The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) on Monday sounded high alert across India after the four-year-old Malaysian tiger ‘Nadia’ tested positive for Covid-19 in New York’s Bronx Zoo.
Alerting the Chief Wildlife Wardens of all the Tiger Range states in India, NTCA directed them to gear up the frontline staff as well as veterinary officials to detect the disease and prevent any spread among tigers in the wild.
According to the directive, a copy of which is accessed by DH, NTCA’s Assistant Inspector General of Forests Dr Vaibhav C Mathur directed the forest officials to monitor the tigers for symptoms of Covid-19 such as respiratory signs of nasal discharge, coughing and laboured breathing via direct observation to the extent possible, besides through camera trap images, for visible symptoms.
Considering the communicable and zoonotic nature of Covid-19, NTCA listed out actions to avert the disease in wild tigers.
“Personnel handling tigers in human-tiger negative interactions and translocation operations should be ascertained to be Coronavirus negative. Diligence needs to be exercised while handling post mortem cases to record location, age, sex of the animal, while collecting samples for Coronavirus diagnosis in consultation with the state officials,” the circular stated.
Noting that Coronavirus affects the gastrointestinal system in felines, the NTCA said, “A co-relation may be made for characterising the virus type in consultation with the veterinarians. Differential diagnosis with feline infectious rhino-tracheitis needs to be made as similar respiratory symptoms may be observed.”
Karnataka Chief Wildlife Warden Sanjai Mohan told DH that following the NTCA’s directions, all executive directors of tiger reserves have been alerted and surveillance increased in Karnataka. The NTCA also directed the states to send the samples to approved laboratories as per the protocol besides reporting such cases immediately to NTCA.