Dr. Michelle Moyal (Host): Welcome everyone to the Cornell Veterinary Podcast, where we deep dive into the discovery, care and learning that happens here at Cornell University's College of Veterinary Medicine. I am Dr. Michelle Moyal, the veterinary college's favorite and maybe only self-proclaimed extrovert and lover of all things Cornell Vet. In this episode, we are talking to veterinarian, Dr. Krysten Schuler, about her work in wildlife health and conservation. Krysten, welcome.

Dr. Krysten Schuler: Thanks. But I have to correct you, I'm actually not a veterinarian. I'm a wildlife disease ecologist.

Host: Yes. Thank you so much for the correction. I really, really appreciate that because that actually proves a point. So again, thank you and I apologize for that. That proves a point that so many teams and experts and doctors are working together to help animals at the veterinary college, and that does not mean they're veterinarians. So, I very much appreciate that, because your contributions, I've stalked you online, are amazing.

Dr. Krysten Schuler: Thanks for that. It's one of those things where I tell all the vet students that come to talk to me, that there's a lot of different paths to the top of the mountain to where they want to go. And so, they can kind of find their own way and it doesn't mean that they have to follow something that's prescribed necessarily. So, I ended up at vet college and not being a veterinarian.

Host: This is a perfect segue, by the way, into my first question for you. I would love for you to share with our audience a bit of your background and how you got into this career.

Dr. Krysten Schuler: So, I went to graduate school. I have an undergraduate Bachelor of Science in Biology from the University of Notre Dame. And then, I took a job working with lab animals for a year at the University of Pittsburgh and decided that wasn't for me. So, I researched what I could do with wildlife and ended up getting master's degree from Oklahoma State University in wildlife biology where I worked on bison out on the prairie and followed them around.

Host: You know, so tiny. Such a tiny dainty animal.

Dr. Krysten Schuler: I know well. Bison are probably the animal that scares me the most. Like, out of everything I've worked on, whether it's, you know, coyotes or mountain lions or whatever, bison are the most frightening.

Host: That sounds like a reasonable amount of fear.

Dr. Krysten Schuler: Yes. So during that time period, I was considering getting a veterinary degree, but decided I would be better served with a PhD. So, I went on and did dissertation work at Wind Cave National Park and got my degree from South Dakota State University. So, I kind of made a big boomerang around the country and have ended up back in the northeast. I'm originally from Pennsylvania.

Host: Were you always interested in wildlife and wildlife disease ecology? Like how did that develop, that passion?

Dr. Krysten Schuler: Honestly, I didn't even know wildlife disease ecology was a thing when I was a student. Once I became a professional, I had to define myself and I just put those words together and figure those were the ones that fit what I did the best. So, it wasn't necessarily a career track that existed. It was just I kept following my interests. And I grew up in a very rural part of Pennsylvania, Western Pennsylvania in a lot of national forests. And, you know, I have horses and would be riding a lot. So, I've always loved animals and I guess it was one of those things with wildlife that I like the idea that they were owned by everybody and by nobody all at the same time, and that there needed to be somebody out there advocating for those species and their needs and what, you know, we as humans should be doing to help their populations.

Host: So when I Google stalked you, I mean, researched you, I found the term wildlife database integration. It's like a lot of big words. So, I was curious if you could share with our audience what that means and how it relates to what you do.

Dr. Krysten Schuler: Sure, yeah. We're diving into the deep end.

Host: Yeah. Oh, Cornell's going to be like, "That's too soon." Too soon, but I feel like let's just go.

Dr. Krysten Schuler: Sure. We are living in an increasingly datafied world. And unfortunately for wildlife and it's true of veterinary medicine, and I'm sitting right now in the Animal Health Diagnostic Center, so it's true of diagnostic labs, it's true of human medicine, that we are not doing a good job of turning all the information that we generate into data all the time, and we're not necessarily good at sharing it across platforms in a standardized way that makes it easy for us to look for trends and figure out patterns and use it for predictive elements. And now, it's become more apparent with the new technologies like, you know, artificial intelligence and machine learning, that we have a lot of powerful tools that we can use.

But one of the biggest challenges is just getting the data and getting it in a format that's useful. So, for instance, I did a large project looking at lead poisoning in bald eagles across the Northeast. So, we had seven different states. We had a number of entities contributing data, wildlife rehabers, diagnostic labs, veterinarians. And we had to go through 1200 records and say, "Okay, what did they do? What tissue did they test? What was the value? Was it wet weight? Was it dry weight? What are we comfortable with calling lead exposure, lead poisoning?" And so just that manual line by line, "Okay. You know, we need to standardize this," before we could ever even start analyzing. It took some poor students that I had working for me months and months to do.

So, the more we can think about how we can create standardization across all the information that we're generating, I think that will help a lot. And so, I'm very interested in disease surveillance and wildlife and giving wildlife agencies, tools that they can use to do surveillance. And giving them the same tool, then you automatically have that standardization and it allows for situational awareness where you can share the information in a standardized way. And so, you know, for New York, who I work with a lot, they want to know what kind of surveillance for chronic wasting disease is happening in other states. And so, we can use that type of tool to do that and then, obviously, do research and run models and all those good things.

Host: What does your day to day work life looks like?

Dr. Krysten Schuler: Well, unfortunately, it's not as exciting as it used to be when I got to go out in the field and do a lot of things. You hire people now to do that. So, I definitely have a lot more of the administrative role now. And, you know, we have a pretty large group and we work a lot with New York State and they have personnel there too that we assist. So, day-to-day, it varies a lot. Today, I was working on some presentations for the Wildlife Disease Association Meeting and the Veterinary Scholar Symposium that's happening in Puerto Rico. But I've got some papers to review. I've got a paper I need to submit. I've been talking to biologists about planning disease response scenarios to bring together agriculture veterinarians and state biologists to sit down in a room together and walk through a hypothetical scenario about how they would respond to chronic wasting disease detection to make sure that we are all sharing information properly and working well together when and if that happens.

Host: That sounds like quite a bit. My goodness.

Dr. Krysten Schuler: Every day is busy. And there could be something that happens that pulls you away. Like earlier this week, we had a beaver that came in for rabies testing. And so, you know, those are sort of the immediate situations that you have to respond to and make sure that all the information is flowing right, that the animal gets tested. That beaver did turn out to be positive for rabies, which we needed to work with the Department of Health, because they needed to contact the five people that it had bitten and make sure that they received appropriate treatment.

Host: Oh my goodness. So, you know, we're impacting, obviously, widespread lives through conservation and health, but we're significantly impacting people's lives as well. That was a very serious situation.

Dr. Krysten Schuler: I mean, you have to just be ready for whatever might happen that day and not get too upset if you get thrown off your game plan.

Host: Sounds like surgery, right? Like when we do surgery in the OR and I'm talking to students, we just don't know what will happen. Wow. And not to get too off topic, but I again appreciate that you mentioned rabies because I think a lot of people don't think about it as a big thing anymore, and it really is out there.

Dr. Krysten Schuler: Absolutely. Yeah, the week before last, we had a rabid deer come in. The Department of Health has priority if there's human cases. But if there's a situation, you know, where an animal comes in, we have a standing relationship with the Department of Health to test all mammals for rabies so that they can increase their surveillance numbers that way. And so, we do get a lot of other species and we have to put out reminders very frequently to say, "Hey, just so you know, there are other things other than raccoons that get rabies. So if you see an animal acting abnormally, you know, please report it."

Host: Absolutely. It sounds like you've done a lot of cool things. So, I'm going to ask you a question that may take some thinking, because again it sounds like you've done some pretty phenomenal things. What is one of the coolest experiences you've had in your career? And if young people are listening, yes, chose the world cool.

Dr. Krysten Schuler: Yes. The one thing I like to say about wildlife is you always have good stories. So, one of the coolest was that for one summer I was an elk midwife. So, these were tame elk or tame-ish elk in Oregon at a research facility. And they were a little bit older and they were all pregnant and giving birth. And my job was to monitor them and make sure that they, you know, gave birth appropriately. And some of them were having problems. So, I was working with the veterinarian to make sure that, you know, everything went well. And there was one time that he couldn't make it for a birth and I ended up having to pull that calf out. So, that was pretty crazy to help an elk give birth. Then, I got to sit with the elk calves and, you know, you sort of habituate them to human presence for this research project. So, they would be hiding and I would sneak up and sit down and pet them. And they really didn't like me at all, just the presence of humans. They'd wrinkle up their little noses and you could just tell that you were stinky to them. That was pretty fun. I've been able to fly in a helicopter to catch deer. I've been on a mountain lion chase. The other probably big one would be, for coolest experiences, is that I was invited to give testimony before Congress. So, I did that in the summer of 2019. So, yeah, that was pretty amazing.

Host: Wow. So, one thing I'm getting and what I would like to mention to Cornell is I would like to have a Cornell T-shirt about being an elk midwife. I love that. Let's get that in the Cornell store right away. And two, I think you would be the most fabulous dinner guest. I'm thrilled you're here with me because these stories are amazing. And I saw that you work on a vast variety of species and diseases. So, I would love to hear what some of your current efforts are right now. Because I saw that you also collaborate with a lot of agencies, Department of Environmental Conservation, the Gaming Commission of Pennsylvania. So, what are you doing right now?

Dr. Krysten Schuler: Yeah. We have a whole bunch of different projects going on. There's a PhD student that's working up in the Adirondacks on moose, because some of our prior research indicated that the moose in New York are having some really big problems with different parasites, and these are different parasites, a suite of them than what a lot of places in the rest of the country are experiencing with moose and winter tick. So, we think we're just at the beginning of a winter tick epizootic, but moose in New York have to deal with things like brain worm, liver fluke. So yeah, we've got some issues there. We've got a vet student working on lead in fishers, which are the largest weasel, a mustelid. We've also done some collaborative work with folks at the SUNY ESF, Environmental Science and Forestry College, to look at anticoagulant rodenticides in fishers and pregnancy rates. We just wrapped up a project on lead poisoning and bald eagles, and we're following a citizen science effort to collect trail camera photos of scavengers on deer carcasses or the gut piles left behind from hunters to see what other species tend to feed on those, and if we should be prioritizing other species for lead testing. So, it's a whole suite of complaints.

Host: Yeah, absolutely. Oh, my goodness. And I know you've also worked on chronic wasting disease, so CWD for short. And, you know, I'll admit when I first read it, it sounded like something from a sci-fi show. Can you tell us all about it?

Dr. Krysten Schuler: Certainly, yeah. So, chronic wasting disease was one of the elements of my PhD, so I've been working on it for over 20 years now. It is a prion disease in the family known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathy. So, transmissible because it can go from animal to animal. Spongiform because your brain starts resembling a sponge and then, obviously, encephalopathy because it's your brain. And with chronic wasting disease, it's the only TSE found in free-ranging animals. There's other TSEs, the most famous of which is bovine spongiform encephalopathy or mad cow. But there's also various human iterations. And then, the one that has been around the longest and described for the longest is scrapie in sheep.

Host: And so, your research, does it focus on one part of chronic wasting disease?

Dr. Krysten Schuler: Not really. And this is something I've been thinking about a lot. So, when I was a student, I really focused on the biology. I was trying to understand the transmission parameters and, you know, what was happening with the deer. And as I've gone through my career, I've seen how much of it is impacted by people. And so, I've been fortunate to collaborate with a lot of other people that do research on things like communications or human dimensions, or we've even wrapped up economists into this. Because with some of the work that I've done for New York State, we revised how we do surveillance.

And so instead of just looking, you know, willy-nilly across the state, we prioritized areas based on the deer population density, but also based on risk factors because you need to have prions come into the state and then they have to be available to wild deer. And so if we look at those risk factors, things like captive cervids being moved into the state or hunters bringing in carcasses, where those carcasses may end up is important. And so, we prioritize sampling based on those different risk factors as well. And so, this surveillance system has been used by other states now. And unfortunately for them, like Tennessee and Alabama and Florida, they've found chronic wasting disease after implementing the surveillance program. So, I guess it's better they find the disease earlier than they may have otherwise, but still not great.

And then, you know, we have response plans that I mentioned a little bit with the scenario planning. But then after writing the response plan, we had an interagency team working. And it was one of those blinding flashes of the obvious. We were like, "Well, we don't want to do the response plan. Why don't we write a prevention plan?" And so, we ended up writing a plan with these risk-minimizing actions and it was one of those things where it called for more education of the public. And so, how do we do that effectively?

And we partnered with different media specialists to look at that kind of research. And for policymakers, they really needed to understand the impact of what these actions would do. And so, communicating to them the value of wild deer in New York. And so, we worked with economists to say, "Okay, you know, if you look at the income from taxes and retail sales and all the different license sales that go into deer hunting, we valued the New York deer herd at one and a half billion dollars annually. And research from other states has shown that when CWD shows up, that you could have a 10% loss in hunters. So if you apply that 1.5 billion and take 10% out, that's 150 million that the state could lose each year. And so, that made the decision for the policymakers really easy to say, "Okay, this is super important that we don't get this disease." And they were more willing to make sort of those proactive decisions rather than reactive decisions, which are really hard to justify sometimes.

Host: So, I hear the efforts on prevention and it sounds like, honestly, it's a really good way to focus on this. Is there a way to combat it? Like I heard you mention talking to hunters and these animals kind of moving around. Like, is there something people should know in general about this?

Dr. Krysten Schuler: Yeah. I think it's a tough disease because a lot of people don't understand it. And so even, you know, our education is targeted a lot towards hunters, because if they are traveling to go somewhere to hunt and they want to bring back their harvest, there are certain parts and pieces that tend to have more prions in them. And so, educating them about how they can handle their harvest to bring it back in a safe way and tell them the importance of the disease and try to make it easy for them to get their animal tested are all different elements that we factor in. So, you know, there's a lot of culture behind hunting. And people learn from people passing down traditions. But when you have these new things come up that they've never heard of before and trying to get in front of people to tell them, maybe it won't impact their hunt per se, but this disease is serious enough. I used to talk about it in terms of like, you know, think about your grandchildren hunting and sort of how fast we've seen it spreading. Now, I'm like, think about your children hunting. Maybe this won't impact you, but it could impact the next generation of hunters, and trying to get them to care about it, where they're willing to expend a little extra effort to get their animal tested or to handle it in a manner that is safer so that they won't affect other people.

And then, outside of hunters, for the public, obviously, you know, the public generally loves wildlife. They don't want to see them killed for no reason. But when there is chronic wasting disease detected in an area, one of the best management tools we have for combating it is to sample in that area and to decrease the local deer density. And so, it's hard for a lot of the public to go, "Well, why are you killing these perfectly healthy animals?" And the challenge with chronic wasting disease is that the animals don't look sick for a long time. So, it's not like they see dead animals on their lawn. They don't see any disease signs. They don't find dead animals. So, they say, "They're fine. You know, why are you doing this?" And don't understand that it's a much slower burn than what they might be used to.

Host: Right. And we're using science here for the greater good, and that's very hard for them to see because they just see an animal going away, right?

Dr. Krysten Schuler: Absolutely.

Host: I'm going to ask very random question. I'm just curious, because I'm not familiar with hunting culture in general, but I am familiar with deers getting hit in the road and, you know, inadvertently they lose their life being hit by a car. If those animals are sick, because I've seen people take deer off the road, is that concerning if they had CWD at all?

Dr. Krysten Schuler: There haven't been any documented cases of chronic wasting disease transferring to humans. And even when you look at the incidents of TSEs in humans where CWD exists, there's not any increased levels. So, there seems to be a good species barrier, but that type of research is ongoing and it's not complete. And sort of the specter of mad cow disease looms over that because people did get mad cow. You know, it was a small fraction of probably the people that may have consumed tainted beef. You know, there were only 200 and some people worldwide that ended up getting mad cow, which is variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, but that's still a risk. And so, we do this balancing act where we say, "Yes, it's safe to eat. But you should be testing if you're in an area with known CWD."

And then, you know, even just beyond CWD, there's practices. You know, a lot of people think that they're feeding deer to help them, "Oh, I'm helping them through hard winter or something." Meanwhile, you know, if the deer's not used to eating corn, that can cause it problems and may kill it. You're causing other problems associated with bringing ticks into a higher density area. You might cause things like car accidents because the deer are crossing to come to food. So, you know, there's a lot of ancillary things that people sometimes think that they're helping the animals when maybe they shouldn't be feeding them. In a lot of areas, you know, especially there's been a lot of deer work around Cornell's campus and Cayuga Heights because the deer densities were so high that, you know, they were damaging the environment. And so, understanding that the balance of the deer population needs to exist within the environment that it is. And sometimes those need to be removed, because it's not good for them to exist in such high densities.

Host: Sure. What a domino effect, right? I mean you said it, car damage. And then, I think we don't even think about people who have cats and dogs in the area and deer bringing ticks. There are a lot of tick-borne diseases that we talk about every day on the small animal side. So, I really appreciate you mentioning that.

So, I was just curious, kind of talking about people and what we want them to know. What is something you wish more people understood or were informed about when it comes to wildlife health or anything that you do?

Dr. Krysten Schuler: Absolutely. I think for me, it's about the wildlife are facing more challenges than ever before. And we hear about these every day, but maybe don't apply it to how it's stressing wild populations. So, things like climate change or increasing human development, urbanization and all the traveling we like to do where we are potentially bringing back other species that could challenge native wildlife, other pathogens, and recognizing that humans are a part of this ecosystem. You know, you mentioned Lyme disease and a lot of people want to kill the deer because of Lyme disease. But when we've created perfect habitat for mice to exist and we don't want any predators around because they might kill our cat or little, you know, fluffy dog, then you're throwing the ecosystem out of balance. So, I think it is important for us to remember that we're a part of this ecosystem. We make choices about how we're going to clear the land or what we're going to do with it, and that does impact wildlife. Sometimes I think people forget that, you know, we're a big player in what wild animals are doing. They see them sort of as outside, "Oh, they're out the window. I'm not doing anything to that animal" when we actually are.

Host: Agreed. I'm going to admit something, I'm often on social media looking at things, right? And I see all of these people trying to take photos with bison at national parks, or they are trying to feed, you know, raccoons or they're trying to get a deer to stay on their land, and we're all like, "Look how cute it is." what do we need those people to know?

Dr. Krysten Schuler: Yeah. Well, one, don't take pictures. You know, don't do selfies with the bison.

Host: Please don't.

Dr. Krysten Schuler: Like that's been shown over and over again, it's a bad idea. Somebody was just killed recently.

Host: Yes, I heard.

Dr. Krysten Schuler: I think, you know, we've gotten too complacent and think that, "Oh, they're tame" or it's like going to a zoo or something when it's not. It's hard because you want to have that wonderful experience. And unfortunately, in my position, it happens. You know, somebody will find an animal, let's say it's a baby raccoon and they go, "Oh, isn't it cute? It's so adorable." They'll take it, and this has happened where they take it to a bar or they pass it around a classroom with a bunch of children. And it turns out, if they can find the mother and she was rabid, then that baby raccoon has to be killed. Or you know, if there's a risk that somebody was bitten, then something bad happens. And so, a lot of people think that they have some special connection. You know, I call it snow white effect, where the birds, you know, they're singing and the birds are landing on them. And more often than not, there's something wrong with that animal.

So, I think the take home message is enjoy wildlife at a safe distance. You know, we want you to enjoy it. And it's a hard message like leave them alone or, you know, give them space, but enjoy it. So, it's a little bit of, you know, a two-sided coin and it's hard to communicate that to people where you don't want to be scared of them, but you also don't want to be up in their business either.

Host: Agreed. So cute from afar, from a safe distance. Everyone, please listen to the expert. She's telling you you can be fascinated, can think they are cute. Do not pick them up. Do not bring them to a bar, right? I will say have brought quite few injured animals to our amazing Janet L. Swanson Wildlife Center for some rehabilitation. Thankfully, our wildlife veterinarians there are amazing. And now, I see that this whole collaboration is really improving the lives of our local wildlife and beyond. And so if you could wave a magic wand, what one issue would you want to solve in wildlife health right now?

Dr. Krysten Schuler: Going back to the standardized surveillance, that's sort of what my brain has been working on. And if we could get that one where we have a system that everybody can work together on, that's what I would want to happen, I think. So, I think, you know, I would want that for wildlife, I would want that for veterinary medicine, I want that for human medicine. I think if we could integrate all that information, because there's so many people doing such fantastic work and to not have it utilized to its fullest capacity, you know, depresses me.

Host: Agreed. Especially in a time like now with this kind of amount of technology we have, right?

Dr. Krysten Schuler: Yeah. Technologically, it's totally possible. It's just us deciding that it's a priority and making the effort and the commitment to do it.

Host: Two more things and, again, even though they may sound like simple questions, they may not have the simplest of answers, but I'm going to ask you, what is the best part of your job?

Dr. Krysten Schuler: I would have to say the idea generation all the way through fruition to completion of a project. And, you know, that might be something that a student starts and is able to finish. It might be with great collaborators. But just having that idea and then making it happen and seeing what it can become. And with some of these things that I've mentioned, it's like you might start this thing and, obviously, you're building on excellent work done by the people who came before you. So, it's not like, you know, every new idea is novel. Many people may have had these ideas and tried, but to actually have the idea for a project and involve students and involve the people, the wildlife managers who need to make decisions and giving them information that's actionable, and then having people run with it and do more with it, I think is really very, very cool.

Host: I love that, especially with students. love that you mentioned that. And with that, what would be the most challenging part of your job?

Dr. Krysten Schuler: I would say funding is a big issue. And it's kind of a bummer to talk about, but we still don't have a lot of great funding sources for wildlife health. And you know, when you do, it's usually for one-year money. And so, it's constantly writing grants to try to fund different things. And so, it's really difficult to get sort of long-term efforts off the ground and continue them. Even though people might like what you're doing, it's really hard to maintain over time. And so, that takes a lot of energy away from other things that you could be doing. So, it's just challenging in that way. And so if more people saw sort of the value of wildlife, instead of just saying, "Oh, it could be another reservoir for disease," you know, a lot of the funding sources that I go after, I don't want to villainize wildlife. I don't wanna say, "Oh, well people or domestic animals might get this disease and that's why we should do research on it." I'm here for wildlife's sake and they deserve ample funding as well. So, I think that's a big challenge that we need to overcome.

Host: Absolutely. It's shame that we have to think about that, but it is real life. I am really glad you mentioned that. And for our listeners, going the Cornell Wildlife Health Center webpage and the Cornell Wildlife Health Lab webpage that I've seen links to your bio at Cornell are great resources. Take a look. Read some more information. Look at the efforts, see how you can help. Dr. Krysten Schuler, you are fantastic. Cornell has a saying, we talk about doing the greatest good, and I feel like you are doing so much good. And I'm just so thankful that you allowed me to take your time and talk to you today.

Dr. Krysten Schuler: Absolutely. It was a pleasure and I appreciate you having me on. This was a lot of fun.

Host: Thank you so much for joining me for the Cornell Veterinary Podcast, and we will talk to you all soon.