Meet our grantees

Wild Animal Initiative funds academic research on high-priority questions in wild animal welfare.

The goal of our grants program is to fund research that deepens scientific knowledge of the welfare of wild animals in order to better understand how to improve the welfare of as many wild animals as possible, regardless of what causes the threats to their well-being.

We showcase our grantees and their projects here and continuously update this page as new projects are added.

Small, Least concern, Mammals, Canada, Infectious disease, Physiology, Animal welfare science, 2023, Not published Wild Animal Initiative Small, Least concern, Mammals, Canada, Infectious disease, Physiology, Animal welfare science, 2023, Not published Wild Animal Initiative

Developing loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) assays for detecting pathogens in wild animal populations

Grantee: Cameron Semper

Institutions: University of Calgary, University of Lethbridge

Project summary

This project aims to develop Loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) assays for rapid, in situ detection of representative viral and bacterial pathogens, as well as parasitic worm infections in wild animals. This project will develop two methods for detecting viral and bacterial infections, respectively. The viral test will focus on viruses that have caused epidemics in wild frigatebird and sooty tern populations, while the bacterial test will focus on tick-borne illnesses and parasitic worms which infect deer mice. After developing the LAMP assays, the researchers will validate their potential contribution to monitoring wild animal welfare in a non-invasive manner by using them to test for pathogenic load in fecal samples from deer mice.

Read More