From the News: Zoo Animals Recover (and Some Don't) From COVID-19

I'm taking a quick break from talking about reptiles to share some good news from the world of COVID.  The stories about zoo animals around the country testing positive for coronavirus has fascinated - and worried - many people (some who are more worried about the animals than they are about the thousands of people testing positive everyday).  At least we have some good news on this front.  

First, from San Diego, the gorillas at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park that had tested positive for the virus have now recovered and are all doing fine.  Likewise, Azul, a tigress from the Bronx Zoo who was one of the first zoo animals in the world found to have the virus, has not only recovered but has gotten a bill of health clean enough to allow her to be transported to Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo.  That's actually what made a big impression on me - if there was a chance that the cat still had the disease, I can't imagine that Woodland Park would have even dreamed of accepting her and risking the disease spreading to animals already living there.

Not all of the news has been sunshine and rainbows.  An elderly tiger in Sweden has died of the virus, as have two cubs in Pakistan.  Very old and newborn young animals have weaker immune systems than heatlhy adults, so maybe these animals were just more susceptible to what otherwise would not have proven to be a fatal disease - or maybe there were other factors at play.  The Pakistani cubs, for instance, were white tigers - which might mean inbreeding and reduced genetic diversity also left them more vulnerable than they might have otherwise been.  We're still learning.

What's important is to remember that everyone in our lives - human and animal - is counting on us to be safe, be careful, and do what we can to limit the spread of this disease.

Gorillas from San Diego Zoo Safari Park recover from COVID-19

Woodland Park Zoo's new tiger was one of the first animals to test positive for coronavirus

COVID killed a tiger.  Are your house cats at risk?

Two white tigers cubs in Pakistan likely died of COVID, zoo officials say