Dozens of uncommon animals together with tigers, lions and cheetahs are dying as chook flu infiltrates zoos, with doubtlessly “grave implications” for endangered species, researchers have warned.
As a rising variety of zoos report animal deaths, scientists are involved that contaminated wild birds touchdown in enclosures could possibly be spreading it amongst captive animals. Within the US, a cheetah, mountain lion, Indian goose and kookaburra had been among the many animals that died in Wildlife World Zoo close to Phoenix, in line with native media reviews final week. San Francisco Zoo quickly closed its aviaries after a wild red-shouldered hawk was discovered lifeless on its grounds, and later examined optimistic for extremely pathogenic avian influenza (HPAIV). A uncommon red-breasted goose died at Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, inflicting aviaries to shut and penguin feeding for guests to be suspended in November. These circumstances observe the deaths of 47 tigers, three lions, and a panther in zoos throughout south Vietnam over the summer season.
“Given the doubtless deadly penalties of an HPAIV an infection in birds and in some mammals, equivalent to large cats, these infections might have grave implications for endangered animal species refuged in zoos,” stated Dr Connor Bamford, a virologist from Queen’s College Belfast.
Researchers say circumstances have most likely emerged in zoos due to contaminated wild birds flying out and in of enclosures, and this tends to occur extra throughout the migration season. Quite a few US states, together with Louisiana, Missouri and Kansas, have reported a rise in chook flu circumstances, particularly in geese and waterfowl. There was a “sharp soar” of circumstances in Iowa, in line with state authorities, after “almost a yr” with no detections of the virus.
“We have to think about easy methods to handle this example, both via enhancing zoo biosecurity or by vaccinating zoo animals. This occasion offers us one other wake-up name to the significance of HPAIV and its impacts on animals, and other people,” stated Bamford.
Researchers have warned for many years that this variant of chook flu may kill primates, rodents, pigs and rabbits, with reviews of Bengal tigers and clouded leopards additionally being killed.
Infections in zoos weren’t surprising, stated virologist Dr Ed Hutchinson from Glasgow College. Guests to zoos within the UK in recent times might have observed chook enclosures being quickly closed off or netted when the dangers of an infection by the H5N1 chook flu variant from wild birds had been identified to be excessive, he stated. “When zoos take care of animals from endangered species, taking measures to scale back the danger these animals face from H5N1, equivalent to limiting entry of untamed birds to enclosures, is especially essential.”
Zoos are normally house to excessive densities of animals, and have various approaches to biosecurity, well being and welfare, and alternatives to be visited by wildlife. These elements have an effect on their vulnerability, in line with Prof Rowland Kao, an epidemiologist on the College of Edinburgh. “There isn’t essentially one factor and one can not level to a particular zoo and say ‘they did this unsuitable’ – however these variable elements, the numerous pathways this virus appears to be taking and the low viruses doses that may doubtlessly begin outbreaks, means that it’s going to pop up in all kinds of locations,” he stated.
Chicken flu viruses may be handed amongst all kinds of animals. In 2020, a variant unfold the world over, lastly reaching the Antarctic in late 2023, inflicting tens of millions of untamed animals to die throughout Eurasia, Africa, North America and South America on its route. Within the US, it absolutely tailored to cattle, growing the danger of human infections.
The unfold continues in dairy farms, particularly in California – the US’s top-producing dairy state – the place almost half of the state’s 1,300 farms have now been affected, and two farm staff examined optimistic this month. Two indoor cats are suspected to have died in Los Angeles after ingesting contaminated uncooked milk.
Prof Ian Brown, a virologist from the Pirbright Institute in Surrey, stated: “There may be at all times a threat however zoos ought to take further hygiene precautions for such species – I do know some zoos have confined flamingos to their home throughout threat durations for unfold of virus.”
In some areas, such because the UK and the EU, licensed chook flu vaccines can be utilized on captive zoo animals. Within the US this isn’t allowed.
This article by Phoebe Weston was first printed by The Guardian on 19 December 2024. Lead Picture: Lions at Berlin’s Zoological Gardens, which was closed for a month in 2022 after the invention of a chook contaminated with the H5N1 virus amid the zoo inhabitants. {Photograph}: John MacDougall/AFP/Getty Photographs.
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