Cover Illustration
VMES stands for the Veterinary Medical Experiment Station, which operates in the state of Georgia with the University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine. VMES releases an annual report with a selection of research articles within as well as other reporting on the state of the experiment station.
The cover illustration depicts an article detailing anticoagulant rodenticide effects on raptors, including bald eagles. I depicted a bald eagle hunting and eating a symbolic “rat” composed of anticoagulant rodenticide pellets. The right side of the cover shows a simplified food web as a soft, secondary element rounding out the story.
Above is a sketch draft for the cover illustration. As you can see, while the concept was nailed down, changes were made such as including a food web on the right side. Initially I had images of the chemical structure of the rodenticides faded in the back but we found that was distracting and not so educational as having a food web showing how rodenticides can escape their box and affect a variety of wildlife.
Supporting Figure Illustrations
Featured in: Global Concern for Anticoagulant Rodenticides in Birds of Prey: Investigations into Health Impacts with a Focus on Bald Eagles
The figure depicts a food web affected by anticoagulant rodenticides. These rodenticides are consumed by small prey animals, like rats, squirrels, mice, and prairie dogs. Since the poison does not immediately kill the animal, these prey can be hunted and eaten by predators such as black bears, raptors, snakes, and bobcats. Predators also consume carrion that had consumed the rodenticide. This results in health impacts for these predators, including hemorrhage.
Featured in: The Power of a Cooperative: Over Six Decades of Investigating Vector-Borne Diseases in Wildlife
The figure shows the transmission cycle of hemorrhagic disease (HD) in white-tailed deer via the Culicoides insect vector.