Unvaccinated snow leopard at San Diego Zoo catches Covid-19
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
SAN DIEGO — An unvaccinated snow leopard at the San Diego Zoo has contracted Covid-19.
Caretakers noticed that Ramil, a 9-year-old male snow leopard, had a cough and runny nose on Thursday. Later, two separate tests of his stool confirmed the presence of the coronavirus, the zoo said in a statement Friday.
Ramil is not showing additional symptoms, the zoo said, but because he shares an enclosure with a female snow leopard and two Amur leopards, the staff assumes they have been exposed. As a result, the animals were quarantined and their exhibit was closed.
It was unclear how Ramil got infected.
California zoo animals receive experimental Covid vaccine
In January, a troop of eight gorillas at the zoo's sister facility, San Diego Zoo Safari Park, contracted Covid-19 from a keeper who had the virus but showed no symptoms.
The gorilla troop, which has since recovered, became the first known example of the virus infecting apes.
The case prompted the zoo to request an experimental Covid-19 vaccine for animals for emergency use. The vaccine from Zoetis, an animal health company that was once part of Pfizer, was administered to species most at risk of contracting Covid-19, including several primates and big cats.
However, Ramil had not been vaccinated before his infection.
There is no vaccine mandate for the staff, but unvaccinated employees are required to wear masks at all times, the zoo said.
The Associated Press
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Well, hopefully they make it through alive.
Raaaooowwww!
Seems this is what a lot of people miss and gloss over.
Cats are one of the few animals who get coronavirus. In some cats, it hides in their system and mutates into a condition called FIP, or Feline Interstitial Perintinitis, which is always fatal.
It makes me wonder what it can do with us.
For some the longterm effects of Civid-19 are very serious. My neighbor is suffering organ failure her doctors owe up to the aftereffects of Covid-19...
Bronx Zoo big cats contracted Covid-19 a year ago.
Help the big cats, Get your vaccine, if we did not already have enough reasons get it for the cats
Actually, get it for yourself. We don't know yet if we can develop a human version of FIP. If we can, it's going to be game over for a lot of people.
Cats, gorillas, and ?
This is what I am going on about in other discussions, we don't have time for all this political intrigue and 'warfare.' This virus is "instructive" in that if it had a universal translator, we could hear the variants saying get your houses in order! Concentrate on controlling me—not petty political interests—not domination of each other.