BY NOKUTHABA DLAMINI
Two female lions were killed by Tuberculosis (TB) at Hwange National Park, sparking fears that the disease that is being detected for the first time could spread at Zimbabwe’s largest game reserve.
Zimbabwe National Park and Wildlife Management Authority (Zimparks) spokesperson Tinashe Farawo told VicFallsLive that the two lions were spotted by rangers at the park’s Nehimbe area with one of them looking frail.
Farawo said after the discovery, a team of wildlife veterinarians tested the female lion and discovered that it was suffering from TB.
“It eventually died (last week) and when the results came back together with that of another lion that had been deceased, the laboratory results showed that they had died from TB,”Farawo said.
“We are, however, still going further with the examinations but according to the postmortem, they were between 12 and 15 years of age.”
He said what worried the authority the most was that the disease could spread to other animals at the game reserve in Matabeleland North.
“I have never heard of any similar chronic illness among our wildlife here except in South Africa’s Kruger National Park and we are worried about how for instance the vaccines and medication will be administered to these wild animals,”Farawo added.
“We are also worried about how the vaccines and treatment will be made available to these animals as they should first go for trials and even other animals might fall to this chronic illness, but as l indicated efforts to get to the bottom of this issue are ongoing.”
The Hwange National Park is home to the majority of Zimbabwe’s population of lions, with the greater ecosystem holding between 500 to 700 individuals according to Peter Lindsay, the director of the Lion Recovery Fund.
The game reserve’s striking feature is its enormous concentration of elephants which range between 20 000 to 50 000 apart from other impressive diversity of ungulates like sable antelopes, Impala and various birds among other species.