epizootic

thumb| Rinderpest outbreak in [[South Africa, 1896]]

In epizoology, an epizootic (or epizoötic, from Greek: epi- "upon" + zoon "animal") is a disease event in a nonhuman animal population analogous to an epidemic in humans. An epizootic disease (or '''') may occur in a specific locale (an "outbreak"), more generally (an "epizootic"), or become widespread ("panzootic"). High population density is a major contributing factor to epizootics. The aquaculture industry is sometimes plagued by disease because of the large number of fish confined to a small area.