U.S. Geological Survey National Wildlife Health Center
2021
Wildlife Health Information Sharing Partnership-event reporting system (WHISPers)
application/service
https://whispers.usgs.gov/
https://doi.org/10.5066/P9B0A3IM
WHISPers stands for Wildlife Health Information Sharing Partnership - event reporting system. It is a web-based repository for sharing basic information about historic and ongoing wildlife mortality (death) and morbidity (illness) events. The system possesses a searchable archive of wildlife mortality and morbidity event data that is available to the public. The information is opportunistically collected and does not reflect all the mortality events that occur in North America.
The primary goal of the system is to provide situational awareness to natural resource management partners and the public using timely, accurate information on where wildlife disease events are occurring or have occurred.
NOTE: Information in the database has been collected from numerous qualified sources. Prior to 1980, data include some FWS and other published accounts for a historic retrospective. As awareness of wildlife health and cooperation within the field have increased so have reports, which may cause the data to appear skewed or reflect increasing mortality when such may not be the case.
1910
Present
publication date
Continually
-172.45
-64.57
71.83
13.23
None
wildlife
wildlife health
avian
bird
mammal
amphibian
reptile
marine invertebrate
endangered species
disease
morbidity
mortality
epizootic
avian influenza
botulism
avian cholera
lead poisoning
RHDV2
USGS Metadata Identifier
USGS:581deaed-18e7-45b1-8935-1ea7342ba7e5
FIPS
Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
District of Columbia
Florida
Georgia
Hawaii
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming
American Samoa
Guam
Northern Mariana Islands
U.S. Virgin Islands
Puerto Rico
Common geographic areas
Canada
Mexico
United States
Some information in the database is considered confidential, such as private contact information for an event.
Acknowledgement of U.S. Geological Survey National Wildlife Health Center and/or its partners is requested in products derived from these data.
U.S. Geological Survey National Wildlife Health Center
WHISPers
mailing and physical
6006 Schroeder Rd
Madison
WI
53711
USA
608-270-2400
608-270-2415
whispers@usgs.gov
Dataset developed and maintained by NWHC personnel with information provided from partners including federal, state, tribal, and local agencies.
Data are stored in a relational PostgreSQL database
Much of the information in WHISPers is derived from external sources. For data provided by NWHC, an attempt is made to contact sources and verify information or obtain information that is as accurate as possible; however, the accuracy of data in these reports cannot always be determined.
A number of control mechanisms are in place to ensure data consistency. These include reference tables for location, diagnosis, contact, and species attributes (i.e. county, state, species). Additional manual checks are performed by NWHC personnel to find additional errant data and to ensure event report completeness.
WHISPers is designed to store summary or aggregate data from wildlife disease events. Each record includes location of the event (to county level), start (when situation is first observed or estimated to have begun) and end (when the event is considered to be over) dates, species involved, number of sick and dead, cause of wildlife illness or death, the laboratory where cause of disease/death was confirmed, and contact information for the agency that submitted carcasses/samples to the laboratory.
There has been no statistical analysis or manipulation, other than quality control tests, performed on these data.
20210429
FIPS codes for U. S. state and county entities, ISO 3166 codes for countries.
Raster
Data dictionaries and metadata information is available at https://www.usgs.gov/centers/nwhc/science/whispers
https://www.usgs.gov/centers/nwhc/science/whispers
U.S. Geological Survey National Wildlife Health Center
WHISPers
mailing and physical
6006 Schroeder Rd
Madison
WI
53705
USA
608-270.2400
608-270-2415
whispers@usgs.gov
Although these data have been processed successfully on a computer system at the U.S. Geological Survey, no warranty expressed or implied is made regarding the accuracy or utility of the data on any other system or for general or scientific purposes, nor shall the act of distribution constitute any such warranty. This disclaimer applies both to individual use of the data and aggregate use with other data. It is strongly recommended that these data are directly acquired from a U.S. Geological Survey server, and not indirectly through other sources which may have changed the data in some way. It is also strongly recommended that careful attention be paid to the contents of the metadata file associated with these data. The U.S. Geological Survey shall not be held liable for improper or incorrect use of the data described and/or contained herein.
MSAccess (accdb), MSExcel (xlsx), other formats (e.g. CSV, PDF) available upon request
https://whispers.usgs.gov/
None
20210429
20151008
20160401
Neil Baertlein
U.S. Geological Survey, National Wildlife Health Center
Technical Information Specialist
mailing and physical
6006 Schroeder Rd
Madison
WI
53711
USA
608-270-2460
608-270-2415
nbaertlein@usgs.gov
Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata
FGDC-STD-001-1998
local time
None
None
None
Unclassified
None