Viruses jumping species and zoo polar bear disease
Thursday, August 16, 2012 - 14:30
in Biology & Nature
Zoos bring together different animal species that would never encounter each other in the wild. On occasion, this can have unforeseen consequences. When in 2010 at the Wuppertal Zoo one polar bear died and another fell severely ill, zoo veterinarians were at a loss as to the cause of the symptoms. It has now been shown that the bears were infected with a recombinant zebra-derived virus that had jumped into other species, as reported today by an international team of researchers led by the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in the journal Current Biology. Such species-jumping viruses, if not detected, may threaten the conservation mission of zoos.