South African experts involved in the introduction of cheetah to India say botulism from contaminated water may to be blame (Supplied by DFFE)
One of the 12 cheetahs flown from South Africa to India in February has died of heart failure that may have been triggered by botulism.
The male cheetah, which was captured in the Waterberg in Limpopo and had been named Uday by Indian citizens in a contest, died on Sunday in his enclosure at the Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh.
In January, South Africa and India signed a long-delayed deal on “cooperation on the reintroduction of cheetah”, agreeing to send a dozen Southern African cheetahs to the unfenced Kuno National Park in India, 70 years after its Asiastic cheetah was declared extinct. The aim was to establish a “viable and secure” cheetah population in India.
Uday was the first of the batch of 12 cheetahs — seven male and five females — from South Africa which had been captured for relocation to India.
‘Could have been anything’
Speaking from India, Vincent van der Merwe, the manager of the cheetah metapopulation project for the Metapopulation Initiative, said: “It could have been anything, there are so many factors at play and so many variables. It could have been botulism; it could have been a snake bite — it’s unlikely but a possibility.”
It’s not known how old the cheetah, which was free-roaming and fenced into a reserve in the Waterberg, was.
“We knew that he was a fully-grown male, probably around eight years old, so [he was] towards the end of his life anyway,” Van der Merwe said.
He said the cheetah’s death was not a major loss because he was one of three Waterberg Biosphere males, so the genetics from that group is still represented. Females are the most important because they are the breeding units, he added.
Van der Merwe said the long quarantine period wouldn’t have helped the cheetah’s condition and he was in a boma for a long time. “He spent seven, eight months in a boma, that’s 8% of a cheetah’s life … and that was due to some indecision on the part of the South African government. We just couldn’t get answers, couldn’t get permission to send them.”
Van der Merwe said captive stress was probably not the cause of death “but it certainly didn’t help. These cheetahs have lost a lot of ecological functionality because of the long boma period.”
In India, Uday had not been receiving natural foods, he noted. “Cheetahs obviously eat small to medium-sized prey items twice a week. And here in India, because it goes against their culture to shoot game to feed animals in a boma; the cheetahs were being fed water buffalo and goats, which is not natural food for cheetahs.”
Potential botulism
Adrian Tordiffe, a veterinary wildlife specialist at the University of Pretoria, said although he had not seen the post-mortem report, he had been told that Uday had congestive heart failure.
“That’s really not an actual diagnosis, it’s just sort of symptoms that are seen on a post-mortem,” Tordiffe said. “The cause of that heart failure is still unknown. At this stage, we believe that the most likely cause, based on the symptoms that he displayed before he died and put together with the post-mortem … is actually botulism.”
That would come from ingesting bacteria that produces a toxin, clostridium botulinum. “In some cases, it could be from the water source, so if an animal had died in the water source, the bacteria would multiply anaerobically in the carcass of a dead animal and then they would produce this toxin that then can be ingested from the water.”
The neurotoxin causes muscle paralysis, which could explain the weakness that the cheetah showed, particularly to the neck muscles. “He was dropping his head down and that often is a sign of severe muscle weakness and the heart muscles are also affected because obviously there are nerves that supply the heart muscle,” said Tordiffe.
Rare, unusual
Tordiffe said that in cases recorded in South Africa, many of the big cats recover with appropriate supportive treatment. “The difficulty with this toxin is that it’s quite difficult to diagnose because isolating the toxin in the body of the animal is quite difficult.
“Often, it’s the diagnosis when you find absolutely nothing on the post-mortem that gives you an indication and you’ve got the right sort of symptoms, you can make that diagnosis but we’ll just have to see what the rest of the test results show.”
None of the other cheetahs are at risk, he said, describing Uday’s death as “very rare, unusual and unfortunate”.
“It’s very likely that whatever he ingested came from that exact enclosure. We’ve already got the team there, looking into the water source to make sure there is no contamination somewhere that somebody wasn’t able to see.”
The enclosures are fairly large hunting bomas “so it would be impossible for them to check every corner of that boma for rotten carcasses”, he said.
Tordiffe said cheetahs don’t normally feed much on rotten carcasses, which suggests contaminated water is the source of the toxin, “but at this stage we can’t confirm that”.
‘Stress levels building’
In March, four cheetah cubs were born to one of the females, who was part of a batch of eight that were airlifted to Namibia in September. That same month, Sasha, a female cheetah from Namibia, died of suspected kidney failure.
All the cheetahs except for the four from Namibia remain in captivity and their “stress levels are likely to be building up”, said Ravi Chellam, chief executive of the Metastring Foundation and the coordinator of the Biodiversity Collaborative in Bengaluru.
“It is peak summer here and that cannot be helping with the situation for these cheetahs,” he said, adding that of the four Namibian cheetahs that had been released, a male, Pavan, has been tranquilised for the second time in a few weeks and is now in captivity.
“Deaths do occur. What is important is to get a full understanding of the cause of death and determine if it was preventable,” he said, explaining that this needs to be done in a transparent manner to ensure accountability. “As much as the two deaths don’t signify the failure of the project, nor does the birth of four cubs indicate its success.”
The cats do not stray and their movement is dictated by their ecological and behavioural needs and perception of risk. “Cheetahs are far-ranging animals that exist in very low densities, especially males,” said Chellam.
Without sufficient habitats for the cheetahs in India, “we cannot expect the cheetahs to establish territories or settle down in home ranges. We have erred in putting the cart before the horse by hurriedly bringing the cheetahs from Namibia and South Africa and holding them in captivity for an undesirably prolonged period of time.”He said the countries involved should go back to the drawing board and “take a good hard look” at the feasibility of this very expensive project. “We should not import any more cheetahs until an independent review is done of the action plan [for the introduction of cheetah in India] and the implementation that has been done so far.”