Outbreaks of wildlife diseases are occurring at an unprecedented rate. In French Guiana, recurrent episodes of frigatebird chicks’ mortality due to a viral disease that first appeared in 2005 have recently turned into massive mortality episodes (85–95%) of chicks. One of the suggested hypotheses behind the appearance of the disease is food limitation due to the recent decline of local shrimp fishery boats on which frigatebirds rely for opportunistic feeding. We therefore experimentally fish‐supplemented frigatebird chicks with and without clinical signs of the disease. Food supplementation protected all chicks from the appearance of clinical signs of the disease and increased survival perspectives of sick chicks. These results suggest that food shortage might decrease resistance of chicks to infectious diseases and that using a specifically tailored food supplementation regime could be a complimentary tool to protect frigatebirds and other endangered birds from disease outbreaks threatening them with extinction.

中文翻译：

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补充食物可保护雄伟的乳rig鸟免于致命的病毒性疾病

野生动物疾病的爆发速度空前。在法属圭亚那，2005年首次出现的因病毒性疾病引起的频发性雏鸟死亡的反复发作，最近已转变为大量的雏鸡死亡事故（占85％至95％）。该病出现的一种建议假说是食物限制，原因是当地虾渔船最近减少，而​​巡洋舰依靠这些虾来进行机会性喂养。因此，我们通过实验在鱼类中添加了有或没有该病临床症状的金龟子雏鸡。补充食物可保护所有雏鸡免受疾病临床症状的影响，并提高生病雏鸡的存活率。