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ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS
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MONTH: June 2006
Rabies strikes Namibian kudu
WINDHOEK––Veterinarians Otto Zapke and Beate Voights in mid-May 2006 reportedly confirmed that a rare outbreak of rabies spreading from herbivore to herbivore during the past two years was responsible for the deaths of “thousands” of kudu in the Omaruru region of Namibia.
“Sources in the industry have voiced concern that the outbreak could impact negatively on the hunting season,” reported Chrispin Inambao of the Windhoek New Era. “People come to Namibia because of kudus,” Inambao said a hunting industry source told him. About 5,000 hunters per year visit Namibia.
“Namibia Professional Hunting Association sources revealed the contagion was initially detected at a farm in the Wilhelmstal area before it spread north, east, and scattered south. Cases have been reported at Omitara. From there it spread toward Botswana,” Inambao added. “Some farms around Windhoek have also reported cases of kudu frothing at the mouth and not being afraid of people.”
There is a precedent for a rabies outbreak among Namibia kudu. Recalled three moderators of the International Society of Infect-ious Diseases’ ProMed electronic bulletin board, in a joint posting, “A unique outbreak of rabies in kudu began in central Namibia in 1977, apparently involving oral spread of infection between individuals. It peaked in 1980 and eventually subsided in 1985, by which time it had caused an estimated loss of 30,000 to 50,000 antelope, or 20% of the population.”
But the report drew skepticism from rabies expert Henry Wilde, M.D., of the Queen Saov-abha Memorial Hospital in Bang-kok, Thailand. “Herbivore to herbivore transmission would be unlikely,” Wilde told ANIMAL PEOPLE, explaining that the Namibian climate would quickly kill any live rabies virus in dripping saliva from the victim animals.
“The most likely explanation is that there is another epidemic disease that causes most of the kudu deaths, and/or that a small undetected biting mammal is the vector for the kudu rabies cases,” Wilde said.
A team of British, Nami-bian, and South African researchers headed by Karen Mansfield of the World Health Organization reported in January 2006 that “37 rabies virus isolates…originating mainly from the northern and central regions of Namibia between 1980 and 2003… suggest that jackal and kudu may form part of the same epidemiological cycle of rabies,” with the predators apparently doing the actual disease transmission.
Hunting publications mentioned the rabies outbreak among kudu, but business was still brisk at a wildlife auction held on June 1 by the Namibian Ministry of Environ-ment and Tourism. About 30 game farmers and hunting ranch owners bid on 40 buffalo, 22 roan antelope, 30 impala, eight black rhinos, 11 sable antelope and 21 giraffes, said Frederick Philander of the New Era.
Locals hunt seals
While visitors hunt mainly so-called trophy species, Nambians will be hunting seals. The 2006 Nambian sealing season, to start in July, has quotas of 60,000 baby fur seals, who will mostly be clubbed, and 7,000 bulls, who will be shot.