European animal diseases brought to the New World.

Beginning with Columbus' second voyage to the New World in 1493, domesticated animals have been imported to establish herds and flocks for the development of animal agriculture and as mounts for the early explorers. Some of these imports harbored agents of disease that were transmitted to healthy animals during their ocean voyage or to their offspring born in the New World. Some of these diseases were eradicated, others have persisted to the present.