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Publications (214)
Maintaining water balance is imperative for organismal survival. Various socioecological conditions such as sex, reproductive state, and dominance rank can impact water intake and hydration status. Eastern Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) present an interesting biological model to investigate the socioecological correlates of hydration...
RNAscope in situ hybridization (ISH) detects target RNA in formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissues. Protocols suggest that prolonged FFPE storage and formalin fixation may impact signal detection, potentially limiting the utility of RNAscope ISH in retrospective studies. To develop parameters for RNAscope use with archived specimens, we ev...
The fishing cat, Prionailurus viverrinus, faces a population decline, increasing the importance of maintaining healthy zoo populations. Unfortunately, zoo-managed individuals currently face a high prevalence of transitional cell carcinoma (TCC), a form of bladder cancer. To investigate the genetics of inherited diseases among captive fishing cats,...
The consumption of primates is integral to the traditional subsistence strategies of many Indigenous communities throughout Amazonia. Understanding the overall health of primates harvested for food in the region is critical to Indigenous food security and thus, these communities are highly invested in long‐term primate population health. Here, we d...
Despite zoonotic potential, data are lacking on enteric infection diversity in wild apes. We employed a novel molecular diagnostic platform to detect enteric infections in wild chimpanzees and gorillas. Prevalent Cryptosporidium parvum, adenovirus, and diarrheagenic Escherichia coli across divergent sites and species demonstrates potential widespre...
Between September and November 2021, 5 snow leopards ( Panthera uncia) and 1 lion ( Panthera leo) were naturally infected with severe acute respiratory coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and developed progressive respiratory disease that resulted in death. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 sequencing identified the delta variant in all cases...
Sarcoptic mange caused by Sarcoptes scabiei can have catastrophic consequences
for wildlife. We inspected 122 Andean foxes (Lycalopex culpaeus), collected by active (n=66) or passive (n=56) surveillance, and 28 South American grey foxes (L. griseus; all from passive surveillance) for mange in Chile, 2015-2019. In Andean foxes, gross lesions of mang...
Simple Summary
To improve the lives of chimpanzees living in managed care, it is important to understand why their lives have ended. Previous efforts to document the causes of death for chimpanzees living in research facilities have been useful; however, interpretations need to consider the relatively small number of facilities assessed, the recenc...
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2) has a worldwide distribution in humans and many other mammalian species. In late September 2021, 12 animals maintained by the Chicago Zoological Society's Brookfield Zoo were observed with variable clinical signs. The Delta variant of SARS‐CoV‐2 was detected in feces and nasal swabs by qR...
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2) is one of seven coronaviruses known to infect humans. Different from other concerned coronavirus and influenza viruses, SARS‐CoV‐2 has a higher basic reproduction number and thus transmits more efficiently among hosts. Testing animals for SARS‐CoV‐2 may help decipher virus reservoirs, tra...
Zoonotic disease risk is greatly influenced by cultural practices and belief systems. Yet, few studies have investigated how different ways of knowing are commensurate with one another in the context of zoonotic disease. By stressing methodological pluralism and explicitly challenging the nature-culture dichotomy, an ethnoprimatological approach is...
Maintaining water balance is essential for organismal health, and lactating females must balance individual needs with milk production and offspring hydration. Primate milk is dilute and presumed to be the primary source for infant hydration for a considerable time period. Few studies have investigated the hydration burden that lactation may place...
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is an enveloped non-segmented, single-stranded, positive-sense RNA virus. SARS-CoV-2 was originally identified in human patients with coronavirus disease in 2019. Since early 2020, SARS-CoV-2 has caused a global pandemic and resulted in millions of human infections and deaths. Other than...
Mercury (Hg) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are widespread environmental toxicants in urban environments with negative impacts to fish health. The present study evaluated the potential association between muscle tissue contaminant (total Hg and total PCB) concentrations and indicators of health in benthic and predatory fish collected from fou...
Infectious disease outbreaks pose a significant threat to the conservation of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and all threatened nonhuman primates. Characterizing and mitigating these threats to support the sustainability and welfare of wild populations is of the highest priority. In an attempt to understand and mitigate the risk of disease for the c...
Canine Distemper Virus (CDV) is a multi-host morbillivirus that infects virtually all Carnivora and a few non-human primates. Here we describe a CDV outbreak in an exotic felid rescue center that led to the death of eight felids in the genus Panthera. Similar to domestic dogs and in contrast to previously described CDV cases in Panthera, severe pne...
The amyloidoses constitute a group of diseases occurring in humans and animals that are characterized by abnormal deposits of aggregated proteins in organs, affecting their structure and function. In the Abyssinian cat breed, a familial form of renal amyloidosis has been described. In this study, multi-omics analyses were applied and integrated to...
The hunting, butchery, and consumption of wild meat is an important interface for zoonotic disease transmission. Despite this, few researchers have used ethnography to understand the sociocultural factors that may increase zoonotic disease transmission from hunting, particularly in Amazonia. Here, we use ethnographic methods consisting of structure...
A newly described onygenalean fungus, Emydomyces testavorans, has been isolated from ulcerative shell and skin lesions of freshwater aquatic chelonians. To investigate the shell lesions associated with infection and determine if any lesional features were unique to E. testavorans, tissues from turtles housed in zoological institutions (n = 45) in t...
Human transformation of natural habitats facilitates pathogen transmission between domestic and wild species. The guigna (Leopardus guigna), a small felid found in Chile, has experienced habitat loss and an increased probability of contact with domestic cats. Here we describe the interspecific transmission of feline leukemia virus (FeLV) and feline...
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged as the cause of a global pandemic in 2019–2020. In March 2020, New York City became the epicenter in the United States for the pandemic. On 27 March 2020, a Malayan tiger (Panthera tigris jacksoni) at the Bronx Zoo in New York City developed a cough and wheezing with subsequent in...
Brucella ceti infection is associated with a variety of disease outcomes in cetaceans globally. Multiple genotypes of B. ceti have been identified. This retrospective aimed to determine if specific lesions were associated with different B. ceti DNA sequence types (STs). Characterization of ST was performed on 163 samples from 88 free-ranging cetace...
Multidisciplinary approaches are critical to address the increasingly complex issues at the intersection of nonhuman primates and neglected infectious diseases. In this chapter, we use the Gombe Ecosystem Health Project in Tanzania to demonstrate how team science can be launched to tackle complexity in health. The diverse interactions among humans,...
The family of paramyxoviruses has received growing attention as several new species have been identified recently, notably two different clusters in domestic cats, designated as feline morbillivirus (FeMV) and feline paramyxovirus (FPaV). Their phylogenetic origin and whether wild felids also harbor these viruses are currently unknown. Kidney sampl...
Understanding health and mortality in killer whales (Orcinus orca) is crucial for management and conservation actions. We reviewed pathology reports from 53 animals that stranded in the eastern Pacific Ocean and Hawaii between 2004 and 2013 and used data from 35 animals that stranded from 2001 to 2017 to assess association with morphometrics, blubb...
Landscape anthropization has been identified as one of the main drivers of pathogen emergence worldwide, facilitating pathogen spillover between domestic species and wildlife. The present study investigated Carnivore protoparvovirus‐1 infection using molecular methods in 98 free‐ranging wild guignas (Leopardus guigna) and 262 co‐occurring owned, fr...
The human-animal-environment interface of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is an important aspect of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic that requires robust One Health-based investigations. Despite this, few reports describe natural infections in animals or directly link them to human infections using genom...
The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has resulted in unprecedented challenges to veterinary diagnostic laboratories. These challenges include partial or complete shutdowns, interrupted courier services, disruptions in workflow and diagnostic testing, new physical distancing practices, protocol development or enhancement for handling samples from high-risk or su...
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged as the cause of a global pandemic in 2019-2020. In March 2020 New York City became the USA epicenter for the pandemic. On March 27, 2020 a Malayan tiger (Panthera tigris jacksoni) at the Bronx Zoo in New York City developed a cough and wheezing with subsequent inappetence. Over th...
We describe the first cases of natural SARS-CoV-2 infection detected in animals in the United States. In March 2020, four tigers and three lions at the Bronx Zoo developed mild respiratory signs. SARS-CoV-2 RNA was detected by rRT-PCR in respiratory secretions and/or feces from all seven affected animals; viral RNA and/or antibodies were detected i...
Canine distemper virus (CDV) is a cause of significant disease in canids and increasingly recognized as a multi-host pathogen, particularly of non-canid families within Carnivora. CDV outbreaks in sympatric mesocarnivores are routinely diagnosed in the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, Illinois. CDV is diagnosed more commonly and the disease...
We characterized novel coronaviruses detected in US bottlenose dolphins (BdCoVs) with diarrhea. These viruses are closely related to the other 2 known cetacean coronaviruses, Hong Kong BdCoV and beluga whale CoV. A deletion in the spike gene and insertions in the membrane gene and untranslated regions were found in US BdCoVs (unrelated to severe ac...
Systemic isosporosis (formerly atoxoplasmosis), is a protozoal infection that causes death in nestling and fledgling passerine birds impacting ex situ breeding and reintroduction programs. Because current antemortem diagnostic tests lack sensitivity, a qPCR was developed for detection of Isospora spp. using primers and a fluorescent-tagged MGB prob...
This report describes the identification and characterization of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in a Malayan tiger in a U.S. zoo.
Kinesin-2 enables ciliary assembly and maintenance as an anterograde intraflagellar transport (IFT) motor. Molecular motor activity is driven by a heterotrimeric complex comprised of KIF3A and KIF3B or KIF3C plus one non-motor subunit, KIFAP3. Using exome sequencing, we identified heterozygous KIF3B variants in two unrelated families with hallmark...
La antropización del paisaje se considera una de las principales causas de emergencia de enfermedades en fauna silvestre. La güiña es un felino endémico de Chile y una parte de Argentina altamente amenazado por la transformación de su hábitat. Se han estudiado los efectos de la antropización del paisaje en la transmisión interespecífica de leucemia...
Pathogens are embedded in a complex network of microparasites that can collectively or individually alter disease dynamics and outcomes. Endemic pathogens that infect an individual in the first years of life, for example, can either facilitate or compete with subsequent pathogens thereby exacerbating or ameliorating morbidity and mortality. Pathoge...
Disease surveillance in wildlife is rapidly expanding in scope and methodology, emphasizing the need for formal evaluations of system performance. We examined a syndromic surveillance system for respiratory disease detection in Gombe National Park, Tanzania, from 2004 to 2012, with respect to data quality, disease trends, and respiratory disease de...
The fungal order Onygenales includes many pathogens of humans and animals, and recent studies have shown some onygenalean fungi to be significant emerging pathogens of reptiles. Although many of these fungi have similar morphological features in histologic tissue sections, recent molecular analyses have revealed a genetically complex and diverse gr...
The reproductive tracts of three captive male aardvark ( Orycteropus afer) were evaluated to characterize the gross and histological anatomy, with correlations to ultrasonographic and computed tomographic imaging. Observations were made from a reproductive tract examined at necropsy, with subsequent evaluation of tissues histologically. Two living...
Pathogens are embedded in a complex network of microparasites that can collectively or individually alter disease dynamics and outcomes. Chronic pathogens, for example, can either facilitate or compete with subsequent pathogens thereby exacerbating morbidity and mortality. Pathogen interactions are ubiquitous in nature, but poorly understood, parti...
The pathogenicity of frog virus 3 (FV3)-like ranavirus varies in adult chelonian species at different environmental temperatures, but differences in pathogenicity at different temperatures has yet to be determined in juveniles. Our objective was to determine the susceptibility to FV3-like ranavirus in four species of juvenile chelonians: red-eared...
Scientific Reports 7: Article number: 43918; published online: 21 March 2017; updated: 18 May 2018 The Acknowledgements section in this Article is incomplete. “Funding was provided by The University of Missouri, College of Veterinary Medicine Clinician Scientist Grant 2014 (JWP). Funding for the 99 Lives Cat Genome Sequencing Initiative has been pr...
In cheetah, the captive population has historically been beset by multiple degenerative and infectious diseases that have had an impact on cheetah health and breeding programs. In contrast, the free-ranging population has been relatively free of these same diseases. Although research into feline infectious peritonitis mortalities at a few zoos in t...
A 6-yr-old male snow leopard ( Panthera uncia) presented with acute seizures, hyperthermia, and tachypnea. Because of a diagnosis of anuric renal failure, the animal was euthanized. On histopathologic examination, numerous intralesional intracytoplasmic and intranuclear inclusions were found in the lungs, lymph nodes, and stomach. Positive immunohi...
To investigate cases of acute oxalate nephrosis without evidence of ethylene glycol exposure, archived data and tissues from cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus) from North America (n = 297), southern Africa (n = 257), and France (n = 40) were evaluated. Renal and gastrointestinal tract lesions were characterized in a subset of animals with (n = 100) and wi...
Table S1. Genotyping primer sequences for cat NPC1.
Figure S1. Cartesian plot of genotypes detected by mass spectrometry genotyping. Plot representing the genotyping results of 96 cats, only the affected Niemann‐Pick type C cat (upward triangle) was homozygous for the identified variant (c.1322A>C). One sample (circle) was excluded for low genotype quality.
Oesophagostomum sp. is a parasitic nematode that frequently infects wild chimpanzees. Although nodular lesions are commonly associated with infection, some wild chimpanzee populations seem to tolerate Oesophagostomum nodular lesions while those at Gombe and other sites suffer from associated morbidity and mortality. From August 2004 to December 201...
Clouded leopards in North American zoological institutions have a high frequency of pheochromocytomas and were identified in 32 of 70 (45%) animals necropsied. Archival sections of adrenal gland from 20 adult clouded leopards with unilateral or bilateral pheochromocytomas collected between 1984 and 2011 were examined by light microscopy and immunoh...
Disease and other health hazards pose serious threats to the persistence of wild ape populations. The total chimpanzee population at Gombe National Park, Tanzania, has declined from an estimated 120 to 150 individuals in the 1960's to around 100 individuals by the end of 2013, with death associated with observable signs of disease as the leading ca...
An unusual mortality event (UME) involving primarily common bottlenose dolphins Tursiops truncatus of all size classes stranding along coastal Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, USA, started in early 2010 and continued into 2014. During this northern Gulf of Mexico UME, a distinct cluster of perinatal dolphins (total body length <115 cm) stranded...
Systemic amyloid A (AA) amyloidosis is a major cause of morbidity and mortality among captive cheetahs. The self-aggregating AA protein responsible for this disease is a byproduct of serum amyloid A (SAA) protein degradation. Transcriptional induction of the SAA1 gene is dependent on both C/EBPβ and NF-κB cis-acting elements within the promoter reg...
The great apes (chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans) are our closest relatives. Despite the many similarities, there are significant differences in aging among apes, including the human ape. Common to all are dental attrition, periodontitis, tooth loss, osteopenia, and arthritis, although gout is uniquely human and spondyloarthropathy is...
A northern Gulf of Mexico (GoM) cetacean unusual mortality event (UME) involving primarily bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama began in February 2010 and continued into 2014. Overlapping in time and space with this UME was the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill, which was proposed as a contributing cause o...
Preventive healthcare recommendations for zoo felids include vaccination against primary viral diseases that affect domestic felids. Although associated with a more-substantial immune response in their domestic counterparts, use of modified live virus vaccines (MLV) in nondomestic carnivores can result in vaccine-induced viral disease. This case re...
Zoonotic disease transmission and infections are of particular concern for humans and closely related great apes. In 2009, an outbreak of human metapneumovirus infection was associated with the death of a captive chimpanzee in Chicago, Illinois, USA. Biosecurity and surveillance for this virus in captive great ape populations should be considered.
Two elegant crested tinamou chicks (Eudromia elegans), aged 27 and 50 days, respectively, died following acute onset of weakness and neurologic disease. Microscopically, the cerebral hemispheres of both chicks and the optic lobes of 1 chick contained multifocal granulomatous and heterophilic inflammation and necrosis with intralesional pigmented, t...
Captive cheetahs commonly have gastritis associated with Helicobacter infection that is thought, in part, to be associated with stress responses. The impact of temperament and management on stress responses and gastritis was evaluated by assessing temperament, fecal glucocorticoid metabolites, and gastric biopsies in 36 (18.18) captive cheetahs hou...
Although Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection is an important health concern for Asian elephants (Elephas maximus), no studies have evaluated the associated local immune responses or histologic lesions. In primates including humans, latent tuberculosis is distinguished by well-organized granulomas with TH1 cytokine expression, whereas active diseas...
Infectious diseases are widely presumed to be one of the greatest threats to ape conservation in the wild. Human diseases are of particular concern, and the costs and benefits of human presence in protected areas with apes are regularly debated. While numerous syndromes with fatal outcomes have recently been described, precise identification of pat...
A novel leukoencephalomyelopathy was identified in 73 mature male and female large captive felids between 1994 and 2005. While the majority of identified cases occurred in cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus), the disease was also found in members of 2 other subfamilies of Felidae: 1 generic tiger (Panthera tigris) and 2 Florida panthers (Puma concolor cory...
One of the greatest threats to the conservation of wild cat populations may be dogs or, at least, one of their viruses. Canine
distemper virus (CDV), a single-stranded RNA virus in the Paramyxoviridae family and genus Morbillivirus, infects and causes disease in a variety of species, not just canids. An outbreak of CDV in wild lions in the Serenget...
A workshop on Emerging Respiratory Viral Infections and Spontaneous Diseases in nonhuman primates was sponsored by the concurrent Annual Meetings of the American College of Veterinary Pathologists and the American Society for Veterinary Clinical Pathology, held December 1-5, 2012, in Seattle, Washington. The session had platform presentations from...
In November 2011, a cluster of five desert kit fox (Vulpes macrotis) deaths were documented on and adjacent to a solar energy development in Riverside County, California. Necropsies and diagnostic tests were subsequently conducted on 13 carcasses. Canine distemper virus was the cause of death for 10/13 (77%) necropsied foxes based on histopathology...
Cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus) are a highly threatened species because of habitat loss, human conflict, and high prevalence of disease in captivity. An epidemic of feline infectious peritonitis and concern for spread of infectious disease resulted in decreased movement of cheetahs between U.S. zoological facilities for managed captive breeding. Identi...
The combination of loss of habitat, human population encroachment, and increased demand of select nonhuman primates for biomedical research has significantly affected populations. There remains a need for knowledge and expertise in understanding background findings as related to the age, source, strain, and disease status of nonhuman primates. In p...
Four fishers (Martes pennanti) from an insular population in the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, USA died as a consequence of an infection with canine distemper virus (CDV) in 2009. Three fishers were found in close temporal and spatial relationship; the fourth fisher died 4 mo later at a 70 km distance from the initial group. Gross l...
Respiratory disease is common in dolphins, primarily affecting pulmonary parenchyma and sparing large airways. Over a 10-year period, 4 captive adult bottlenose dolphins succumbed to chronic, progressive respiratory disease with atypical recurrent upper respiratory signs. All dolphins had severe, segmental to circumferential fibrosing tracheitis th...
An ultrasonographic reproductive health examination of a 26-yr-old female African elephant (Loxodonta africana) revealed bilateral ureteral wall thickening and dilatation. On ultrasonographic examination, the bladder and both ureters were normal near the trigone; however, the cranial-most aspect of each ureter was dilated and thickened for a length...
A 12-year-old female black-masked lovebird (Agapornis personata) with a cobalt color mutation was presented for self-mutilation of a mass located on the right lateral neck. Cytologic evaluation of the soft tissue mass revealed a predominance of poorly stained mast cells with metachromatic intracytoplasmic granules. The presumptive diagnosis was cut...
During a population decline or disease outbreak, the true risk of specific diseases to a wild population is often difficult to determine because of a lack of baseline disease information. To better understand the risk of disease in an endangered and scientifically important population of chimpanzees (Pan trogylodytes schweinfurthii), a health monit...
Spontaneous endometriosis is an estrogen-dependent, progressive and painful disease that affects a variety of nonhuman primates, including several species of baboons (Papio sp.). This case documents multimodal management of severe endometriosis in a captive female baboon within a zoological institution. An 18-yr-old, intact female Guinea baboon (Pa...
Captive cheetahs have an unusually severe progressive gastritis that is not present in wild cheetahs infected with the same strains of Helicobacter. This gastritis, when severe, has florid lymphocyte and plasma cell infiltrates in the epithelium and lamina propria with gland destruction, parietal cell loss, and, in some cases, lymphoid follicles. T...
Mycobacterium spp. infection is an important health concern for Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) populations worldwide. The disease is of particular concern considering its potential to affect not only the individual animal but also herd and public health. Although elephant tuberculosis susceptibility is poorly understood, immune function alteratio...
Reoviruses are nonenveloped, segmented, double-stranded RNA viruses capable of infecting a wide range of invertebrate, vertebrate, fungus, and plant hosts. Though sporadic infection has been reported in a variety of reptilian species, infection of rough green snakes (Opheodrys aestivus) has not been previously described. Five wild-caught, adult rou...
African primates are naturally infected with over 40 different simian immunodeficiency viruses (SIVs), two of which have crossed the species barrier and generated human immunodeficiency virus types 1 and 2 (HIV-1 and HIV-2). Unlike the human viruses, however, SIVs do not generally cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) in their natural hos...
Marked renal vascular changes, suggestive of hypertension, were present in adult western gray kangaroos (Macropus fuliginosus) from a single facility over a 14-year period. A subset of these kangaroos also had vague clinical nervous system deficits, including blindness. To characterize the vascular lesions, determine prevalence, and document other...
Conclusions
Lobomycosis has been reported in the United States in coastal bottlenose dolphin populations in the Indian River Lagoon on the eastern coast of Florida, in the Gulf of Mexico off the western coast of Florida, and off the Texas Gulf coast. The Indian River Lagoon dolphin population has been assessed for temporal and spatial prevalence of...
The island fox (Urocyon littoralis catalinae) population on Santa Catalina Island, California, USA declined precipitously in 1999 with an approximate 95% reduction on their eastern range, an area representing 87% of the island. During this investigation, between October 1999 and April 2000, evidence of live foxes dramatically decreased. The only ca...
