Interesting and unusual diseases in wildlife across Charles Sturt University's (CSU) regional footprint will be fed into a national database in a new initiative to broaden Australia's wildlife disease surveillance capacity.

CSU is one of seven universities to enter information into the national electronic Wildlife Health Information System, (eWHIS), which is managed by Wildlife Health Australia (WHA).

Coordinating CSU's role in the one-year pilot project is Dr Andrew Peters, a lecturer in veterinary pathology in the University's School of Animal and Veterinary Sciences. Dr Peters is also a member of WHA's management committee.

"Details of wildlife disease events or outbreaks across our regions will be fed into the electronic Wildlife Health Information System – one of the most advanced systems for wildlife health surveillance," Dr Peters said.

Wildlife Health Australia CEO Dr Rupert Woods said, "Understanding the health status of Australia's wildlife is an important step towards protecting them, and the huge benefits they provide to the environment, agriculture, tourism, and people's health and wellbeing."

The University's Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory in Wagga Wagga will be the hub for investigating and reporting wildlife disease cases seen by the university's biologists, ecologists and veterinarians.

Dr Peters said, "In addition to information from Charles Sturt University scientists, many wildlife cases seen by private veterinarians who use the Laboratory's commercial diagnostic service, will also be entered into WHA's electronic database.

"The location of Charles Sturt University's campuses in regional Australia is an important factor in the ability of this trial to expand the area covered by the wildlife health database."

WHA predicts the number of entries to eWHIS could increase by around 50 per cent or more as a result of the project.

Data is currently contributed to eWHIS by government along with zoo wildlife hospitals, private veterinarians and national programs for detecting Australian bat lyssavirus and avian influenza in wild birds.

Universities involved in the pilot project are CSU, James Cook University, Murdoch University, the University of Adelaide, the University of Melbourne, the University of Queensland and the University of Sydney.