Thank you for that.
That is also a whole book, but this is where a lot of the basic science is so important. Where has this come from? How has it arrived? Why is it being so devastating?
There are a number of theories. One is long-range transportation.
We have migratory waterfowl populations that are huge in the Arctic—and increasing—and that is a great avenue for globalization of pathogens, for bringing them back and forth from south to north, which also means that things that happen in the north can also be transported back. Erysipelothrix, the actual bacteria that is killing muskox, is a generalist, so it can infect everything—all species—including fish, birds and people.
That is one mechanism, and that is where we start to use the molecular methods to try to understand that better.
The other mechanism—