Organisation of Wildlife Passive Disease Surveillance in Slovenia over 30 Years (1995–2025) and Insights into Certain Causes of Disease or Mortality

Wildlife health surveillance is a vital element of disease prevention, biodiversity conservation, and public health protection, especially as most emerging infectious diseases originate from wildlife. In Slovenia, long-term passive surveillance based on necropsy data has yielded valuable insights into wildlife mortality patterns over the past three decades, despite inherent limitations such as carcass detectability, reporting bias, scavenging, and decomposition. Ongoing cooperation among governmental institutions, veterinary services, hunters, and wildlife management organisations has enabled the effective operation of this system, although passive surveillance remains subject to spatial, temporal, and species-specific biases. Necropsy data show that infectious diseases, particularly parasitic infections, are the main causes of mortality in key species such as roe deer and chamois, reflecting both their population abundance and targeted monitoring. In contrast, carcasses of species such as wild boar, red deer, small mammals, and birds are underrepresented due to ecological factors, biosecurity constraints, or low detectability. Overall, while passive wildlife surveillance does not provide representative population-level mortality estimates, it remains a reliable tool for identifying the presence or absence of significant diseases and for understanding broad mortality patterns when interpreted in the context of known methodological and ecological limitations.