Newsflash: hunting to stop epidemics makes outbreak worse

Here’s a story that I’ll be referring to the next time a government announces a massive cull to ward off a disease: researchers at the University of Georgia have published a paper claiming that killing animals in the wild to thwart an epidemic can actually increase the severity of the disease. Yes, this does run counter to the intuition of wildlife managers, but these guys used something called math to work it out, and it turns out that thinning out a herd can increase the resources available to the rest, reducing the death rate and increasing the birth rate, while at the same time killing older animals who might have developed an immunity to the disease. Their theory is supported by the fact that the badger culls in England, fox culls in Europe, and elk culls in North America have all resulted in worsened outbreaks of the diseases they were meant to contain. This is probably not at all the same, but when I increase my pie consumption, the grocery store seems to increase its pie inventory. I’m waiting for a follow up paper on that one. Link to press release, Link to PDF of paper.