Chester Zoo Virus Kills Young Elephant

C

CritterBlog

Well-Known Member
Sunday Express | UK News :: Virus kills young elephant

VIRUS KILLS YOUNG ELEPHANT

Sunday November 22, 2009
By Ron Quenby

CAMPAIGNERS are calling for an end to keeping elephants in captivity after the death of Raman, Chester Zoo’s youngest elephant.

The two-year-old male Asian elephant calf fell victim to a herpes virus that has baffled scientists worldwide since it began appearing in young elephants.

The zoo, which has begun a round-the-clock watch on other young members of its herd, said: “It is a mystery where the virus has come from.”

Will Travers, of the Born Free Foundation, said: “This is an illness that is particularly prevalent in captive elephants.

“Stress may be a factor. Such deaths give us yet another reason why we should take a long, hard look at keeping elephants in zoos.”
 
I don't understand, didn't this happen in July? And a nice balanced article I see from the Express with no views other than those of Will Travers.

And the picture is from Whipsnade, can pictures of Chester's elephants be so elusive?
 
Antis seem a bit behind on the times, took them I think 3 months to release the footage from the GB circus elephant beating, after which time the guy who hit the eles had already been fired.
Any excuse for them to try and end elephant keeping :rolleyes:
 
The usual rubbish from the anti-zoo lot. NO evidence provided to back up Mr Travers's statement.
 
Exactly. the sad thing is that the media would be more prepared to listen to the people who critise zoos. But that had nothing on it backed up at all and seeing as it happened some time ago as you say it makes it all the more stupid.;):p
 
Goretex said:
Exactly. the sad thing is that the media would be more prepared to listen to the people who critise zoos. But that had nothing on it backed up at all and seeing as it happened some time ago as you say it makes it all the more stupid.;):p
Click to expand...

Pure anti-prop! Litigation-wise it is slanderous and should be fought in court. Beat the PETA's at their own drab game!

And by goners, what have these clowns EVER done for conservation. They contribute nothing, they just shout and create havoc ... really effective ... mind as we have reporters more interested in filling their pages than getting the real facts. And the damage done, when will they rectify. Probably on page 4 in the bottom right corner in Arial 6 script .... :rolleyes:
 
My next door neighbour and myself were talking this morning about this as he had just read it and hadn't heard nothing before about it.
He said here we go again more bad publicity for zoo's why doesn't Mr Traver's practise what he preaches and ban people from joining Born Free I said don't be silly my neighbour then replied " If he want's elephant's BANNED from zoo's because of a STRESS related illness then surely some of the members of Born Free over the years have also died of Stress related illnesses so why not Ban Born Free"
If it's good for one then it's good for the other
 
That argument makes no sense to me. Supporters of a charity can come and go as they please. Captive elephants don't have a choice to be captive or wild.

Born Free will always be the shrill, but IMO necessary, end of an important debate that needs to happen. If, after all the stillbirths, all the calves kicked to death at birth, all the cows who have died either during or after giving birth, if, after all of this, those herds which are breeding with some degree of success are losing many of their calves before the age of 3, I think it is time to seriously look at whether continued breeding of this species is ethical.

I don't think it would be such a bad thing if zoos gradually moved over to keeping mostly African elephants in breeding situations.
 
What my neighbour was saying that if it's stress related as Mr Traver's was trying to indicate then virtually everything illness related we don't understand always comes back to stress
Myself I feel that if there is a problem instead of trying to get the animals banned from zoo's or any other establishment shouldn't we try our best to understand what is causing the problem, then and only then if the problem is caused by the animal being in captivity we should then ban the keeping of that animal in any establishment.
Without knowing the true fact's how can anyone or organisation state that they want any action taken.
 
johnstoni said:
I don't think it would be such a bad thing if zoos gradually moved over to keeping mostly African elephants in breeding situations.
Click to expand...

And African elephants can't get the herpes virus? They certainly can. But then this virus is also found in the wild and this suggest that any useful research from captive animals that could be brought to bear in the wild populations. Captive and wild animals research is very much a two way street.

As for the BFF: I learnt a long time ago that appeasing to these groups is a waste time because they are morally bankrupt.
 
I thought African elephants could get it but it wasn't a fatal strain in Africans?
 
Ash said:
I thought African elephants could get it but it wasn't a fatal strain in Africans?
Click to expand...

Interesting article here:

EEHV - Elephant endotheliotropic herpes virus

I like the quote in the article:

"I don't believe that running away from a problem by stopping the captive breeding program is the way to solve elephant herpesvirus....it is going to become a huge issue in the wild too in the future as the fragmented populations and controlled /captive breeding conditions in range countries in Asia become to resemble more and more the conditions in captivity here. It is better to figure out what is going on here now and learn how to control it and to continue to strengthen/enrich the gene pool in captivity as much as possible."Gary S. Hayward, 2007

Quite!

And young African elephants have also died; both adult Africans and Asians seem to have immunity to a point but that's not surprising. Unfortunately viruses have a nasty habit of mutating so it would seem that trying to remove the problem by not keeping Asian elephants is really closing the door after the horse has bolted.

People like BFF would be screaming blue murder if this was killing off wild populations and, as I said, research with captive animals may hold many clues to stop this and other nasties.

I am sure that those who have some knowledge of primates are aware that human measles which most of us recover from is fatal for many captive primates. So should we now stop keeping primates in captivity?

Immunisation - News - MMR protection for primates at Chessington World of Adventures
 
johnstoni said:
If, after all the stillbirths, all the calves kicked to death at birth, all the cows who have died either during or after giving birth, if, after all of this, those herds which are breeding with some degree of success are losing many of their calves before the age of 3, I think it is time to seriously look at whether continued breeding of this species is ethical.
Click to expand...

Could one factor be that due to major changes that have happened in elephant husbandry in recent years we are now getting better at breeding elephants in captivity, better facilities, better enclosures, herd dynamics etc. Therefore with more calves being bred more issues that surround the calves will be discovered, then solutions to these problems can be found and research in to E.E.H.V. is on going obviously.

I don't believe we should be shying away and giving into these people and there biased, flawed research, to quote Miranda Stevenson

"the historical nature of much of the data meant it did not reflect the huge improvements made to breeding programmes in recent years. Every year we have more young being born and surviving in European zoos, but we need to learn from past mistakes."

As cows are being moved from non-breeding display collections to form new breeding herds there will be cases of cows going 'what the f....' after they have given birth for the first time causing injury or death to the calf, but has herds develop to reflect a more natural form there will be experienced cows present that should in theory help these new animals and show them the ropes.

Elephant husbandry continues to develop, that can only be good for the elephants, in the UK at least we no longer are keeping elephants on small concrete yards like we did say 15 years ago, if you had told an elephant keeper at Belfast zoo even a few years ago that the elephants would not be chained up at night, weather permitting have 24/7 access outside and have deep sand floors inside with mounds of sand that they can lie down and sleep on they would have rolled around on the floor laughing, but that is the case now, and things will continue to change and both here in the UK and in other responsible zoos around the world.

Sadly there are places where the wind of change doesn't blow very hard, but things will change in the end, so rather then gradually phasing out Asian elephants surely installing minium internationally recognised standards of requirements and husbandry in all zoo associations would be a better thing, complex and difficult to implement yes, but then so would the phasing out of elephants in captivity.
 
Because I'm from Ohio and don't pay much attention to the UK forum but I had no idea this elephant had died. This is so interesting because the UK has had barely any elephant deaths due to EEHV unlike the US.
 
ColumbusZoo001 said:
Because I'm from Ohio and don't pay much attention to the UK forum but I had no idea this elephant had died. This is so interesting because the UK has had barely any elephant deaths due to EEHV unlike the US.
Click to expand...

The UK has had 3(??) such deaths in recent years and this being the first at Chester. Thus why it has become a really hot topic over here.
 
I think everyone can rest assured that the zoo community will continue breeding Asian, and African elephants, while some of those institutions and the organisations they belong to will continue funding research into prevention and cure of this virus. However, if the deaths continue, the volume on this will get turned up to a point where it will not be worth the publicity to lose another baby elephant. People may frown at the drivers behind the public reaction if things contine to go badly at certain collections ie Born Free, Advocates, whoever, but it will be interesting to see how it plays out.

I respect the opinions of those who disagree, but despite being pro-zoo, I am not in favour of maintaining breeding herds of captive elephants for the sake of sustaining captive populations, however there is a very real social value to a herd becoming multi-generational which cannot be underestimated, which makes it all the more tragic when young calves are repeatedly lost. I agree with the findings of the recent BIAZA and DEFRA-funded report on captive elephant welfare, as well as the less recent RSPCA study, although these examine the overall welfare and don't really deal with the current situation.

I don't think it is constructive to compare the susceptibility of all captive primates to human pathogens to the Elephant Herpes Virus. Many, many primate species have bred successfully in natural groupings without abnormally high rates of infant mortality in the vast majority of public collection for decades now. Sure, maybe we would be best served to go through a period of many young elephant deaths before a vaccine or effective treatment was deliverable but I'm not sure the public will allow that.
 
We all get the live and times that we deserve ..., don't we? The give a shout economy ... This story continues, where several months previously it ended. It is not the PETA et al groupings we should be thankful for to have this debate continue in the public eye.

That elephants do not belong in zoos is an armchair assertion and is totally counter-productive to any in situ conservation initiatives. I have never seen any meaningful contribution from PETA et al groups to benefit in situ conservation.

In fact, their actions and of fellow animal welfare groupings - in a perverse way - precipitate the demise of wild elephants populations all together. The debate should not be about animal welfare, it should rather be about in situ conservation efficacy and conservation education efficacy and how people - i.o.w. the general public - can relate to elephants.

On the latter: relating is not watching documentaries or eco-tourism (as mass tourism will kill off the wildlife too), in this zoos have more than a role to play ...

Admittedly, we - zoo people - may have a long way to go ..., however at least we are trying and for a fact quite a few zoos do contribute financially and substantially to real in situ conservation efforts.
 
johnstoni said:
Sure, maybe we would be best served to go through a period of many young elephant deaths before a vaccine or effective treatment was deliverable but I'm not sure the public will allow that.
Click to expand...

Well let's hope some solution to this virus problem is resolved. Although a herpes vaccine maybe some years away - the search for a vaccines for the human herpes virus HSV-1 and HSV-2 has as yet not been successful to date.

Sadly the pubic on mass have no real understanding of the issues and I know from personal bitter experience how such sad incidence as the death of these calves can be milked by the animal-rights groups. My feeling is that zoos need to be very bullish in these areas and take on the propaganda of the anti-zoo lobby face on. You can not appease fanatics such as BFF, PETA etal don't even bother trying they have a fixed agenda and also it's their gainful employment ;)

The bottom line is that zoos should lead and the public follow not the other way around. However this does require zoos to be proactive rather than reactive as is often the case.
 
I wonder weather some years later more zoos will keep African rather than Asain elephants? I think its quite likely there will be fewer elephants in zoos as already they're on the decrease.
 
An elephant researcher at the recent AAZK conference in Seattle told me that the herpesvirus has also been seen in forest camp elephants in India. It's not just a captive elephant problem and it's not just from Asian elephants being in contact with African elephants, as was once believed. (There are several strains of this virus.) Best to figure it out with captive elephants--it could become a serious problem in the wild.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top