Even elephant calves get ill
Even elephant calves get ill
Ostrava Zoo announced a public fundraiser in April 2014, the net financial proceeds of which were provided to a renowned scientific research institute to research elephant diseases. The public collection ended on 4/4/2017. In total, we managed to get an incredible 877,655.22 CZK!
Why fundraise for elephant disease research?
The origin of this idea is connected with the birth of the third Asian elephant calf in Ostrava, a female born on 4 February 2014. The little female had problems with food intake since birth, and her rearing was thus very complicated from the beginning. Unfortunately, at less than two years old, on 23 January 2016, the female died suddenly and unexpectedly. The cause of her death was the elephant herpes virus.
What is the elephant herpes virus?
Currently, several diseases affecting elephants both in human care and in the wild are known. One of the most dangerous diseases is the elephant herpesvirus hemorrhagic disease. This is caused by a complex of herpes viruses and is often fatal for Asian elephants and to a lesser extent for African elephants. It mainly affects young animals under 7 years of age or animals weakened by stress or other diseases. The most affected by this disease (and many other diseases) are precisely those individuals who, for various reasons, did not get access to mother's milk and had to be raised with the help of artificial nutrition. However, the disease is not limited only to these animals, but also poses a significant threat to all other baby elephants, especially during weaning - i.e. when they stop receiving mother's milk. Until relatively recently, this disease was thought to occur only in animal breedings under human care. However, in recent years, research has progressed much further even in the remaining populations of Asian elephants living in the wild, and it has been found that this disease has existed for at least 4 million years and the vast majority of elephants in human care already carry this virus in an inactive form. Moreover, it affects not only baby elephants and elephants in human care but also wild animals. With the rapid loss of elephant habitat and the rapid fragmentation of elephant populations, this disease may soon become a very serious problem for the survival of Asian elephants as a whole species.
There is still no effective vaccine against this disease, which has a very rapid course and whose initial symptoms resemble common elephant diseases. There was even a case where the calf died just 10 hours after the first symptoms appeared. Foreign sources report that the herpes virus has caused up to 80 elephant deaths in zoos to date.
What is the hope for the future?
Intensive research is currently underway not only on this disease but also on several other diseases dangerous for elephants. One of the many goals of the research is to find an active substance that protects Asian elephants in the wild, where the death of calves from the herpes virus has so far occurred to a much lesser extent. A possible explanation could be some natural food components richly represented in their original homeland.
One of the best research teams with many years of experience, whose results have been presented in many recognized scientific impact publications in the field of elephant breeding and other wild animals, is the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research Berlin (IZW), reproductive management department under the leadership of Prof. Dr. Thomas Hildebrandt. The Ostrava Zoo has been successfully cooperating with Professor Hildebrandt's team for several years, and the results so far, not only with elephants but also with other rare and endangered species of animals in the Ostrava Zoo (in terms of reproduction or health problems), are of great benefit to us. For the above reasons, we have decided to support the research activities of this institute and Professor Hildebrandt's team in researching elephant diseases for their conservation in human care and in the wild.
