Rabies continues its advance.
Back in the saddle again after a short break, and the news is not good.
Before I went away, a baboon was following a game scout on his patrol. This was very weird behaviour and the baboon was subsequently shot. The baboon tested positive for rabies!
On Sunday a hyaena was running rampant in one of the scout pickets biting at everything. They managed to shoot this hyaena too. More than likely another rabies victim.
This is getting quite scary now that other animals are being infected.
Reserve management are now planning to inoculate as many hyaenas as possible and then also the lions. This is going to quite some undertaking.
I found the Mupanigawa pack this afternoon on a young male impala kill. All 9 dogs were there, but Club was not joining in in the feeding and her stomach was totally withdrawn. She did on a couple of occasions approach the carcass but the other dogs attacked her. This was the first time that I’d seen the other dogs turn on a rabid one.
But it was not this behaviour that was keeping her from feeding. She battled to chew and swallow even the tiniest of pieces of meat lying around. The rabies virus affects that part of the brain, which controls the tongue. It causes paralyses and prevents swallowing. Typically the result of this is the animals salivate a lot, but I haven’t seen any of this in the wild dogs.
To save the rest of the pack, I again had to make the terrible decision to put Club down, as she is now a dangerous infectious source for the rest of the pack.
And things don’t look good for the other 8 members. Another Alpha pup was possibly showing the beginning signs of infection but I had to spare it. Of course I want to give all the dogs the chance to survive but I also want to save all the dogs from infection by those going down. It will always be a tough choice.
And Cracker-Jack might also be showing the first signs of infection.
Being back on the range I will again be keeping a close watch on our pack.
So sad to hear that we have lost another. And very scary news about the other species having it. Looks like everyone is going to be busy inoculating animals!
kim, i am so sorry for you and am very concened for your eden. i cried thinking of you having to make the decision to kill club. we have a lot of rabies in our country. lots of stories to tell. glad you got your shots, and glad to know that if you were to get bit, you would at least survive…please do all you can to stop this. it sounds like it is just going to keep spreading. it is sooooo sad. i had a big cry tonight. i miss you and wish i could help out. any way to contribute to help with inoculations?
oxcatharine
Kim, any chance you saw Mamasafari while you were away?
Kim,
That’s a rough day; I know it had to be difficult for you to put Club down, even for good reason. You already know this but you saved her and her pack worse grief.
I bumped into an interesting Belgian study reviewing large-scale eradication of rabies among foxes using recombinant vaccinia-rabies vaccine, published in December 1991. The study, using live vaccine baits where culling attempts did little to slow the spread of rabies, looked promising but there appear to be issues with pathogenicity reverting to virulence among non-targeted animals.
Tell you what, there’s nothing like a little education to make you feel like a fool.
I don’t mind playing the fool for better-educated minds. Sometimes fools can find the gaps because they don’t know where the walls are supposed to be. I knew that at some point, though, my fool’s enthusiasm was going to get the better of me and I’d wind up sashaying into happy-little-quack territory. So, I called on the big gun.
My aunt holds a doctorate in molecular biology and she has a keen interest in wildlife veterinary medicine. Suffice it to say that after discussing this with her I’m more enlightened than I was this morning. She’s thinking this one over too now. But I’m blown away by the scope of how difficult it’s going to be to hold this virus in check while maintaining the wildness of these animals.
There must be a way to use nature to check nature; there has to be. I suppose that’s why my mind kept seizing on those Impala. They’re on the diet of every animal you recount as falling prey to rabies.
Initially I wondered if Impalas might be intermediary hosts. Because transmission of the virus requires access to the blood stream of a new host, that idea seems highly unlikely. Then I wondered if Impala might ironically be able to inoculate the predators that fed on them. Again, transmission appears to be a problem here.
Even if Impalas could be exposed to this strain of rabies virus and they successfully combat it, ingesting the carcasses afterwards may not work as an antibody booster to the immune system of a predator animal. That seems to clash with a study conducted in Ontario (from 1989-1996) that successfully used aerial distribution of an attenuated live virus rabies oral vaccination in bait targeted to red foxes. Although it may be cost prohibitive, sixty-three percent of those foxes fed bait that was exposed to various environmental conditions for 21 days did develop rabies virus-neutralizing antibodies.
Of course, if none of this works then everybody’s right back to playing post-exposure defense.
I sure wish I had more than my earnestness to contribute.
Cheers,
Kimberley
Catherine. Hello there! Yes it’s really tough watching all this happening, but everyday i go out there with hope that I will be saving at least some of them. I like to think we’re getting ontop of it but with rabies just never know.
Paige. No didn’t see Mamasafari. But i’m sure they’re having fun in Botswana.
Kimberley: One of the reasons for not innoculating the dogs without having the first confirmation of rabies, was that some animals succumb to the vaccine. There is still not enough known about the virus in the wild and of course nobody wants to experiment on animals. Especially not on such endangered animals as wild dogs. Great to see your thoughts and what you’re managing to glean from the little info there is out there. Keep it coming. Cheers Kim
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