Table 2.

Examples of Events Involving Animal Surveillance.

Date	Event	Description
323 BCE	West Nile virus	Alexander the Great is believed to have died following a 2 week febrile illness in 323 BCE, due to viral encephalitis from WNV8 (Marr and Calisher, 2003). Historian Plutarch mentioned that flock of ravens displayed unusual behavior and died subsequently as Alexander entered Babylon.
1878	Several hundred livestock deaths	Death of several hundred livestock in lake Alexandrina, Australia allowed the identification of cyanobacteria Nodularia spumigena in water. Despite warnings issued, there was undescribed illness was reported in one individual after consuming contaminated water (Codd et al., 1994).
20th century	Canaries in coal mines	Coal miners in the U.K.9 and the U.S.10 brought canaries into coalmines as an early-warning signal for toxic gases including methane and carbon monoxide. The birds, being more sensitive, would become sick before the miners, who would then have a chance to escape or put on protective respirators (Burrell and Seibert, 1914).
1956	Minamata disease	Cats from a fishing village, Minamata developed a neurological disease. People of Minamata later displayed similar symptoms. Investigations later found that effluent from a factory had polluted surrounding waters resulting in accumulation of mercury in fish (Takeuchi et al., 1977).
1962	Chicken sentinels	Chickens as sentinels for surveillance of arboviruses like WNV, WEE11 and SLE12 viruses (Rainey et al., 1962).
Until 1969	Rabbits warn of nerve gases during transportation	Rabbits were placed in small cages in railcars during transportation of nerve gases and sudden animal mortality would warn of gas release (Brankowitz, 1987).
April 1979	Sverdlovsky Anthrax release	Anthrax was accidentally released from a Soviet military microbiology facility. Livestock died at a greater distance of 60 km from the plant, compared to human cases which occurred within a narrow 4 km zone downwind of the facility (Meselson et al., 1994).
20 March 1995	Tokyo sarin gas release	Japanese policemen carried canaries in cages with them during raids to warn of the presence of toxic gases (National Research Council of the National Academies, 2005).
June 1999 and 2007	West Nile virus	WNV was reintroduced into the U.S., where it caused the ongoing epizootic in birds with a spillover of infections to humans and equines (Chancey et al., 2015).
2003	Chickens on alert in Kuwait	U.S. Marine Corps employed chickens for the detection of nerve and blister agents. They were meant to act as a backup to false alarms the automated detectors were notorious for (Ember, 2003).
2004	Dog, livestock, wildlife deaths	Death of dogs, livestock and wildlife in the Buccaneer Bay Lake, Eastern Nebraska, U.S. allowed identification of cyanobacteria Anabaena, Microcystis, Oscillatoria and Aphanizo-menon in water. >50 incidences of skin lesions, rash, gastroenteritis and/or headache were reported in humans. Warnings were issued (Walker et al., 2008).
2005	Plague cases in Yulong county of the Yunnan province, China	Serologic survey found antibodies against the F1 antigen from domestic dogs around the affected county, demonstrating that domestic dogs could serve as animals for plague surveillance (Li et al., 2008).
Late 2006	Windblown lead carbonate in Esperance, Western Australia	Windblown lead carbonate causing huge number of bird deaths in Esperance, Western Australia, prevents lead exposure to Esperance community (Gulson et al., 2009).

⁸WNV, West Nile virus.

⁹U.K., United Kingdom.

¹⁰U.S., United States.

¹¹WEE, Western equine encephalomyelitis.

¹²SLE, St. Louis encephalitis.