Wildlife Disease Ecologist

Krysten Schuler is a wildlife disease ecologist interested in the health of wildlife populations and associations with human and domestic animal activities and diseases. Her focus is on conserving free-ranging species on into the future. This involves a multi-disciplinary approach involving risk analysis, field studies, human dimensions, and laboratory experiments.

Since 2011, Krysten has worked with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation on the cooperative New York State Wildlife Health Program. Prior to relocating to New York, she served as a field epidemiologist with the U.S. Geological Survey National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wisconsin investigating wildlife mortality events and training biologists around the country in wildlife health.

Krysten’s current projects are quite diverse in scope and species. She heads up the New York State Interagency Working Group on chronic wasting disease, which has produced surveillance, response, and prevention plans in recent years to ensure that all measures are taken to avoid reintroduction of the disease to New York. This work focuses on being able to detect disease at the earliest possible instance, and being ready to react if the disease is found in wild or captive cervids. She has projects looking at moose health in the Adirondacks region, geographical epidemiology of bear mange, white-tailed deer fawn survival, population modeling of lead impacts on bald eagles, and chytrid fungus in eastern hellbenders. READ MORE