Abstract

Our mission is to eradicate bovine TB from New Zealand
Track: Environmental Management
Authors: Campbell Fleury

New Zealand's Animal Health Board (AHB) has embarked on an ambitious strategy to eradicate bovine tuberculosis from the country's valuable cattle and deer herds. This requires eradication of TB from populations of the introduced Australian brushtail possum, the main vector of the disease.
AHB uses sophisticated geospatial data capture systems to support operations to detect, monitor and control infected possum populations.
Spatial information from field operations is captured via handheld devices built on the Arc Mobile platform. Field data is then linked to laboratory diagnostic results using the same software. Arc Server and ArcGIS for SharePoint enable the combined data to be manipulated for disease control analysis and planning.
Possum control and infection data are also combined with livestock TB testing results in models to provide robust estimates of the probability that TB has been eradicated from defined areas, which is a fundamental performance indicator for AHB.