Master Planning of Zoos - Central Zoo Authority

Technical Session III
• Veterinary intervention is essential in managing health/disease problems of
individual sick animals through appropriate therapeutic measures.
• Besides, other preventive health-care programmes usually adopted for the
zoo inhabitants to overcome health/disease problems are;
• Quarantine -it is now mandatory to keep all the newly received zoo animals
in quarantine. Usually they are kept for 30 days. Besides preventing the spread
of infections if any from new arrivals to healthy zoo inhabitants, quarantine
also helps the animal to adjust to new environment, builds up strength, offset
the ill effects of trapping, crating and transportation
• To enforce the quarantine procedure effectively, one need to have a fair working
knowledge of the regulations and also about the diseases occurring in various
species of wild animals to be quarantined
• Separate facilities for drainage and disposal of solid and liquid waste must be
arranged
• Isolation ward - for housing and treating the resident animals suffering from
infectious diseases.
• Quarantine and isolation wards should be located far away from each other
and away from animal display areas and zoo veterinary hospital
• Vaccination - vaccination is commonly practiced to induce immunity against
future invasion by specific infectious agents responsible for causing infectious
diseases of bacterial or viral origin.
• No separate vaccines are available specially for wild animals other than those
commonly used in domestic and pet animals and birds.
• Killed, vaccines should always be preferred for zoo animals
• Control of rabies : deaths of lion, leopard - cat, wild dog, blue bull, jaguar,
one-horned rhinoceros etc. have been reported from Indian zoos.
• Source of infection is attributed to the bites of stray dog, mongoose, fox and
jackal.
• Prevention of interaction of rabies carrier animals with zoo animals can control
rabies to a great extent.
• Control of tuberculosis (TB): it is common in many Indian zoos among
primates, deer and antelopes.
• Confirmed TB cases are to be isolated and treated.
• Mass treatment with multidrug therapy using anti-tuberculous drugs like
isoniazid, rifampicin, pyrazinamide and thambutol in the recommended doses
along with feed for 2-6 months has been able to control the infection.
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