
assessment \5\ supported by published, peer-reviewed literature 
strongly suggesting a genesis in wildlife.\6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \2\ US Centers for Disease Control. 2022. Coronavirus Disease 2019. 
Cases and deaths in the US. Accessed April 25, 2022 at https://
www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/us-cases-deaths.html.
    \3\ Ziv, S. June 2, 2020. Coronavirus Pandemic Will Cost The US 
Economy $8 Trillion. Forbes.
    \4\ Office of the Director of National Intelligence. April 30, 
2020. Intelligence Community Statement on the Origins of Covid-19. ODNI 
News Release No. 11-20.
    \5\ Calisher, C., et al. 2020. Statement in Support of the 
Scientists, Public Health Professionals, and Medical Professionals of 
China Combatting Covid-19. The Lancet. 395 e42-e43.
    \6\ Lau, S.K.P., et al. July 2020. Possible Bat Origin of Severe 
Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2. Emerging Infectious Diseases 
Journal. 26 (7). US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 
Atlanta, GA.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The global tragedy we are witnessing indicates how permeable the 
line is between our civilization and those parts of the world we deem 
wild. It also draws into clear focus the inseparability of ecological 
sustainability and national security. Wildlife-borne pathogens capable 
of incapacitating millions and shutting down the global economy have 
shown themselves to already be inside our door. Scientists warn that 
diseases capable of more far reaching destruction, a ``Disease, X'' may 
await us \7\ in the planet's remaining wildlands,\8\ areas our 
civilization has increasing contact with via the pathways created by 
unsustainable development.\9\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \7\ World Health Organization. 2018 Annual Review of Disease 
Prioritized Under the Research and Development Blueprint. Informal 
Consultation. 6-7 February. Geneva, Switzerland. Meeting Report.
    \8\ Vidal, J. March 18, 2020. Destroyed Habitat Creates the Perfect 
Conditions for Coronavirus to Emerge: Covid-19 May be Just the 
Beginning of Mass Pandemics. Scientific American. Ensia.
    \9\ Faust, C., et al. 2018. Pathogen Spillover During Land 
Conversion. Ecology Letters.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Disturbances to wild landscapes such as road building and land 
clearing can increase the likelihood of viral spillover occurring 
because they increase opportunities for human contact with wildlife 
hosting diseases or disease variants that are novel or otherwise pose a 
risk to public health.\10\ These disturbances also have the potential 
to increase the density of wildlife more likely to be considered a high 
risk for disease transmission and spillover, such as bats, but altering 
the habitat to one more favorable to these species,\11\ by reducing the 
total amount of habitat available and concentrating wildlife population 
in smaller areas. For example, recent outbreaks of Ebola Virus, which 
is carried by bats, in Central and West Africa have shown a strong 
correlation with deforestation events.\12\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \10\ Johnson, C.K. April 8, 2020. Global Shifts in Mammalian 
Population Trends Reveal Key Predictors of Virus Spillover Risk. 
Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
    \11\ Rogalski, M.A., et al. 2017. Human Drivers of Ecological and 
Evolutionary Dynamics in Emerging and Disappearing Infectious Disease 
Systems. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. 372(1712).
    \12\ Olivero, J., et al. 2017. Recent Loss of Closed Forests is 
Associated With Ebola Virus Disease Outbreaks. Scientific Reports. 7.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    For this reason, the maintenance of intact, healthy, ecosystems is 
considered a first line of defense against future pandemics.\13\ By 
keeping remote areas remote, the likelihood of people coming into 
contact with wildlife carrying new diseases, new disease variants, or 
pathogens that present a risk to public health is reduced and the 
stated objective of the current US National Security Strategy, which 
precedes the pandemic, to ``contain biothreats at their source'' is 
advanced.\14\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \13\ IPBES (2020) Workshop Report on Biodiversity and Pandemics of 
the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. 
Daszak, P., et al. IPBES secretariat, Bonn, Germany, DOI: 10.5281/
zenodo.4147317.
    \14\ The White House. December 2017. National Security Strategy of 
the United States of America. Washington, DC.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    A proven way to maintain intact, healthy ecosystems is with 
incentives provided by the sustainable use and legal trade in wildlife 
and wildlife products. Economic and livelihood benefits provided by 
wildlife trade can encourage individuals, communities, and nations to 
avoid the kinds of intrusions and land clearing that can impair the 
ecosystems the traded species rely on for their survival.
    A prominent example of this is the international trade in hunting 
trophies from African countries. This trade involves the sale and 
transport of tens-of-thousands of hides, horns, tusks, hooves, and 
bones around the world annually, with revenues from their sale accruing 
to private landowners, rural communities, and national conservation 
authorities. This form of wildlife trade has been credited with 
providing the economic incentive to conserve more than 344 million 
acres of remote areas, including those in countries considered to be 
hotspots of emerging wildlife-borne diseases (Fig 1).\15\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \15\ Lindsey, P., Roulet, P. and S. Romanach. 2007. Economic and 
Conservation Significance of the Trophy Hunting Industry in Sub-Saharan 
Africa. Biological Conservation 134: 455-469.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Regulated, legal trade also provides the opportunity to have 
checkpoints to ensure disease is not being spread, [unlike unregulated 
black markets that emerge in the absence of legal trade opportunities]. 
To ensure that African hunting trophies are not a pathway by which 
wildlife-borne diseases spillover into the human population the United 
States requires that unfinished hides and feathers be processed by an 
establishment, in the country of origin, that is approved by the USDA 
Animal Plant Health Inspection Service, to ensure that any pathogens 
which may be present are destroyed before entering the US.\16\ This 
requirement is one reason why there are no documented cases of African 
hunting trophies contributing to the spread of wildlife-borne diseases, 
which might not be the case were the trade to be outlawed and driven 
underground. It also demonstrates that we can put into place policies 
and programs to limit the likelihood of future pandemics that ``save 
lives, protect livelihoods, and safeguard nature'' as the 
Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem 
Services (IPBES) has recommended.\17\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \16\ USDA-APHIS. June 2018. The Approved Establishment Program: 
Guidance for Hunters. Info Sheet. Accessible at https://
www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_health/downloads/infosheets/
guidanceforhunters.pdf.
    \17\ IPBES (2020). IPBES Guest Article: COVID-19 Stimulus Measures 
Must Save Lives, Protect Livelihoods, and Safeguard Nature to Reduce 
the Risk of Future Pandemics. Available online at: https://ipbes.net/
covid19stimulus.

                             FIGURE 1 \18\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \18\ Allen, T., Murray, K.A., Zambrana-Torrelio, C. et al. 2017. 
Global hotspots and correlates of emerging zoonotic diseases. Nat 
Commun 8, 1124.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

      Global Hotspots and Correlates of Emerging Zoonotic Diseases

[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7453.003


    .epsOverseas USDA-APHIS approved facilities that handle hunting 
trophies are potentially important nodes in the information network 
contributing to surveillance of wildlife-borne diseases. With the right 
tools and relationships, these facilities can document the presence and 
trends of pathogens that may be present in specific species or from 
specific areas prior to those pathogens being destroyed. This 
information can then be used to alert wildlife and public health 
officials to potential problem areas and emerging threats. Working with 
African nations to fully engage these facilities as partners in disease 
surveillance programs should be given increased priority by the United 
States. These partnerships should then be looked to as a potential 
model for how to marry legal, sustainable, wildlife trade with disease 
surveillance.
    The threat of pandemics stemming from wildlife-borne diseases is 
ever present. Conserving intact, healthy ecosystems at home and abroad 
is our first line of defense against this threat. The example of 
African hunting trophies demonstrates that legal trade in wildlife can 
enable ecosystem conservation at large scales and this trade can be 
managed and regulated to ensure it is not a pathway for wildlife-borne 
diseases to enter the human population. The regulatory structure of 
this trade also provides opportunities for expanded disease 
surveillance partnerships that could serve as a model for other forms 
of trade in wildlife and wildlife products. These opportunities should 
be explored further to reduce the likelihood of future pandemics.
    Thank you.

                                 ______
                                 

    Ms. Porter. Thank you very much.
    The Chair now recognizes Dr. Julie Thorstenson to testify.

  STATEMENT OF JULIE THORSTENSON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIVE 
    AMERICAN FISH AND WILDLIFE SOCIETY, NORTHGLENN, COLORADO

    Dr. Thorstenson. [Speaking Lakota language] Good morning. 
My name is Julie Thorstenson. My Lakota name is [Speaking 
Lakota language]. I am Lakota and a citizen of the Cheyenne 
River Sioux Nation in North Central South Dakota. I am glad to 
be here as Executive Director of the Native American Fish and 
Wildlife Society, a 501(c)(3) non-profit with a mission to 
assist Native American and Alaska Native tribes with the 
preservation, conservation, and enhancement of their fish and 
wildlife resources. Thank you for the opportunity to speak 
today on the importance of including tribes in the prevention 
of pandemics through U.S. wildlife-borne disease surveillance.
    I personally have a unique perspective on this topic, 
having begun my career as a wildlife biologist for my tribe and 
also having served as their Health Department CEO. 
Unfortunately, many times, I found myself in a state of 
reaction in both jobs due to severe underfunding and lack of 
capacity for tribes.
    Today, I am going to focus on the threats to tribes and the 
importance of including them in every stage, from prevention 
and planning, to implementation and monitoring.
    The COVID-19 pandemic had devastating impacts to Indian 
Country, with the CDC and Indian Health Service reporting 
higher levels of infections, hospitalizations, and deaths as a 
result of COVID-19 among American Indian and Alaska Native 
persons compared to non-Hispanic White persons. Nearly 9,000 
deaths of American Indian and Alaska Native individuals were 
attributed to the novel coronavirus in the United States at the 
end of December 2021. While the number of deaths is 
overwhelming, what cannot be truly quantified is the amount of 
knowledge we have lost: the language speakers, the cultural 
experts, and unknown amounts of traditional ecological 
knowledge they held.
    Tribes are dedicated to the health of their people, lands, 
fish and wildlife relatives, while preserving their language 
and culture, but face many challenges. At the Native American 
Fish and Wildlife Society, several zoonotic diseases are on our 
radar as we work to provide technical assistance and overall 
awareness to the 574 federally recognized tribes in the United 
States.
    The recent reports of SARS-CoV-2 in white tailed deer are 
especially alarming, as many tribal citizens maintain a 
subsistence lifestyle and are at a higher risk through 
increased interaction with wildlife.
    This amplifies the concerns chronic wasting disease already 
presents for tribal citizens. For example, there are tribal 
citizens that use the brain of deer and other big game for hide 
tanning, presenting a risk of exposure to the prions found 
primarily in the central nervous system of an infected animal.
    Tribal fish and wildlife professionals must balance the 
need to educate on risk and safety precautions without impeding 
important cultural practices.
    The highly pathogenic avian influenza is currently 
spreading across the country. Tribes must consider protecting 
the wildlife, the backyard poultry flocks necessary for food 
sovereignty and security, while decreasing exposure risk for 
hunters. Avian influenza also poses an economic hardship to 
tribes, with lost revenue from hunting licenses due to concerns 
with exposing hunters to known diseases and other tribal 
economic losses from lodging and food purchases.
    Avian influenza is impacting eagle populations, as well. In 
some instances, eagle carcasses are not being collected or are 
being incinerated due to the threat of possible exposure to 
avian influenza. These eagle carcasses are lost important 
resources for tribes that need them for ceremonies and other 
cultural practices, a resource that is already extremely 
limited with the National Eagle Repository reporting long wait 
times, up to 10 years for a whole immature golden eagle, for 
tribal citizens.
    One of our most common requests for technical assistance at 
NAFWS is to help tribes identify funding sources. The inequity 
in funding for tribal fish and wildlife programs is perhaps one 
of the most obvious but least known issues in conservation 
work. We often see one person responsible for multiple complex 
issues in tribal fish and wildlife programs. We cannot expect 
one person to be an expert in everything that threatens and 
impacts our fish and wildlife relatives.
    Wildlife do not respect our political boundaries. Tribes 
most actively engage in every level of surveillance without 
compromising tribal sovereignty. To actively participate in 
surveillance, tribes need funding, and not only grant funding. 
Grants are incapable of providing a rapid response necessary 
for disease management. You cannot quickly respond with grant-
dependent funding nor fund the long-term monitoring necessary. 
Many tribes also lack the capacity to apply for grant funding 
and the reporting and compliance that goes with it. Adequate 
funding for tribes will help build capacity through staffing, 
training, sampling, and testing, while ensuring tribes maintain 
data sovereignty.
    Without tribes involved, there can be pockets of unknowns 
or outbreaks in the 56.2 million acres of tribal lands. The 
very complicated jurisdiction also must be navigated. For 
example, if zoonotic disease originates within a tribal 
reservation, what happens? Who becomes the lead? Tribes may be 
hesitant to report to a state veterinarian because of threats 
to tribal sovereignty and negative public perception of disease 
origination.
    Adequate funding will allow tribes to develop plans, 
instead of reacting to situations as they arise. It will allow 
for these plans to be built in cooperation with Federal, state, 
and local agencies.
    In closing, tribes must be included in preventing pandemics 
through wildlife-borne disease surveillance. This requires 
dedicated, long-term programmatic funding for tribes to build 
capacity and the quick response necessary for disease 
management.
    [Speaking Native language.] Thank you.

    [The prepared statement of Dr. Thorstenson follows:]
            Prepared Statement of Dr. Julie Thorstenson, PhD
    Good Morning. My name is Julie Thorstenson. I am Lakota and a 
citizen of the Cheyenne River Sioux Nation in Northcentral South 
Dakota. I am glad to be here. I am the Executive Director of the Native 
American Fish and Wildlife Society, a 501c3 nonprofit with the mission 
to assist Native American and Alaska Native Tribes with the 
preservation, conservation and enhancement of their fish and wildlife 
resources.
    Thank you for the opportunity to speak today on the importance of 
including Tribes in prevention of pandemics through US Wildlife-borne 
Disease Surveillance. I personally have a unique perspective on this 
topic having begun my career as Wildlife Biologist for my Tribe and 
also having served as their Health Department CEO. Unfortunately, many 
times, I found myself in a state of reaction in both jobs due to severe 
underfunding and lack of capacity for Tribes.
    I'm sure my fellow panelists will speak to the science of wildlife-
borne disease and the impacts it has on wildlife. I'm going to focus on 
the threats to Tribes and the importance of including them in every 
stage, from prevention and planning to implementation and monitoring.
    The Covid-19 Pandemic had devastating impacts to Indian Country. A 
recent study published by JAMA Network Open (2022) found, ``Indigenous 
populations are believed to be one of the worst affected in the nation. 
As of November 22, 2021, American Indian and Alaska Native persons were 
1.6 times more likely to have SARS-CoV-2 infection, 3.3 times more 
likely to be hospitalized, and 2.2 times more likely to die as a result 
of COVID-19 than non-Hispanic White persons.\1\ As of December 15, 
2021, a reported 296 967 infections and 8983 deaths of American Indian 
and Alaska Native individuals were attributed to the novel coronavirus 
in the US.'' While the number of deaths is overwhelming, what cannot 
truly be quantified is the amount of knowledge we have lost, the 
language speakers and culture experts and unknown amounts of 
traditional ecological knowledge. On my home on the Cheyenne River 
Sioux Reservation, we lost 57 people to Covid-19, many were our 
cultural leaders and fluent Lakota language speakers. Tribes are 
dedicated to the health of their people, lands, and fish and wildlife 
relatives, while preserving language and culture but face many unseen 
challenges.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ Musshafen, L.A. et al. 2022. In-Hospital Mortality Disparities 
Among American Indian and Alaska Native, Black, and White Patients with 
COVID-19. JAMA Network Open. 2022;5(3):e224822. doi:10.1001/
jamanetworkopen.2022.4822
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    At the Native American Fish and Wildlife Society several zoonotic 
diseases are on our radar as we try to provide technical assistance and 
overall awareness to the 574 federally recognized Tribes in the US. The 
recent reports of SARS-CoV-2 in white-tailed deer are especially 
alarming as many Tribal citizens maintain a subsistence lifestyle and 
are at higher risks through increased interaction with wildlife. This 
amplifies the concerns Chronic Wasting Disease already presents for 
tribal citizens. For example, there are Tribal citizens that use the 
brain of deer and other big game for hide tanning, presenting a risk of 
exposure to the prions found primarily in the central nervous system of 
an infected animal. Tribal Fish and Wildlife professionals must balance 
the need to educate on risks and safety precautions without impeding 
important cultural practices.
    Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) is currently spreading 
across the country. Tribes must consider protecting the wildlife, the 
backyard poultry flocks necessary for food sovereignty/security and 
decreasing exposure risks for hunters. Not being able to sell hunting 
licenses due to concerns with exposing hunters to known diseases has an 
adverse impact on the limited tribal revenue and can cause other tribal 
economic losses from lodging and food purchases at tribal 
establishments. We are seeing HPAI deaths in eagle populations as well. 
In some instances, eagle carcasses are not being collected or are being 
incinerated due to the threat of possible exposure to HPAI. These eagle 
carcasses are lost important resources for Tribes that need them for 
ceremonies and other cultural practices. A resource that is already 
extremely limited with the National Eagle Repository reporting long 
wait times, up to 10 years for a whole immature golden eagle, for 
Tribal citizens.
    Black-footed Ferrets (Mustela nigripes) are the most endangered 
mammal in North America with around 350-400 animals in the wild 
population. Tribes have been key to Black-footed ferret recovery 
efforts; serving as some of the most successful reintroduction sites 
over the years. That is until sylvatic plague decimated thousands of 
acres of prairie dog towns that serve as the critical habitat for 
black-footed ferrets. Blackfooted ferret recovery relies on a captive 
breeding program. As SARS-CoV-2 virus spread there were known cases in 
mustelids, including farm-raised mink and domestic ferrets (USGS, 2021) 
\2\ adding yet another risk for black-footed ferret recovery. Tribes 
often take on the role of endangered species recovery without any 
funding. The increasing number of zoonotic disease threats to black-
footed ferret recovery adds additional financial and personnel strains 
to Tribal programs.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \2\ National Wildlife Health Center. 2021. Development of SARS-CoV-
2 vaccine to support black-footed ferret conservation. https://
www.usgs.gov/centers/nwhc/science/development-sars-cov-2-vaccine-
support-black-footed-ferret-conservation
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    One of our most common requests for technical assistance at NAFWS 
is to help Tribes identify funding sources. The inequity in funding for 
Tribal fish and wildlife programs is perhaps one of the most obvious 
but least known issues in conservation work. We often see one person 
responsible for multiple complex issues in Tribal fish and wildlife 
programs. We cannot expect one person to be an expert in everything 
that threatens and impacts our fish and wildlife relatives.
    Wildlife do not respect our political boundaries. Tribes must be 
actively engaged in every level of surveillance without compromising 
Tribal sovereignty. To actively participate in surveillance, Tribes 
need FUNDING and not grant funding. Grants are incapable of providing a 
rapid response necessary for disease management, you cannot quickly 
respond with grant dependent funding nor fund the long-term monitoring 
necessary from sustained funding. Many Tribes also lack the capacity to 
apply for grant funding and the reporting and compliance that goes with 
it.
    Adequate funding for Tribes will help build capacity through 
staffing, training, sampling and testing while ensuring Tribes maintain 
data sovereignty. Without Tribes involved, there can be pockets of 
unknowns or outbreaks in the 56.2 Million acres of Tribal lands. The 
very complicated jurisdiction also must be navigated. For example, if a 
zoonotic disease originates within a Tribal Reservation, what happens? 
Who becomes the lead? Tribes may be hesitant to report to a state 
veterinarian because of threats to Tribal Sovereignty and negative 
public perception of the disease origination. Adequate funding will 
allow Tribes to develop plans instead of reacting to situations as they 
arise. It will allow for these plans to be built in cooperation with 
Federal, State and local agencies.
    In closing, Tribes must be included in preventing pandemics through 
wildlife-borne disease surveillance. This requires dedicated, long-
term, programmatic funding for Tribes to build capacity and the quick 
response necessary for disease management.

                                 ______
                                 

    Questions Submitted for the Record to Dr. Julie Thorstenson, PhD
              Questions Submitted by Representative Porter
    Question 1. What is the Native American Fish and Wildlife Society 
able to do with the funding it is getting through the American Rescue 
Plan and how will it help with wildlife-borne disease management?

    Answer. Tribes have recognized the interconnectedness between 
people, animals, plants and their shared environments for time 
immemorial, the very definition of the One Health approach, yet the 
Tribal voice is often missing. Tribal fish and wildlife professionals' 
participation in the One Health effort is critical. However, Tribes 
often lack the capacity or accessibility to resources to participate or 
provide input. Tribes have identified the need for training and access 
to wildlife veterinarians or zoonotic disease specialists as barriers 
and threats to human health and natural resources.
    The NAFWS has entered a PL93-638 self-determination contract with 
the USFWS, one of the first self-determination contracts with the 
USFWS. Included in this contract is an objective to provide technical 
assistance to NAFWS member Tribes and individual members on zoonotic 
diseases through a dedicated Tribal Wildlife Disease Coordinator. The 
funds for this objective are from the American Rescue Plan section 
6003. NAFWS contracted with Native Healing, LLC and Dr. Tolani 
Francisco, DVM and citizen of Pueblo of Laguna. Dr. Francisco will 
serve as the lead consultant providing the following:

     A working phone number for Tribes to contact with 
            questions related to zoonotic diseases and overall wildlife 
            disease.

     Four (4) informational articles to be included in the 
            NAFWS newsletter ``From the Eagles' Nest'

     Review, comment and suggest content for the NAFWS 2022 
            National Initiative ``Wildlife Health'' webpage

     Present at the National NAFWS Conference and Regional 
            conference/events.

    Tribes have expressed a need for a person to contact for wildlife 
health and disease questions. Dr. Francisco is a respected professional 
in Indian Country and will help serve a valuable needed service to 
Tribes. This is also comparative to a service the USFWS has been 
funding for years through AFWA.

    Question 2. Is there any additional information about your views on 
domestic U.S. surveillance of wildlife-borne diseases for future 
pandemic prevention that you would like to share for the record?

    Answer. Wildlife and wildlife disease do NOT respect political 
boundaries, therefore all entities must be part of surveillance to 
protect the health and welfare of all. There are 574 federally 
recognized Tribes in the U.S. as of 2022 and each are unique sovereign 
nations. Tribes also hold a unique status as sovereign nations within 
the United States with a trust responsibility from the Federal 
Government. Time is needed to develop relationships and understand the 
unique needs of each Tribe. Tribes will need consistent, sustainable 
funding to build capacity to be able to participate in the 
conversations around wildlife-borne diseases.

              Questions Submitted by Representative Cohen
    Question 1. You testified about impacts that zoonotic diseases are 
having on tribal cultures, from Covid to chronic wasting disease to 
highly pathogenic avian influenza. How would having Tribes better 
represented in the planning and implementation of wildlife disease 
monitoring and response help address some of these cultural impacts?

    Answer. Tribes have a different way of knowing and co-existing with 
their environment. They bring important perspectives to wildlife and 
ecosystem management that extend to wildlife disease response planning, 
including the impacts to culture, medicinal plants, and spiritual 
wellbeing. In a conversation with a State Agency on chronic wasting 
disease, our team demonstrated the need for Tribally focused education 
materials due to increased exposure risk for Tribal citizens who use 
the brain of big game to tan hides. The State's response was ``tell 
them to stop.''
    At NAFWS, we provide resources and technical assistance that 
supports self-determination and allows for incorporation of Tribal 
priorities, cultures, and uniqueness. Tribes are best suited to provide 
the direction to protect and preserve their lands and culture. Asking 
Tribes to stop practicing their lifeways is neither effective 
management nor meaningful engagement. Tribes must be involved in the 
conversations to raise awareness of these risks and help mitigate the 
ways that supports cultural preservation. In the case of chronic 
wasting disease, this could mean the utilization of protective 
equipment rather than the loss of a cultural practice.
    The State interests, scientific, academic, economical, and health 
issues are all represented well within the planning conversations, the 
Tribal voice is missing. Tribes own or manage nearly 140 million acres 
of lands in the United States, without Tribes, the plan is not 
complete.

    Question 2. Why do you think Tribes are not better represented in 
the planning of wildlife borne disease monitoring and response?

    Answer. The short answer is a lack of funding and capacity. Tribes 
do not have consistent, stable base funding for fish and wildlife 
management. What we see is one person responsible for multitudes of 
duties. Tribes piecemeal their programs together, often relying on 
grant funding. This further limits capacity with Tribal fish and 
wildlife staff spending a large about of their time on planning, 
writing, implementing and monitoring grants, just to keep staff 
employed. There is also a lack of understanding of the importance of 
engaging Tribes and the appropriate avenues to do. Official nation to 
nation tribal consultation is an important and needed component, 
however, conversations between managers is also needed to build 
relationships. Relationship building must be more than a checked box.
    Even if Tribes are not living on the lands, they still may have a 
connection to them as traditional homelands and cultural use areas. 
Tribes MUST be part of all parts of wildlife borne disease programming. 
However, they may need assistance to being involved.

                                 ______
                                 

    Ms. Porter. I thank the panel for its testimony. Reminding 
Members that Committee Rule 3(d) imposes a 5-minute limit on 
questions, the Chair will now recognize Members for any 
questions that they wish to ask the witnesses.
    We are going to begin with recognizing the gentleman from 
California, Mr. Huffman, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Huffman. Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to continue my 
line of questioning on mink farming, and I realize that our 
window of jurisdiction is about wildlife and the habitat that 
sustains wildlife, and many of the witnesses are appropriately 
focused on that, but when our oversight authority in that space 
identifies a problem with much broader implications, I think it 
is OK to talk about that, too.
    So, I guess I would bring my question back to Mr. 
Stallknecht. Should we be concerned that USGS is finding 
elevated levels of COVID in wildlife surrounding mink farms?
    And while we think about the wildlife and environmental 
implications of that, should we also be concerned about the 
broader implications of millions of these animals concentrated 
into these facilities, where they are known to contract COVID 
pretty easily, to spread it, and to have mutations that can go 
back and forth between humans and mink?
    Dr. Stallknecht. As far as spillover from mink farms to the 
surrounding wildlife, I think there is an area of concern. I 
don't think we really know what the implications of that are 
right now, to be quite honest about it, but it is certainly 
something that should be monitored. We will leave it at that.
    Mr. Huffman. OK.
    Dr. Stallknecht. As far as mink farms go, any time you 
concentrate a large number of susceptible animals together 
under artificial conditions, especially wildlife, you present a 
potential problem. It is far beyond me.
    Mr. Huffman. And I appreciate the fact that we are doing 
the surveillance work in the surrounding area. But I guess what 
I am wondering is, if someone can tell me, are we surveilling 
the mink farms themselves?
    Because it seems like that is a far greater concern, in 
terms of this pandemic. The worst thing that could possibly 
happen as we try to emerge from this pandemic, of course, is a 
mutation that throws a monkey wrench at us. So, if we are not 
doing that same kind of surveillance in the mink farms 
themselves, surveillance being maybe the first step, maybe 
more--I mean, Denmark euthanized, I think, 17 million of these 
animals because of a massive COVID outbreak in one of their 
mink farming operations.
    So, do you know of any surveillance within the industry 
itself in these farms?
    Dr. Stallknecht. I guess that is directed to me. I do not. 
This is an area that we do not work in, so----
    Mr. Huffman. I am sorry to put you on the spot there, but 
let me just ask, if any of the other witnesses want to add to 
what you have said, or speak to the concerns that I am raising, 
because I find it, frankly, quite alarming.
    [Pause.]
    Mr. Huffman. All right. Well, crickets, then, in terms of--
and I may need to just take up these concerns with some other 
folks that, hopefully, are on the case and out there in these 
facilities doing surveillance and considering interventions 
that may be appropriate. But I appreciate your testimony, Mr. 
Stallknecht, and the other witnesses.
    Madam Chair, I will yield back.
    Ms. Porter. Thank you very much. The Chair now recognizes 
Mr. Hice, the gentleman from Georgia.
    Dr. Hice. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. In each of our 
witnesses, we appreciate you being here a great deal.
    Dr. Stallknecht, I would like to begin with you. And I will 
begin by saying, ``Go Dawgs--Welcome, UGA.'' Glad you are here 
with us today.
    In your testimony, you stated that there have been five 
pandemics and two near misses in your lifetime. And I would 
like, if you could, to expound upon which country each of these 
viruses originated in. Could you do that?
    Dr. Stallknecht. I will give you more of a region than a 
country.
    As far as the two influenza pandemics, 1957--H2N2 and the 
H3N2, our best guess is these originated from Asia.
    Pandemic H1N1 was actually a real surprise, and that 
actually originated in the Western Hemisphere. The exact 
location, we don't know. But it really resulted from some re-
combination, re-assortment of events with swine influenza 
viruses.
    HIV, Africa; and SARS coronavirus from Asia. Ebola, the new 
near misses--Ebola, Africa; and then SARS, the original SARS, 
virus from Asia.
    Dr. Hice. OK, thank you very much. So, we have multiple 
different places around the world, a couple from Africa, three 
from China. We have Hong Kong, we have Mexico.
    Ms. Semcer, let me come to you with this. Can you 
describe--and I will just use this one as a specific--can you 
describe how China's Belt and Road Initiative has negatively 
impacted Africa's defense against these viruses?
    Ms. Semcer. Thank you for that question. The Belt and Road 
Initiative is primarily an infrastructure initiative. But more 
than that, it is also a cultural exchange initiative.
    And one thing that is occurring within the context of Belt 
and Road is the promotion and expansion of traditional Chinese 
medicine along the Belt and Road. China is actively promoting 
traditional Chinese medicine as an alternative to Western 
medicine. And, as part of this, we are starting to see more 
promotion of what we deem to be high-risk species as cures, 
including for things like COVID.
    For example, the Chinese Communist Party was promoting 
pangolin scales for some time as a potential cure for COVID. We 
know that this is quack medicine, of course. We also know that 
it increases the risk of wildlife-borne diseases being 
transferred into the human population, since pangolins are a 
species of particular high risk for spillover.
    Dr. Hice. So, has it negatively impacted Africa's defense, 
would you say yes or no with that.
    Ms. Semcer. I would say that there is an increased demand 
for high-risk wildlife as a result of this promotion of TCM, 
yes.
    Dr. Hice. OK. So, I guess the big question here that I have 
in my mind is, if we spend more money in the United States, 
will that lead to more accountability for countries like China?
    Ms. Semcer. I am not certain it is an either/or situation. 
I think that we need to shore up our defenses in the homeland 
for sure, but we also do need to hold bad actors accountable 
internationally.
    Wildlife-borne pandemics are a potential existential threat 
to humanity. We have already seen what COVID-19 has done. We 
have nearly a million dead Americans, 80 million sick, and that 
is just in this country. We have a global economy that has been 
severely impacted by the pandemic. We can't do this alone. This 
has to be an international effort.
    Dr. Hice. Yes, and that is the problem. That is the 
problem. It is an issue that involves the international 
community. So, just simply the United States spending more 
money does not mean this fixes the issue in China or in other 
countries. Is that correct?
    Ms. Semcer. It doesn't fix the issue in those countries, 
but it will make it easier for us to defend ourselves should 
they fall and not do what is expected of them.
    Dr. Hice. Yes, and I get that. But we have to do both. We 
have to defend our country, and our people, and so forth. But 
at the same time, others have to be held accountable. And 
simply us spending more money does not produce accountability 
elsewhere. And that issue, I believe, must be on the table.
    Ms. Semcer. I agree.
    Dr. Hice. Thank you very much. I yield back.
    Ms. Porter. Thank you. The Chair will now recognize herself 
for 5 minutes.
    Dr. Thorstenson, what would it mean for the tribes that you 
work with to have dedicated, consistent funding?
    Dr. Thorstenson. Well, I will tell you that, for the most 
part, tribes operate in a piecemeal-type project for tribal 
fish and wildlife programs. There is no base funding for tribal 
fish and wildlife programs.
    So, having dedicated funding that they can rely on, that 
will help to build sustainable, long-term programing, instead 
of having someone that is focused mostly on reporting and 
securing their job through grant funding. I think it would 
definitely help to bring tribes to a different level and be at 
the table that they have been left out of for so long.
    Ms. Porter. Do you see it as potentially helping to improve 
coordination between the work--sustain the work that the tribes 
are trying to do, but then also bring that information and 
learning and connect it to the Federal researchers and state 
researchers working on this?
    Dr. Thorstenson. Yes, absolutely. I think it is not that 
tribes aren't doing the work. It is not that they don't want to 
be involved. It is that they simply don't have the capacity to 
be there.
    And they get a lot of asks to be in attendance, or to be a 
part of something. But like I mentioned, we have several 
departments that are one person, and they are dealing with 
everything from food sovereignty to fish and wildlife 
management to diseases, cultural practices. All of this is on 
their plate. So, every ask is just an additional task for one 
person for our understaffed departments.
    Ms. Porter. Thank you for that.
    Dr. Carlson, I want to turn to you. I want to understand 
what we know about the transmission of coronavirus from animals 
to people.
    I am aware of four probable cases of spillover into people 
from mink in Michigan that were recently disclosed, and all 
four have the same variant as the minks on the mink farm. Two 
of the cases were workers on the farm. I think we can 
understand how they might have gotten it. But the other two 
cases were a married couple with no connection to the farm at 
all.
    In your opinion, is it possible that the variant spread 
from the mink on the farm ultimately to the couple through 
community transmission?
    Dr. Carlson. Thank you for the question. Yes, I think, the 
strength of genomic epidemiology is that we are able to make 
these connections, right?
    When we see a connection like that, there must be something 
we haven't caught. So, we can piece together that there may be 
a connection, most likely, person to person, that has not been 
observed.
    Now, I will say my first training as an epidemiologist is 
not to weigh in on outbreaks I have not been pulled into. But, 
yes, I think we know this is a very transmissible virus. We 
know that it was very transmissible after it went from animals 
to humans the first time. It is likely that it continues to be 
transmissible, human to human, after spillback and 
reintroduction into human populations. I don't think it would 
be any surprise to see variants that originate in mink, or 
deer, or any other species have onward transmission.
    Ms. Porter. And I think one of the concerns is, without the 
kind of work that you are doing, without digging into that 
research, we can't accurately count how many wildlife-related 
cases there are, because we sometimes undercount, and those go 
into the community transmission pile instead of the wildlife 
pile. And it can really, I think, suggest that this is less of 
a problem and less of a source of disease than it actually is.
    I wanted to ask you--I read with great interest the article 
about your work in The New York Times, and I believe also maybe 
in Nature. Can you talk a little bit and share with us? How can 
artificial intelligence be used to make predictions about 
wildlife-borne diseases?
    How can we leverage that to get the most benefit out of the 
investments that we do make in monitoring?
    Dr. Carlson. Absolutely. Artificial intelligence is a big, 
scary phrase, but it is really just statistics running on a 
nice computer. It is a way for us to make sense of big, 
complicated data, right?
    So, we are able to do things like look at the genomic 
sequences of viruses that infect humans and learn general rules 
about what a virus that could affect us looks like. Training 
the computer to do that lets us work with large sources of data 
that are hard for us to kind of get in there and handle 
ourselves, like genomes, where there are maybe hundreds of 
thousands or millions of data points contained in one record.
    So, artificial intelligence has a huge possibility to 
inform public health, to inform One Health surveillance, but it 
can only do that if we have sufficient data to power it.
    Ms. Porter. I am so glad you mentioned that, because my 
last question for you is: Is there any reason, legitimate, that 
I should accept as to why California, for example, doesn't 
share its data?
    Dr. Carlson. There are challenges that arise around, I 
think, not just data sovereignty, but accountability for how we 
use data.
    I can't speak for California, but I know that often, when 
we see data withheld by agencies or made difficult to obtain 
it, it comes from the fact that because research is so 
underfunded, because surveillance is so underfunded, there are 
often concerns that if data are not protected, they might not 
be acknowledged at all from where they came from. So, this is, 
I think, largely symptomatic of how under-resourced the 
institutions that collect the data are.
    Now, whether or not that is legitimate is not mine to speak 
for. I do not work for the government. It is not mine to decide 
what happens with government data. But I will say that, for 
researchers, the best thing that we can do is have funded 
systems that are just flowing with data and there are no 
concerns about scarcity.
    Ms. Porter. I really appreciate that. I mean, I think, 
luckily for you, I am a government leader. And I do think that 
when we, as taxpayers, invest in data, that it ought to be 
shared as much as possible.
    And I was a professor before I came to Congress. I have 
seen this scarcity mindset that leads to a lack of sharing. But 
as you point out in your testimony, the lack of data sharing 
can create noticeable holes in risk mapping and in risk 
prediction.
    So, as we think about how to strengthen our disease 
surveillance system and how to make these investments, I think 
one of the commitments has to be that with those stable streams 
of funding comes expectations of robust data-sharing and robust 
cooperation across agencies, including the works that tribes 
are doing.
    With that, I will now recognize Mr. Moore for his 
questioning.
    Mr. Moore. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I share your 
frustration or push to be able to share data. We saw, 
completely out of this context, the 911 Commission. The key 
finding from the 911 Commission was that intelligence agencies 
weren't sharing data for reasons of bravado or just sheer 
silos. Other than that, it was pointless. And we have seen 
better collaboration going forward. So, we know that our 
government can actually improve in this capacity. It has been a 
common thread through today's conversation.
    Ms. Semcer, I want to just thank you for helping to provide 
a more international perspective. And as Congress is about to 
embark on the conferencing of the two different China bills 
that existed from the House and the Senate--I get to be a part 
of that conference process--I can't underscore the importance 
of the impact that China will have on the entire world.
    We don't--we want to talk climate change all we want, but 
if we don't get China under control, there is nothing that we 
can do about the effect that they have, the outsized effect 
that China has in a negative way across so many different 
factors.
    Your focus today, particularly with spread and pandemic, is 
key to this conversation. So, thank you again for being here. 
Can you just jump into how illegal activities like wildlife 
trafficking create environments that increase the risk of 
disease spillover between species.
    Ms. Semcer. In the context of wildlife trafficking, what we 
often find is that trafficked wildlife is crammed together. You 
have suitcases full of birds or turtles. You have shipping 
containers full of any number of different species. And as the 
other witnesses have discussed, when wildlife is crammed 
together in close, close confinement, the risk of spillover 
from one species to another and mutation is increased.
    This is a consequence of illegal trade because the fact 
that it is a black market means that no one is doing any type 
of disease monitoring for these species.
    Mr. Moore. Give us a sense for the increased risk with this 
spillover impact, the likelihood of future pandemics, 
specifically with this issue and how it will ultimately affect 
future pandemics.
    Ms. Semcer. Well, I can't assign a number to it. I don't 
have the data to be able to do that.
    But unless we get a handle on illegal wildlife trafficking, 
we are likely going to see the risk of pandemic disease 
increase. Since the COVID-19 pandemic has broken out, there has 
been a lot of talk about increasing the global response to 
illicit wildlife trafficking, but we haven't seen much deployed 
on the ground.
    I am on the Advisory Board of the Game Rangers Association 
of Africa, which is the largest professional association of 
conservation and law enforcement officers on the continent. 
Frankly, a lot of our members are struggling for resources. 
These guys are the first line of defense in wildlife 
trafficking. These are the ones who are going to stop that 
pangolin, or stop that civet, from getting into that shipping 
container. They are the ones who are going to potentially keep 
the bio-threat close to the source of origin. But the resources 
are just not there. And the pandemic, frankly, has made it 
worse, because many of them were dependent on revenue from 
tourism, which, obviously, has declined in the wake of the 
global tourism shutdown.
    Mr. Moore. And continuing with that in Africa, outside of 
just the containers and the supply chain issues, how have 
Chinese investments, whether it be the Belt and Road 
Initiative, led to unsustainable natural resource extraction 
projects?
    Ms. Semcer. Well, when we talk about Chinese investments, 
that is not a monolithic area. McKinsey and Company says there 
are about 10,000 small- to medium-sized enterprises that are 
owned by Chinese nationals operating on the African continent. 
And many of these are perfectly legitimate businesses. However, 
unfortunately, a significant number of them are engaged in 
activities that are reliant on criminal activity or government 
corruption to produce what it is they are seeking to produce. 
And this is particularly prevalent in the forestry sector, 
where we see Chinese companies engaging in illegal logging, 
exporting raw logs off of the African continent to China to be 
finished.
    Of course, this deforestation, as I mentioned in my opening 
statement, contributes to the increased risk of viral 
spillover. Now, what happens to these raw logs once they reach 
China? Well, very often they are made into furniture that we 
then purchase.
    So, there is a very troubling loop occurring here that 
unifies our two countries, and also puts us in a position to 
hold China accountable to make sure that its nationals are not 
engaging in this illegal activity, not enabling corruption on 
the African continent, and are enforcing their own laws to make 
sure that pandemic risk is not increased.
    Mr. Moore. And it is easy to complain about this. I find 
myself doing it quite a bit. It is easy to point the finger at 
what China is doing, both in their own country and in their 
investment opportunities across the world.
    I welcome your input and expertise in helping us drive 
toward solutions, and we will always be open to those ideas and 
collaborations. So, thank you.
    I yield back.
    Ms. Porter. Thank you very much. The Chair now recognizes 
the gentlelady from Iowa, Mrs. Axne, for 5 minutes.
    Mrs. Axne. Thank you, Chairwoman Porter, for allowing me to 
waive on to this important Subcommittee hearing. I am glad to 
be here.
    Dr. Stallknecht, my great state of Iowa is the nation's 
leading egg producer and a major turkey producer, as well. So, 
the current outbreak of highly pathogenic avian flu is of great 
concern to us, of course. Thirteen million chickens and turkeys 
have had to be depopulated in Iowa as a result of this current 
avian flu outbreak. So, understanding how we can better predict 
and protect against these wildlife outbreaks is going to be 
incredibly important as we continue with the issues we face in 
Iowa.
    I understand that about 50 million birds died as a result 
of the highly pathogenic avian flu outbreak in 2015, most of 
which were commercial poultry operations, and that the economic 
impact of that outbreak was in the neighborhood of about $4 
billion. Does that sound correct to you?
    Dr. Stallknecht. Yes, it does.
    Mrs. Axne. Thank you. And the current avian flu outbreak in 
the United States has already inflicted some major damage. I 
hear about it far too often, quite honestly. About 31 million 
birds in the United States have been confirmed to be near 
active infection.
    Is it true that the vast majority of them, most of which 
are in commercial poultry farms, will also have to be 
depopulated?
    Dr. Stallknecht. Yes.
    Mrs. Axne. OK, and for folks who might not know what that 
word means, that just means disposed of. That just means 
killed, correct?
    Dr. Stallknecht. Correct.
    Mrs. Axne. Thank you. Which way is that outbreak trending, 
and is it accelerating or is it slowing down?
    Dr. Stallknecht. At present, it is probably accelerating. 
Whether it will continue to accelerate is unknown. And that is 
one of the kind of areas that we are working in.
    The one thing we don't know is if this virus will persist 
in the wild bird population. And hopefully it won't, because, 
hopefully, if it doesn't persist, we won't have this threat 
year after year after year.
    And that is sort of our approach to this. We really are not 
going to get this virus out of wild birds. There is nothing we 
can do. We can maybe manage a little differently to reduce the 
risk, but it is basically early warning, and basically 
informing the poultry industry that, look, in August and July 
there may be a peak prevalence, be prepared. And I know that is 
not what poultry producers want to hear, but that is probably 
the reality of the situation.
    Mrs. Axne. Well, thank you. I appreciate that forewarning 
here. And listen, it might not be what we want to hear, but we 
should always know what is coming up. And I appreciate what you 
are doing to stay on top of this.
    But to be clear, I just want to make sure we address this. 
We found no evidence of spillover into people in the United 
States from this particular outbreak. Still, the National 
Academies have said that the outbreak of this type of virus 
could, in a worst case scenario, cause anywhere from 71 to up 
to 260 million deaths in people. And while I understand that 
our monitoring of the outbreak is better coordinated and better 
funded than many others, and I am so grateful for that, what 
can we be doing? Is there more that we could be doing to help 
reduce the damage from this bird flu outbreak?
    And the other question I have is: What are we doing well in 
response to the bird flu?
    Dr. Stallknecht. I think what we are doing well, what we 
did well this year, is probably the early detection from wild 
birds. And it was caught, and that was good. And it actually 
was quite fortunate, because the surveillance was greatly 
reduced this year and it was actually going on in only two 
flyways, and I was not included in any of those flyways. So, I 
think that is one thing we did well, but we need to beef it all 
up.
    The one thing that we also, I think, really did well is we 
also did a really quick shift into the Mississippi Flyway when 
we found it on the Atlantic Flyway. And that was a lot of 
improvisation, actually, working without funding, and hoping 
that the funding would come.
    This is really a tough one. And basically, as far as 
reducing--the poultry industry is really going to have to take 
care of themselves as far as biosecurity, as far as shoring 
things up to prevent transmission. Early warning helps them do 
that. And that is about all I can say.
    Mrs. Axne. OK. So, better early warning, a continuance of 
the early warning, but if I am hearing you correctly, the best 
we can do at this point is just be prepared as well as 
possible.
    Dr. Stallknecht. And know what is going on out there in the 
wild.
    Mrs. Axne. OK. Well, it is why this hearing is so 
important, so that, hopefully, in the future we can figure out 
a way to have less of these risks that we have to mitigate.
    Thank you so much for allowing me on the Committee, 
Chairwoman Porter.
    Ms. Porter. Thank you very much. And I believe that 
concludes our Member questioning
    With the cooperation of Ranking Member Moore, I would like 
to offer each witness the chance to make a minute or so of 
remarks, sharing with us anything else that you believe this 
panel would benefit from knowing. We will just go in the same 
order that we went for the questioning, as best as I can 
remember it. So, we will start with you, Dr. Carlson.
    Dr. Carlson. Sure. I think, just to respond to some of the 
things that have come up today, I think it is important to note 
that the landscape of risk is changing very rapidly for disease 
emergence.
    We are used to a world where there are three big drivers 
upstream, right? There is wildlife trade, there is agriculture, 
and there is deforestation. Today, we have talked a lot about 
wildlife trade, particularly illegal wildlife trade. Now, this 
is a major risk to the United States. We are a major importer 
in particular of exotic pets. But a 2015 study by researchers 
at UC Davis showed that, out of more than 100 zoonotic viruses 
they looked at, I believe at least 90 percent could not be 
connected at all to wildlife trade or wildlife hunting. If we 
focus on only one solution, if we focus on only one country, we 
will not stop outbreaks.
    And the future is a different place than the present. There 
is more climate change. There is more deforestation. We need to 
be able to move nimbly and pivot to that.
    Ms. Porter. Thank you.
    Dr. Stallknecht?
    Dr. Stallknecht. I would like to just make two really quick 
points.
    A lot of the diseases that we are talking about today also 
have pretty severe wildlife impacts, and this is important for 
a natural resources committee to understand. This outbreak of 
highly pathogenic influenza is also really having impacts on 
bald eagle populations. In Georgia, we have seen close to a 40 
percent reduction in productivity on our coastal nesting 
populations.
    And the second thing I would really want to sort of 
address, there has been a lot of talk on interagency 
cooperation and how we work together. With influenza we are--
SCWDS is also a part of the NIH Centers of Excellence for 
Influenza Research and Response. And everything that we get 
from the wild, from a wild bird, we are actually submitting to 
NIH researchers to do the assessments to really understand the 
potential for human disease. And this is just another important 
sort of side product that we get by just actually getting these 
isolates from the field.
    And I also would like to just sort of build on what was 
said about tribal preparedness and the lack of people. The 
states are suffering from the same thing. There are many states 
in our cooperative that have one person dedicated to wildlife 
disease throughout the entire state. And we are talking about a 
lot of species here. Thank you.
    Ms. Porter. Thank you very much.
    Ms. Semcer?
    Ms. Semcer. Thank you. I would echo some of what Dr. 
Carlson said. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to this. 
There is no magic bullet. And we do have to appreciate that 
this is a threat facing us as severe, if not more severe, than 
the terrorist attacks of September 11th that Ranking Member 
Moore mentioned.
    To that end, we do need to work internationally. We need to 
work across borders. At the same time, we need to lead our 
international partners by example so that we can engage with 
this threat effectively and reduce its ability to harm us.
    Ms. Porter. Thank you.
    Dr. Thorstenson?
    Dr. Thorstenson. Thank you. I think one thing is tribes 
have recognized the interconnectedness between people, animals, 
plants, and their shared environments from time immemorial, the 
very definition of One Health. However, tribal voices have been 
missing.
    And tribes add a different perspective. They bring the 
cultural impacts that people might not regularly think about 
with zoonotic diseases.
    Also, we were very happy to see the new funding through the 
American Recovery Plan for zoonotic diseases and see tribes 
included in that. However, grants--oftentimes we have to write 
to the grant priorities, and it undermines tribal sovereignty. 
It limits tribes to be able to write to their own and set their 
own priorities.
    And, also, it pits tribes against each other where there is 
a small pot of money, where 574 federally recognized tribes 
have to compete. And it undermines, and it is hard to 
collaborate when you might have a neighboring tribe and you are 
after the same pieces of funding.
    Also, having tribes at the table, they will bring up the 
unknown barriers that might be to funding, such as matches, new 
and complicated grant application platforms.
    And I would just really, really urge you to consider self-
determination, rather than grant processes, in the future for 
tribes. There are lots of authorities to the Indian Self-
Determination and Education Assistance Act that already exist 
that can help tribes to receive funding that would be more 
sustainable, dedicated, and less burdensome to them. Thank you.
    Ms. Porter. Thank you very much for offering those 
concluding thoughts. That was very helpful.
    Before and during this hearing, experts have warned us that 
surveillance of wildlife-borne diseases is inadequate in the 
United States, and that we may miss signs of outbreaks that 
could cause significant harm to human health, to wildlife, and 
to the economy.
    You, as experts, have told us that if we want better 
tracking, we need to provide consistent funding that doesn't 
pit stakeholders against each other. We need to invest in the 
infrastructure and the people who are already doing this 
important work. And we need to bring together people from 
different sectors with diverse expertise to talk to each other 
and coordinate their efforts.
    I will be putting together a bill to make sure that our 
nation is prepared to address these potentially serious risks, 
and I invite Ranking Member Moore and his colleagues to 
cooperate and collaborate on this process.
    I thank the witnesses for their valuable testimony and the 
Members for their questions.
    The members of this Committee may have some additional 
questions for the witnesses, and we will ask you to respond to 
those in writing. Under Committee Rule 3(o), members of the 
Committee must submit witness questions within 3 business days 
following the hearing, and the hearing record will be held open 
for 10 business days for these responses.
    With that, the Committee is now adjourned.

    [Whereupon, at 11:55 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

            [ADDITIONAL MATERIALS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD]

                        Statement for the Record
                         Tony Wasley, President
                Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies
                             Washington, DC

    The Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (``Association'') is 
the professional organization that represents the collective voice of 
the fish and wildlife agencies in all 50 states, the U.S. Virgin 
Islands, and District of Columbia (``state agencies''). These agencies 
exercise primary statutory authority for management of fish and 
wildlife as public trust resources within their borders. We thank the 
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations (``Subcommittee'') for its 
leadership to address the ongoing, ever increasing challenges related 
to wildlife disease surveillance. As more than 60% of human diseases 
and 75% of all emerging diseases have origins in wildlife, the capacity 
of state fish and wildlife agencies to monitor and address these 
threats in coordination with their federal partners is of foremost 
concern.

    As the Subcommittee is well aware, the economic burden of 
suppressing wildlife-borne diseases, particularly those with zoonotic 
potential, can increase exponentially once they become established. 
With limited resources and capacity, current fish and wildlife disease 
surveillance and response efforts are typically driven by crises, often 
lacking consistent funding and logistical support. Therefore, an 
adequately funded wildlife disease surveillance network is needed to 
provide coordinated, timely, and effective responses designed to 
address these critical needs. Further, this network should leverage and 
enhance existing resources and expertise in an effort to build 
sustainable resilience and capacity.

    The Association has long promoted the National Fish and Wildlife 
Health Initiative \1\ to establish and sustainably fund a coordinated 
network of federal, state, and university wildlife disease 
laboratories. We are committed to improving the coordination of 
measures that ensure fish and wildlife health, while recognizing and 
respecting the missions, jurisdictions, and abilities of state and 
federal fish and wildlife managers and their agencies. We support the 
following programs and initiatives designed to build capacities, detect 
and manage emerging and increasingly varied fish and wildlife disease 
challenges, and effectively mitigate and suppress the significant 
economic, social, and cultural impacts associated with fish and 
wildlife diseases:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ https://www.fishwildlife.org/application/files/7715/3980/9208/
national_fish_and_wildlife_ health_initiative_toolkit_AFWA_2008.pdf.

  1.  Increase and sustain funding for existing federal and state fish 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
            and wildlife disease laboratories;

  2.  Encourage Congress to provide new and sustained federal funding 
            to establish and/or enhance fish and wildlife disease 
            surveillance capacities in those regions of the United 
            States lacking such resources;
  3.  Encourage Congress to provide increased and sustained federal 
            funding for state, federal and tribal fish and wildlife 
            agencies to train and coordinate their operational 
            workforces to deliver effective fish and wildlife health 
            programs; and

  4.  Encourage Congress to provide increased and sustained federal 
            funding for aligned university research and training 
            programs to assure that their enormous capacities are 
            harnessed in support of targeted fish and wildlife disease 
            surveillance and management efforts.

    Efforts to establish a national framework are increasingly vital in 
light of the COVID-19 pandemic and the emergence of potentially 
zoonotic diseases, including the continued spread of Chronic Wasting 
Disease (``CWD''). While no cases of CWD have been documented in 
humans, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (``CDC'') warn 
of its zoonotic potential and the World Health Organization emphasizes 
the importance of keeping prion diseases from entering the human food 
chain.\2\ States have borne the brunt of the costs for surveillance and 
management actions designed to curb the spread of CWD by redirecting 
funds from other programs and are in dire need of increased resources 
and federal coordination. Congress already has the ability to take 
action by fully funding the CWD provisions authorized in the America's 
Conservation Enhancement Act (P.L. 16-188, ``ACE Act'') and increasing 
funding for CWD cooperative agreements administered by the U.S. 
Department of Agriculture's (``USDA'') Animal Plant and Health 
Inspection Service (``APHIS''). While the Fiscal Year 2023 
appropriations process is underway, we encourage Federal partners to 
expeditiously establish the CWD Task Force directed by the ACE Act. 
Further, in accordance with the Association's Best Management Practices 
for Prevention, Surveillance, and Management of Chronic Wasting 
Disease,\3\ we encourage a prohibition on the movement of live farmed 
cervids.

    \2\ https://www.cdc.gov/prions/cwd/
index.html#::text=Chronic%20wasting%20disease%20(CWD) 
%20is,States%2C%20Norway%20and%20South%20Korea.

    \3\ AFWA_CWD_BMPS_12_September_2018_FINAL.pdf (fishwildlife.org).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    We applaud the United States Geological Survey (``USGS'') and the 
National Wildlife Health Center (``NWHC'') for their support of a 
collaborative One-Health framework with state agencies, including 
development of the Wildlife Health Information Sharing Partnership 
(``WHISPers''). While there are some ongoing concerns with data 
ownership, privacy, and sensitive data release related to Freedom of 
Information Act requests as well as capacity for data entry, the 
Association is encouraged by the commitment from USGS to continue 
collaborating with state, federal, tribal, academic and NGO partners as 
they continue to develop WHISPers. To that end, the Association 
transmitted a letter to USGS \4\ with recommended improvements and 
elements that should be considered for the system to be successful, of 
which the recognition of state agencies' statutory authority and unique 
roles and responsibilities is most critical.

    \4\ https://www.fishwildlife.org/application/files/3316/5238/0451/
AFWA_support_for_WHISPers_ March_2022_Final2.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The increasing emergence of zoonotic diseases, exemplified by the 
COVID-19 pandemic, demands increased attention to wildlife health and 
wildlife disease prevention, surveillance, and response. With the 
statutory authority and obligation to manage the public trust species 
within their borders, state agencies are the front line of defense to 
prevent, surveille, and combat wildlife-borne diseases. While wildlife 
can be negatively impacted by diseases, they can also serve as 
sentinels for environmental contaminants and infectious diseases 
affecting humans and domestic animals. Human and domestic animal health 
can impact wildlife and ecosystem health, and vice versa.
    We again thank the Subcommittee for its attention to this 
increasingly vital issue, and we are glad to offer our assistance on 
these or any other matters relevant to the management of our nation's 
fish and wildlife resources.

                                 ______
                                 
                        Statement for the Record
                   Preventing Pandemics at the Source
                   U.S. Wildlife and Health Alliance
                              May 11, 2022

    Honorable Members of the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on 
Oversight and Investigations of the United States Congress:
    United States leadership is crucial to ending the current COVID-19 
pandemic and preventing future pandemics from occurring. Tragically, we 
will soon approach the horrific milestone of one million American lives 
lost to COVID-19.
    We do not know where or when the next pandemic will start. We do 
know it is likely to emerge within a decade and to be the result of 
zoonotic spillover of a virus from wildlife to humans, like all other 
pandemics over the last century.
    We have a good chance of stopping the next pandemic before it 
starts. To do so we must learn quickly from the latest science and 
translate this into policy to ensure various US Government agencies 
work together, and with other nations, to support key actions around 
the world.
    As organizations with deep expertise on wildlife-human health 
linkages we also know that much can, fortunately, be done to prevent 
disease spillover before it occurs. This requires addressing problems 
with wildlife trade and markets, preventing deforestation and forest 
degradation, and improving livestock biosecurity and management 
practices.
    It is of the utmost importance that actions to prevent spillover at 
the source be given far greater attention in US policy. Such actions 
must be part of any comprehensive plan to prevent and prepare for 
future pandemics. We cannot stress enough how much more cost effective 
and efficient it is to prevent spillover in the first place, than to 
try to control an outbreak, epidemic, or pandemic.
    Even a one percent reduction in future pandemic risk is more than 
justified by the global annual spending of about $20 billion needed to 
address the root causes of spillover. Governments, including the US, 
have so far failed to work together to prioritize this spending.
    Failing to address the drivers of emerging infectious diseases and 
pandemics would be a grave mistake and ignores emerging scientific 
consensus, including a significant report from a global science 
taskforce convened by Harvard University's T.H. Chan School of Public 
Health (see link at the end of the hearing text). A ``containment-
only'' strategy also will be seen as acceptance of sickness and death 
among front line communities, and the poorest members of society, who 
will always suffer more with this approach.
    Our coalitions, the Coalition to Prevent Pandemics at the Source, 
and the U.S. Wildlife and Health Alliance bring together a diverse 
group of organizations and many of the leading public health, wildlife 
and conservation practitioners and experts. Our coalitions have 
developed a suite of recommendations and statement of principles, 
respectively, that we have shared with the Administration and that we 
urge you to review and address. The Coalition to Prevent Pandemics at 
the Source has also developed an action agenda describing the 
interventions needed around the world. We stand ready to assist in any 
way that we can and to provide more detailed recommendations to your 
Committee and its members.

    An ounce of prevention is truly worth a pound of cure.

                                 ______
                                 

[LIST OF DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD RETAINED IN THE COMMITTEE'S 
                            OFFICIAL FILES]

1.  Submission from Preventing Pandemics at the Source and the 
U.S. Wildlife and Health Alliance: Appendix to May 11, 2022 
statement. [ Can be viewed on the Committee Repository at: 
https://docs.house.gov/meetings/II/II15/20220428/114672/HHRG-
117-II15-20220428-SD003.pdf ]

                                 [all]