The role of hunters in the surveillance and control of diseases in wild animals: Examples from Poland

<ns3:p>This article presents the current and most important activities of hunters in monitoring, reducing, and combating wild animal diseases, including zoonotic diseases dangerous to humans. By hunting, based on the principles of rational game management, they implement a range of initiatives to actively and passively monitor and control animal diseases, as well as remove individuals suspected of specific diseases from the wild. Although most of these initiatives are conducted as voluntary work, they are often presented to the public in an unreliable or even false manner. The best evidence of this is the hypocrisy surrounding sanitary culls of bison, where foresters or national park employees, not hunters, are listed as conducting these culls based on principles of humanitarianism, not hunting. After all, the individuals listed for culls are hunters; otherwise, they would not be able to conduct such culls.Furthermore, the publicization of unverified facts regarding the massive funding hunters receive for preventative measures, such as shooting wild boars or foxes for monitoring studies, often leads society to overlook the enormous and simultaneously social role hunters play in monitoring, preventing, and treating epizootics and epidemiology. Therefore, it seems necessary to emphasize the role hunters play in these activities and present the relevant facts in this regard. In fact, no other social group is capable of addressing such challenges at such negligible costs to the state, and thus to society as a whole.</ns3:p>