The mysterious epidemic that is killing the lions of the Serengeti turns out to be distemper, scientists announced last week. But they are still unsure why the outbreak has been so sudden and severe. At least forty lions have died since the disease began to spread through the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania in February, and some of the largest prides have been wiped out (This Week, 4 June).
Isolated cases of feline distemper in zoos were documented in the early 1980s. Then last year, there were three outbreaks among captive big cats in the US. 'We know that feline distemper has been around but it hasn't had this catastrophic effect until very recently,' says Linda Munson, a veterinary pathologist at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.
An international network of laboratories had been working on identifying the cause of the Serengeti sickness. Munson was the first to identify what ...
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