Vetnews | Mei 2026 16 « BACK TO CONTENTS ABSTRACT Background “With every big outbreak, we lose staff”: The mental health impacts of depopulation on veterinarians Depopulation, involving the mass euthanasia of livestock, is an established practice in the agricultural industry to ensure animal welfare, human health, and economic stability by preventing disease spread. There is evidence that veterinarians involved in animal-disease management and depopulation experience significant and long-lasting mental health impacts. Objective This study examined the mental health impacts of depopulation on veterinarians and the ways to build their resilience to these stressful events. Procedure Using qualitative methods, 11 veterinarians and industry experts from Alberta participated in semistructured, one-on-one interviews between April 2023 and April 2024. Results Analysis revealed 3 main themes and 6 sub-themes: ongoing workmental health tensions (including professional bond versus emotional labor, disease control versus moral distress, sense of duty versus trauma of the event), emotional detachment, and occupational distress (including emotional exhaustion, decreased job satisfaction and turnover intentions, and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms). These themes were used to adapt the emergency-management framework for veterinarians involved in depopulation, to support their mental health and well-being. Conclusion and clinical relevance The pervasive behavioral and mental health challenges associated with depopulation highlight the necessity for education, training, support, and policy adjustments to safeguard veterinarians’ mental health and wellbeing. INTRODUCTION Mass euthanasia of livestock is part of a complex process in the agricultural industry called “depopulation,” a process of quickly and efficiently killing an entire herd or flock of animals in response to an emergency and doing so as quickly and as humanely as possible (1). Although depopulation may be necessary due to emergencies such as the temporary border closures that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic (2), it is often used for animal-disease management. There are 31 reportable diseases in Canada that can affect an animal or be transmitted by an animal to a person and are required to be reported to a veterinary inspector (3). Despite improvements in biosecurity (4), Canada reported 149 cases of herds or flocks affected by a reportable disease in 2023 (5), mostly avian influenza (AI, n = 133), followed by chronic wasting disease (n = 8), equine infectious anemia (n = 7), and bovine tuberculosis (n = 1) (5). For perspective, . 11 million birds from poultry operations have been depopulated due to AI since 2021, affecting 415 farming operations (5). At the forefront of depopulation are veterinarians who work with their farmer client and report a suspected case, or those who work for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) to confirm a case and assist with depopulation orders (3). Even when the rationale for depopulation is understood (6,7), veterinarians often experience negative effects (8,9). For example, some veterinarians reported experiencing moral distress, characterized as grief, sadness, and stress and believed to stem from the “killing-caring paradox” in which veterinarians struggle to reconcile their compassion for animals with their professional obligation to euthanize them (10,11). Others reported the additional workload of providing emotional support to farmers going through depopulation (12). For example, during the footand-mouth disease outbreak in the United Kingdom, farmers preferred seeking support from veterinarians than community caseworkers or government staff (12). Animal shelter workers and veterinarian nurses directly involved in euthanasia reported high levels of work stress and diminished job satisfaction (13). Another study of veterinarians involved in depopulation of swine reported elevated rates of burnout (6). Whereas veterinarians involved in depopulation have recognized the importance of mental health services (6), research shows that few use these services (6,9,14). Low mental health service use has been associated with beliefs that counselling would be ineffective (6,9,14), concerns about taking time off from work (7), and the cost of the services (6,9). Rather, veterinarians and animal service workers reported coping by separating themselves emotionally from their work (2,15). Although such approaches may provide temporary relief, they may give way to subsequent poor health outcomes (16). For example, 55.7% of the veterinarians who assisted in the 2010 foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in Japan reported mental distress 6 mo after the outbreak was controlled (17). As depopulation may be associated with significant and long-lasting mental health issues (15) and livestock epidemics are challenging to control or eliminate (18), it is essential to understand how veterinarians are affected, to ensure their mental health and well-being needs are supported. The mental health impacts of depopulation on veterinarians Rebecca J. Purc-Stephenson, Deanna K. Hood, Jenessa M. Doctor
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