Gorillas: Recovering from COVID-19

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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Ebony Money and I'm Rick Schwartz. Welcome to Amazing Wildlife, where we explore unique stories of wildlife from around the world and uncover fascinating animal facts. This podcast is a production of I Heart Radio and San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, in international nonprofit conservation organization which oversees the San Diego Zoo and Safari Park. Now, people have been working to adjust to life during the COVID nineteen pandemic. That includes social distancing as we know, wearing masks, and extended periods indoors. But what about one of our closest relatives in the animal kingdom. We share about eight percent of our DNA with guerrillas. As a result, exposure to human illnesses can have potentially detrimental impacts. In this episode, we're exploring what happened when guerrillas at the San Diego Zoo in San Diego Zoo Safari Park contracted COVID nineteen and the links between disease and conservation. We'll be speaking to our Director of Veterinary Services, Dr Lauren Howard to learn how COVID affected the guerrillas at the San Diego Zoos Safari Park. Rick, Can humans pass viruses and diseases to all animals species? Well? Many? First and foremost, before we jump completely into this, I want to make it clear I am not a disease expert by any means. We have plenty of people on staff who are. But what I have learned from working with countless animal species over the course of my career is there are different viruses and diseases that can be passed two animals, from humans, and from humans to animals. These diseases are known as zono or zoonotic diseases, depending upon how you want to say it. Some are only able to impact specific species, where others may impact several. So what is it about a species that makes it more susceptible to contracting diseases from humans compared to other animals in the animal kingdom? Yeah, and that's a really good question, because there are some diseases that are very specific that won't cross the line between other species, but still con balance between human and animal. And to answer this ebany, we need to look back to the history of how different species came to be. When it comes to germs or microbes as they're called, entering our body, some of the entry points that microbes use to move into our bodies have been conserved over the course of evolution. We share similar pathogen entry points with some animals, and we share even more entry points with our closest evolutionary cousins. So if a pathogen has a if you will, a key to a particular species entry point, they may be able to unlock the entry points of evolutionary relatives as well. Now, all that said, keep in mind for a disease transmission of to occur, you need a perfect storm, adequate dose of the infectious agent or disease, a mode of transportation, and a susceptible host. Of course, so does it go both ways? Can animals also pass disease to humans? Absolutely? Many. In fact, the CDC has a quick definition of a zone olk disease as a disease caused by germs that spread between animals and people. Now, the COVID nineteen pandemic presented new challenges. As we all know, there have been regulations and closures and policies put in place to slow the spread of disease. Rick what adjustments were made at the San Diego Zoo. In the San Diego zoos of Hahrigh Park. Yeah, that was that was quite a time when this all first started, you know, and many, like everywhere else, we closely followed the guidelines that were presented by the CDC and our San Diego County Health Department. Like many places, in March, we closed our doors to the public and all non essential employees began working at home. Now. As you can imagine, our wildlife care specialists and wildlife health specialists are essential, as are the staff to support the work they do, so when they reported to work, we had to change a lot of things, like how we worked with the animals and each other. Teams were broken into smaller groups, each group making a pod if you will, that didn't interact with other pods to help minimize cross contamination possibilities, and that way, if someone came down with COVID in that pod, we could just isolate that pod, and our work with our animals changed as well. More personal protective equipment was worn by our wildlife care specialists. For some this meant gloves and masks, for others it included those items plus face shields and gowns as well. So obviously animals don't communicate at least the way humans do, but with all of that extra protective gear and masks, did the animals demonstrate any sort of reaction? I'm so glad you asked that, Ebony, because that is probably one of the top questions I get from people when comes to how the pandemic impacted us. At the San Diego Zoo and Safari Park. Our wildlife care specialists often wore masks before the pandemic even started, depending upon the task of the day and the species they were working with. So when we all needed to wear masks, most often the animals didn't seem fazed by our new look. So has the pandemic changed anything else about how the wildlife caretakers interact in care for the animals at the zoo in the park. For the most part, ebany, I think the pandemic has made all of us more aware about how important it is to maintain our standards of wildlife care and and not only to be thoughtful about how a zono disease can move from animal to human, but then of course how it can move from human to animal. For those of us who work with animals, we are well aware that animals can get diseases from humans, but not everyone in the general public knew this, so I think it's also been interesting for people to realize animals can get sick from us too. How do animals express that they're not feeling so well? Yeah, sometimes this be very tricky to know an animals sick epity For many species out there, to indicate that you're sick is a bad idea. It basically tells predators that you're an easy target. So most animals, even those it might be second, third, or even fourth generation born into human care, still maintain this innate, sort of pre programmed behavior of masking illness or injury. That is so interesting. Yeah, I mean it really is fastening, but it makes sense when it comes to a survival instinct, if you will. So that said, our wildlife care specialists are highly skilled at reading the subtleties of animal behavior, kind of like when a parent just knows that their child is feeling off, even before the child even may notice or say something. They look for subtle things like changes in water or food consumption, that the changes in body posture or movement, and of course other times it might be more obvious, like a sneeze or a cough. My kids become a little less chatty they kind of lie around momb knows and just a bit. We're going to talk to the direct after a Veterinary Services at San Diego Zoo Safari Park, Dr. Lauren Howard. But first this now it's time for the San Diego Zoo Minute, an opportunity for you to learn what's new at the San Diego Zoo and the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. Pink back pelican chicks are thriving under the watchful care of Dalmatian pelican parents out in South African habitat at Safari Park. So what's really cool about this is that there are two different species of birds. The Dalmatian pelican parents are taking care of another species chicks, the pink back pelican chicks, and guests can view them on Pelican Island when they take the African Tram or the Wildlife Safari Tour. Did you know? Pink back pelicans are easy to identify because, like other pelicans, they have a pouch under their bill, but there's has a bit of a pink color to it. This enormous naked skin pouch hangs from the lower half of the pelican's long, straight bill and is hooked at the tip the bird uses this pouch to scoop into the water and catch fish. We're going to talk now to Dr Lauren Howard, the director of veterinary Services for the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. Dr Howard, can you take us back to the first sneeze, cough or sniffle? What made caretakers suspect that one of the gorillas contracted COVID? Night Team Sure, I definitely remember that first cough because we feel like it was the cough that was heard around the world. That Tuesday morning, when our Grillly care specialists came in, they found that Winston, our oldest gorilla. He wasn't very active and he was coughing, and that was new. Now he's our oldest gorilla. He's considered geriatric, so there's a ton of reasons an older male gorilla might not feel good in cough. But of course COVID was on our suspicion list. What race it higher up was. Later that day, another girl has started coughing, and in the following morning, to other girl has started coughing. And when you have you know, four different individuals in the same group all demonstrating the same signs, that's when you get more suspicious about like an infectious disease, and you covered it a bit there, but can you list some of the symptoms the gorillas symptoms when they were ill from COVID. We're pretty similar to what you hear about in people or what many of us have experienced ourselves if we've had COVID decreased activity and lethargy. We did hair a fair amount of coughing throughout the troop, and there were a lot of runny noses, and several of the animals for very brief periods of time, they didn't eat as much as they usually did. We always watch appetite pretty closely as a proxy for how an animals feeling. In Winston in particular, what worried us the most about him was his extreme apathy he developed, and that, even more than the coughing and the running nose, was what had both his caretakers and his veterinarians concerned. That he probably felt worse than he was letting on um and that was the big tipping point that made us realize that we needed to intervene to improve his health. And what was the process of testing your theory? Initially we thought there could be a whole host of issues causing Winston to feel badly, and then when the other girls came on with the same symptoms, we were very suspicious that it could be COVID. We also did know that one of his caretakers had come up positive for COVID the week before, so we knew there was an exposure. So fortunately, there had been some research done already in animals to see that you can pick up the COVID virus in feces, so we were able to collect individual fecal samples on each of the guerrillas and submit them for testing via pco are the same way we test the pathogen and nasal swabs for people, and we got results twenty four hours later. And have you determined how the roll was first contracted COVID nineteen. Yeah, So at that time the only exposure our guerrillas had to the outside world were through the care staff, the veterinarian, the animal care teams. That coupled with knowing that one of our caretakers, who was following all of the protocols was positive the week before, we actually partnered with our public health partners and they were able to compare the two swabs one from our staff member and one from Winston, and used genetic sequencing to show that they were the exact same virus. So there had not been an ape or gorilla positively diagnosed with COVID, so we were the first in the world. And in this case it's most likely the person brought it in and the guerrilla got it. And can you describe what the treatment was like, what types of treatments did the gorillas receive? So we did put the whole troop, all the way down to the three year old on vitamin seagummies, which they took very happily. Um, that was a good treat for them. The two oldest guerrillas, Winston, our our silver back, and Camilla, who's our our grandma or older female, they did both go end up being put on oral decks and Methodszone, which is pretty common treatment for humans with COVID. It's a steroid to reduce the inflammation effect of the virus and also an antibiotic a z pac is, a peromycin to help with secondary infection. Winston did end up being much sicker than we realized, and we realized that when we got him under anesthesia and we were able to fully evaluate him. He did have a pretty significant pneumonia and he also had a pretty severe a rhythmia that was caused by viral injury to the heart. And we also were able to give him monoclonal antibodies, which is a one time IVY treatment, and we were able to source that from a research supply, so it wasn't taken way from any person who needed care. But he actually responded very well after we covered from anesthesia and really went uphill and improved quickly. And I think it was the combination of treatments that we were able to put him on. He also went on several heart medications to help with that arrhythmia, and I think that really helped him feel better as well. Can gorillas develop immunities to some diseases like COVID nineteen, We believe they can, And you know, there's different ways to develop immunity. UM. We do vaccinate our guerrillas for a host of guerrilla and human focus diseases polio, measles, influenza UM, so they can develop immunity that way from being vaccinated, and then there's of course being exposed to the diseases like obviously our grillas were all exposed to COVID, and then you think about like the natural history of grillas, like where did they grow up, what kind of diseases or pathogens did they evolve with, and how is their immune system evolved to handle those pathogens. In speaking of vaccinations, the San Diego Zoo was one of the first to begin using the COVID nineteen vaccine a proof for animals UM in San Diego Zoo Safari Park. How did that go? That went great? We were so grateful to Zoetis, which is a veterinary company that created a veterinary vaccine against stars Kobe too UM. So again, it's not taking any vaccines out of people's care because it's only for animals. When our grilla troop at the Safari Park became ill, we were very worried about our ape families down at the zoo, not because they would have gotten it from our guerrillas, but because it was so prevalent in just the community down here that they were at a high risk. So Zoetis at that point had about twenty or so experimental vaccine doses left from when they were developing the vaccine, and they sent them all to us without a question. So we were able to prioritize our highest risk gorillas orangutans and bona bows at the San Diego Zoo and get them protected as much as we could, and then later that year Zoettas was able to start sharing the vaccine with multiple zoological institutions across the country, including US, and together between the zoo and the park, we've vaccinated around two hundred or just over two hundred animals with that Zottas vaccine. So we have not had any adverse effects from the vaccine and our animals, and we do believe it's protecting them and reducing severity of disease. Just like humans. We have had a few vaccinated animals that have ended up with a positive COVID diagnosis and some clinical signs, but not nearly as bad as Winston before we were able to treat him. And unlike humans, gorillas they can't protect themselves from viruses by wearing masks or social distancing. Um, what's the next best practice? Yes, the girls certainly don't social distance from each other, nor do we want them to, because that's a really important part of their social hierarchy. We do so much work here to make sure our girl is in good health. They have healthy diets, they have strong preventive care, good exercise, they're allowed to exhibit species specific behavior. All of that contributes just to a normal, healthy immune system. One point that came across to us in working with our public health folks is the importance of good ventilation and our building. Fortunately it's an older building, but it has actually great ventilation, which I think really helped us keep the fresh air going and reduce the viral load for the grillas and the people working in that building. And then also barriers to prevent exposure from the public. We do want our very important visitors to experience the grillas as much as they can, but having separation through wide moats, solid barriers like glass like we have at the zoo is a key part to keeping our girl is protected from the various pathogens that might be carried by people out there. And that leads us perfectly to what have you learned from this experience? So much? We did learn that it's important and okay to change your plans and change your protocols, and that revisiting them in the light of new information and new occurrences it has to happen, especially with something like COVID and and the variants that we constantly need to be watching the data and then working together to make new decisions for the health of our employees and our animals. We learned that being the first and something like this is super scary, it's also an opportunity to learn as much as you can. We did so much sample and data collection. We did environmental samples because then we could learn more about the spread and the impact. And the best thing was we're able to turn that around and help others behind us along when others who have girls with COVID, or when the Mountain guerrilla doctors are looking for information, that we have things to share. And then the last thing was it was a nice for my under of how connected we all are. What was happening with our girl is here was resounding around the world, and we know that because we had people globally reaching out and giving us support but also asking questions and wanting to know what we knew, and knowing that everyone was hoping for the same thing, for healthy girls and a good outcome, and for knowing what they can do or what they need to do to keep their animals safe. So I'm sure everyone wants to know how's Winston and his family? Um, have you recognized any lasting effects within this is actually doing great. He turned fifty and he's got his troop. He's keeping them connected, healthy, moving forward, and he's got a couple of daughters that are growing up. UM. And we did implant a remote heart monitor so we can download from him once a week and see how his heart rate and rhythm is. And everything's actually been fantastic. UM. We're really with his response to treatment and with how he continues to do well. We'll end with that positive update about Winston's health. We've been speaking with Dr Lauren Howard, the director of veterinary Services for the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. Thanks so much, Thank you, Evany, thanks for listening. We hope you learned a lot about how it truly takes a team of people to care for wildlife. Be sure to subscribe and tune into next week's episode, in which we're bringing the story of the smallest big cat with the biggest bite. I'm Ebony Money and I'm Rich Schwartz. Thanks for listening. If you would like to find out more about San Diego Zoo Wildlafe Alliance, please visit sdz w a dot org. Amazing Wildlife is a production of I Heart Radio. Our producer is Nikia Swinton and our executive producer is Marcy to Peanut. Our sound engineer and editor is Amina Gnatra. For more shows from my Heart Radio, check out the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. M m m hm