An historical attempt to control flying foxes in Samoa with an introduced disease.

Abstract

SEVERE disease epidemics are a rare but widely distributed phenomenon among flying foxes (genus Pteropus) in the Pacific islands (Flannery 1989; Pierson and Rainey 1992; Rainey 1998). The few documented outbreaks have produced extensive mortality and steep population declines, and are often followed by periods of slow population recovery. The diseases involved have never been identified, but have sometimes been preceded by local epidemics among humans or domestic animals. The high mortality rates of the bats support the theory of a novel introduced pathogen to which populations lacked previous exposure (Flannery 1989).