SCIENCE FILE / An exploration of issues and trends affecting science, medicine and the environment : Canine Distemper Virus Caused Decimation of Lions at Park

Scientists have identified a virus that killed one-third of the lion population in 1994 in Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park, an estimated 1,000 lions, and they have started a campaign to prevent another outbreak. Analysis of tissue from dead animals showed that the germ was canine distemper virus, virologist Craig Packer of the University of Minnesota and colleagues from several countries reported in the Feb. 1 issue of Nature. The virus strain closely matched that from a dog in a local village, suggesting that dogs were the source of the outbreak.

The lions probably did not come into direct contact with the dogs, Packer said. Instead, the virus may have been carried into the lion populations by spotted hyenas, which scavenge in village dumps. Jackals or leopards may have also carried in the virus, he said.