Endoparasites in wild animals at the zoological garden in Skopje,
Macedonia
Elena Atanaskova 1, Zoran Kochevski 2, Jovana Stefanovska 3 & Goran Nikolovski 4
1,4 Department
of Health Preventive for Pets and Ungulates,
2,3 Department
of Parasitology and Parasitic Diseases,
Faculty of
Veterinary Medicine, LazarPop-Trajkov5-7, 1000 Skopje, Republic of Macedonia
Email: 1 eatanaskova@fvm.ukim.edu.mk (corresponding author), 2 zkochevski@fvm.ukim.edu.mk, 3 jstefanovska@fvm.ukim.edu.mk, 4 gnikolovski@fvm.ukim.edu.mk
Date of publication (online): 26
July 2011
Date of publication (print): 26
July 2011
ISSN 0974-7907 (online) |
0974-7893 (print)
Editor: Ulrike Streicher
Manuscript details:
Ms # o2440
Received 08 April 2010
Final received 14 April 2011
Finally accepted 23 April 2011
Citation: Atanaskova, E., Z. Kochevski, J. Stefanovska &
G. Nikolovski (2011). Endoparasites in wild animals at
the zoological garden in Skopje, Macedonia. Journal of Threatened Taxa 3(7): 1955–1958.
Copyright: © Elena Atanaskova,
Zoran Kochevski, Jovana Stefanovska & Goran Nikolovski 2011. Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 UnportedLicense. JoTT allows unrestricted use of this
article in any medium for non-profit purposes, reproduction and distribution by
providing adequate credit to the authors and the source of publication.
Acknowledgements: We would like
to thank Vesna Levajkovic,
DVM from the zoological garden in Skopje, Macedonia for helping in the sample
collection.
Parasitic
diseases play an important role for wild animals in captivity. In captivity the health status of the
animals depends on many factors, like feeding, keeping conditions, animal
management and environmental conditions such as temperature and humidity. The staff plays an important role in
the transmission of parasites amongst animals in a zoo, through their shoes,
clothes, hands, food or with working tools. Another possibility of parasite
transmission is the animals themselves, when they are moved from one enclosure
to another, without proper parasite treatment. Mixing different species brings additional risks of
parasitic infections. In the wild,
animals might have a natural resistance against parasitic infections or live in
a balanced system with their parasites. But the change in environment and living conditions from freedom to
captivity influences the animals’ ecology and might increase the sensitivity
for parasitic infections (Goossensa et al.
2005). Parasitic diseases are one
of the main causes of death in wild animals in captivity (Rao& Acharjyo 1984). In addition, some parasites are zoonoticand are a risk to human health (Maske et al. 1990; Chakraborty et al. 1994; Kashidet al. 2003).
For
these reasons we consider it very important to conduct preventive measures, to
regularly control the presence of parasites in the animals and to undertake
adequate therapy when required. Skopje Zoological Garden, Macedonia implements a regular deworming program at least once a year. For several years they have used
different antiparasitic drugs for different groups of
animals such as ivermectin, piperazinecitrate, fenbendazol (Panacur),praziquantel, and pyrantel(Biheldon).
The
goal of our study was to evaluate the presence of gastrointestinal parasites in
the animals in the Zoological Garden in Skopje, Macedonia.
Materials
and methods: The study was conducted at the Zoological
Garden in Skopje, established in 1926 on an area of 12 acres with a collection
of 300 animals from 56 different species. On several occasions animals were treated in November and then samples
were taken in the following April.
Fecal
samples were taken over a period of three years from 28 different species of
animals (Table 1). The samples
were always collected in April. The
samples were brought to the laboratory for parasitologyand parasitic diseases at the faculty of veterinary medicine in Skopje, in
portable refrigerators. Fecal
examination was performed by flotation method using ZnSO4 with a
specific gravity of 1.18–1.20 (371g zinc sulfate in 1000ml water). From every animal 2–5g of feces
were mixed with 10ml ZnSO4, then the sample
was centrifuged at 1200 rpm for 5 minutes. Every sample was checked under the microscope at 40X
enlargement (Dryden et al. 2005).
We
divided the examined animals into three groups according to the type of
enclosure they were kept in. These
groups did not consider the animals’ age and there was no control group.
The
first group consisted of animals that were kept in indoor enclosures - such as
the menagerie for wild cats and the ape enclosure. The second group comprised animals like camel, ostrich and
ibex that were held in outdoor enclosures with open soil. The third group included animals held in semi-open enclosures: bears,
wolves and hippopotamus. In the semi-open enclosures animals were closed in
cages during the cold season in winter and were free to go outside in the other
periods of the year.
In
the first group parasite treatment was performed in May using piperazine citrate (2.5mg/kg) (Jacobs 1987) in all
investigated years.
Animals
in the second group were treated with ivermectin(0.2mg/kg) (Bowman 1995), twice in 2007 (May and November), and once in 2008
(May). In 2009 animals were
treated twice with piperazine citrate (110mg/kg) at
an intervall of four weeks (May and June) (Gibson
1957).
The
third group was treated once in May in 2007 with ivermectin(0.2mg/kg) (Bowman 1995). In 2008
the treatment was applied again twice, in May and November, also using ivermectin. In
2009, two treatments were applied, first a praziquantel(5mg/kg) and pyrantel (5mg/kg) combination was used
(Bowman 1995) in May, and after six months fenbendazol(50mg/kg) was applied (Bowman
1992).
Results:Eggs of the following parasites were identified: Baylisascaris transfuga, Eimeria sp., Moniezia sp., Nemathodirus sp., Oesophagostomum sp., Strongyloides sp., Taenia sp., Toxocara sp.,Toxascaris leonina, Trichuris sp., Trichostrongylus sp.
Within
the first group we found parasite eggs in Panthera tigrisand Panthera leo in
all three years consecutively. Panthera pardus nigra andMacaca sylvanus were
parasite free in 2007 and 2008 but showed parasitic infection in 2009. In the second group most of the animals were found parasite positive in2008, but in 2009 most of the animals were free of parasites. In the third group, Canis lupus was found positive for Toxocaraspp. In the following years the
animals were found free of this parasite. The infection of Ursus arctos with Baylisascaris transfuga which was found in 2009was probably a result of the introduction of a new bear from the wild and
insufficient cleaning measures.
Discussion:Helminthosesare a big problem in zoo animals. In captivity animals appear to be less resistant to parasitic infections
than in their natural habitats. Our study shows that the number of infected animals in the whole
zoological garden in Skopje is fairly high with an infection rate of 21.4%,
32.1% and 28.6% in the years 2007, 2008 and 2009. A comparable study by Laloševićet al. (2007) found an infection rate of 17.2% in 75 samples of animals kept atPalic Zoo in Serbia, which is considerably lower.
Some
parasites (geohelminths) potentially accumulate in a
captive environment, in particular in open soil enclosures, which cannot be
easily disinfected. Their survival
in the soil is strongly impacted by climatic factors. Other parasites require an intermediate host and are less
likely to accumulate in a captive environment, because their intermediate host
might not occur in the enclosure (Laloševićet al. 2007). Our results confirmedthis finding: all parasites found during the examinations are geohelminths, which do not require an intermediate
host. This has a very important
epidemiological meaning and our results are similar with the results of other
studies. In 2007 and 2008 the
percentage of infected animals was identical in animals kept in indoor
enclosures all year round (group 1) , while in 2009 it was double despite the parasite
treatment. Though it is possible
that the animals were parasite free immediately after the treatment there is
obviously a high rate of reinfection (Table 2).
Animals
living in outdoor open soil enclosures (group 2) were treated twice in 2007
while in 2008 only once. However
the infection rate increased from 2007 to 2008, while it decreased from 2008 to
2009. The change in infection rate cannot be explained by the
parasite treatment. We do not know
if the animals were parasite free immediately after our treatment. Whatever effect there might have been
the reinfection rate under this keeping conditions is
very high.
Within
this group we found eggs of Toxocara spp. and Toxascaris leonina in
tigers. The tigers were treated
both in 2007 and 2008 with piperazine citrate, but
the same parasites were still found in 2009. Toxocara and Toxascarishave very high tenacity and their presence during the 3-year research is a sign
that the preventive measures applied during this period are not sufficient or
that there is a high rate of reinfection. In 2009 the tigers were treated
for three consequent days with fenbendazol (10mg/kg)
hoping that this will be a more efficient medication. Animals living part time in indoor enclosures and part time
in outdoor enclosures (group 3) received two treatments every year during our
study and showed the lowest rate of infection. However looking at results from group 1, two treatments
alone are not necessarily sufficient to reduce the parasites. It is likely that the management of
shifting enclosures every few months contributes to the reduction of
parasites.
It
is difficult to draw detailed conclusions from our study for various
reasons. Firstly the time between
the deworming and the fecal sampling is very long and
ranges between 6 and 11 months. Even if the treatment was initially effective, in such a long time there
is a high risk of reinfection via above mentioned
vectors as personal or tools. In
addition due to the reconstruction of the enclosures during the past three
years, many animals were transferred from one enclosure to another and were
mixed with other species of animals. This might be the reason why despite antiparasitictreatment in some species of animals, different species of parasites were found
each year.
To
control parasitic infections it is necessary to undertake appropriate antiparasitic therapy, to increase cage hygiene and to
introduce good animal and staff management. It should also be kept in mind that every antiparasitic therapy might potentially cause additional
stress in the animal and increase the possibility of infection. Regular
parasite controls of food and water should also be conducted; quality food and
appropriate addition of vitamins and minerals is an additional measure to
reduce the risk of parasitic infections (Borghare et al. 2009).
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