The Karuk Tribe’s Ithivthaneenyav, One Good Earth, Indigenous Wildlife Health Infrastructure Project will create a landscape level Indigenous-led Wildlife Health Plan across 1.049 million acres of Karuk Aboriginal Lands. The plan development will entail research and monitoring, sample gathering and data analysis, and capacity and infrastructure building of the Karuk Tribe Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Division to better understand the ecology of disease transmission along the human-wildlife interface pertaining to ticks, deer, and elk. It will be modeled from the University of California, Davis One Health Institute approach which is directly aligned with the Karuk stewardship ethic of sustainably using and managing natural resources, values embedded in all Indigenous cultures. With the inclusion of placed-based Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge, this Project will result in novel ideas and innovative actions that will be replicable by Indigenous peoples and local communities across the globe. It will also employ Western science methodology and collaborations with several researchers and agencies. The Project will develop a Wildlife Health Plan for guiding future wildlife disease surveillance and data sharing, conduct pilot case studies on ticks, deer, and elk, and develop the research and monitoring infrastructure and supporting network of relationships and cooperative agreements that will enable effective early detection, response, and management of disease transmission along the human-wildlife interface. The Project advances Karuk Tribal sovereignty and collaborations with institutions and agencies by developing a management plan informed by data and research that fills key information gaps about disease monitoring and management in the human-wildlife interface in Karuk Aboriginal Lands. The project supports equity, diversity, environmental justice, and accessibility of services by providing jobs and capacity building for a highly rural, low-income, Indigenous community which is often overlooked. This proposal puts into action Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Western Knowledge to monitor the health of deer and elk, two Karuk cultural indicator species. Expected deliverables include: 1) Karuk Wildlife Health Plan for implementing a collaborative Karuk wildlife health monitoring program based upon One Health principles for efficient surveillance of 1.049 million acres of forested biodiverse Karuk Aboriginal Lands. 2) Agreements with experts at the national, state, and local level to access expertise and services enabling a Karuk wildlife health surveillance program across the Karuk Aboriginal landscape. 3) Built capacity for a Karuk wildlife health surveillance program- including staff, equipment, and data management systems/protocols. 4) Pilot case studies to develop the research and monitoring infrastructure and supporting network of relationships and regulatory policy that will enable the effective early detection, response, and management for known and potentially novel zoonotic pathogens circulating in wildlife on Karuk Aboriginal Lands. 5) Shared finding through publications, reports, press and other communications including research results, monitoring and management protocols, best practices, and lessons learned; emphasis on sharing with Indigenous communities, State/Federal agencies, and the general public.
