Wildlife Diseases
In national parks and other areas where the goal is to minimize human intervention in natural ecological processes, disease may be an acceptable cause of wildlife mortality. However, diseases that are not indigenous to the area—those that have spread into Yellowstone as a result of human activity—can impact wildlife populations (e.g., wolf population declines in 1999 and 2005 and Yellowstone cutthroat trout population declines), and focus management actions on wildlife populations (e.g., bison). In addition, some diseases carried in wildlife could potentially be transmitted to humans.
