Journal of Threatened Taxa |
www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 October 2023 | 15(10): 24116–24119
ISSN 0974-7907
(Online) | ISSN 0974-7893 (Print)
https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.8699.15.10.24116-24119
#8699 | Received 18
August 2023 | Final received 07 September 2023 | Finally accepted 29 September
2023
First photographic evidence of
mange manifestation in Panna Tiger Reserve, India
Supratim Dutta 1 &
Krishnamurthy Ramesh 2
1,2 Wildlife Institute of India,
Post Box #18, Chandrabani, Dehradun, Uttarakhand
248001, India.
2 Faculty of Forestry, Forest
Science Centre, 2424 Main Mall, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, V6T
1Z4, Canada.
1 supratim@wii.gov.in, 2 ramesh@wii.gov.in
(corresponding author)
Editor: L.A.K. Singh, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India. Date of publication: 26
October 2023 (online & print)
Citation: Dutta, S. & K. Ramesh (2023). First photographic evidence of mange
manifestation in Panna Tiger Reserve, India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 15(10): 24116–24119. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.8699.15.10.24116-24119
Copyright: © Dutta & Ramesh 2023. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. JoTT allows
unrestricted use, reproduction, and distribution of this article in any medium
by providing adequate credit to the author(s) and the source of publication.
Funding: This research was funded by Madhya Pradesh Forest Department (MPFD) and National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) (No.
WII/KR/PROJECT/PTRP/2013-14/012 (B), and National Water Development Agency
(NDWA) No. WII/KR/PROJECT/PLMP/2017-18/F(1).
Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.
Acknowledgements: We would like to express our
deep gratitude to the director, dean, and research coordinator of the Wildlife
Institute of India for the opportunity to undertake the study. We are thankful
to the field directors of PTR, Mr K.S. Bhadoria, and
the veterinary officer Dr Sanjeev Kumar Gupta for their continuous support and
encouragement.
Abstract: We report the first ever
photographic evidence of mange-infested Golden Jackal Canis
aureus from Panna Tiger Reserve, central India. The infected animals were
photo-captured during the ongoing camera trap sampling in 2019 as a part of a
long-term study on the ecology of reintroduced tigers and co-predators. This
new record triggers wildlife health and monitoring issues and, subsequently,
the importance of restricting the disease outbreak and treatment measures among
other associated species within the protected area.
Keywords: Canis aureus, carnivore, disease,
Golden Jackal, Madhya Pradesh, Mange, Vindhya Hills.
Sarcoptic mange is a commonly
widespread and highly contagious skin disease found in wild mammals (McCarthy
et al. 2004; Currier et al. 2011). The microscopic mite, Sarcoptes
scabiei, is the causative agent that infests the
skin of its host epidermis by burrowing tunnels (Fuller 2013). Females lay eggs
there; subsequently, nymph starts to burrow new tunnels by cutting, secreting,
and infesting the epidermal skin (Arlian et al. 1984,
1989), resulting in uncontrolled itching, hair loss, erythema (redness of the
skin due to inflammation), and secondary skin infection, which may further lead
to death of the host animal (Radi 2004; Oleaga et al. 2008; Nakagawa et al. 2009). These epizootics
have been reported in various host species and well documented in Europe,
America, Australia, Africa and Asia (Zumpt &
Ledger 1973; Mӧrner 1992; Kraabøl
et al. 2015; Fraser et al. 2016; Old et al. 2018; Niedringhaus
et al. 2019). The mite spreads from infested animals to a new host through both
direct (rubbing) and indirect contact by sharing common dens and resting places
(Devenish-Nelson et al. 2014; Almberg et al. 2015; Ezenwa et al. 2016); moreover, transmission from adult to
offspring also occurs (Fthenakis et al. 2001).
Mange is well-documented for
domestic animals, though limited knowledge is available for wild animals,
especially in the Indian subcontinent. In India, the infestation of mange is
common in domestic animals (Chhabra & Pathak 2011) such as cats (Sivajothi & Reddy 2015), goats (Sreenivasan
& Rizvi 1946), and cattle (Tikaram & Ruprah 1986; Gill et al. 1989). Sarcoptic mange was
also found in pigs in India (Das et al. 2010; Laha
2015). Earlier, mange-infested Golden Jackal was documented in western India
(Dubey et al. 2016).
Study Area and
Methods
The study was carried out in
Panna Tiger Reserve (PTR), situated in the Vindhyan
hill range, under biogeographic province 6A Deccan Peninsula – Central
Highlands (Rodgers et al. 2002). PTR spreads over 1,574 km2 area
with two distinct administrative units; core zone (542 km2) and
buffer zone (1,032 km2), and covers Panna, Chhatarpur and Damoh districts. PTR is categorized as tropical
dry-deciduous forests (Champion & Seth 1968); and Teak Tectona
grandis, Tendu Diospyros
melanoxylon, Khair Acacia
catechu, and Kardhai Anogeissus
pendula are the major dominated trees in this landscape. Tiger is the apex
predator in this ecosystem, while Leopard Panthera
pardus represents a co-predator. The forest
carries a good number of other carnivores like Indian Wolf Canis
lupus, Striped Hyena Hyaena hyaena,
Asiatic Wild Dog Cuon alpinus,
Golden Jackal Canis aureus, Indian Fox Vulpes
bengalensis, Jungle Cat Felis
chaus, Asiatic Wildcat Felis
silvestris, and Rusty Spotted Cat Prionailurus rubiginosus.
Chital Axis axis, Sambar Rusa
unicolor, and Wild Boar Sus scrofa are the major prey species, followed by Nilgai Boselaphus tragocamelus,
Chinkara Gazella bennettii,
and Chousingha Tetracerus
quadricornis. The core area is highly protected,
while the buffer area of PTR holds 63 villages, most of it being a
human-dominated landscape.
We deployed a pair of automated
camera traps in 2 km2 grid network. A total of 476 and 338 stations
were active during the winter (survey period January 2019 to March 2019) and
summer (survey period May 2019 to June 2019) season of 2019 (Figure 1) as a
part of the study of monitoring released tiger and associated carnivore
populations in PTR. The camera trap stations were active for at least 30 days
on a 24-hour basis to ensure demographic closure (Kendall 1999), and traps were
checked at an interval of 5–7 days.
Results
A total of 476 (14,500 trap
nights) and 338 (11,719 trap nights) camera trap stations yielded 2,145 and 757
independent captures of Golden Jackals during winter and summer, respectively.
Among those, we found three independent captures of Golden Jackals from two
different locations, both in summer and winter. The photo-captured stations
were 5.5 km and 2.52 km away (linear distance) from the village during winter,
while in summer, the locations were 4.06 km and 500 m away from the nearby
village. The captured individuals (Image 1) had severe erythema, alopecia
(excessive hair/ fur loss) and infection (Bornstein et al. 1995; Nimmervoll et al. 2013).
Discussion and
Management Implication
The mite, Sarcoptes
scabiei, was intentionally introduced during the
early 20th century to reduce and control the Wolf and Coyote
population in the USA; it was first reported in wolves in Yellowstone National
Park in January 2007. Mange-infested animal death is common (Wydeven et al. 2003; Smith & Almberg
2007) and can spread quickly in the population (Almberg
et al. 2012). Therefore, identification of affected individuals is necessary
and proper treatment should be provided (Rowe et al. 2019). Mange-infested jackal has the potential to
infect other jackals and other species through direct and indirect contact (Alasaad et al. 2012; Valldeperes
et al. 2021). Affected individuals are genetically compromised, which may lead
to severe detrimental effects in population level (DeCandia
et al. 2021). Since transmission may occur from human to domestic animals or
domestic to wild animals; thus, the ‘One Health’ approach should be executed to
monitor human-domestic-wildlife health (Lerner & Berg 2015; Mackenzie &
Jeggo 2019).
A tiger had died in PTR due to
canine distemper virus (CDV; Shetty 2019). Thereafter, a vaccination drive was
implemented for domestic animals to restrict the transmission of CDV from
domestic animals to wild animals (Nayak et al. 2020). Taking clue from our
present observations, we strongly recommend that PTR must adopt a wildlife
disease surveillance strategy to reduce and restrict any pathogen transmission.
Routine monitoring of the health of domestic and wild population, where
feasible (including blood sample collection) and water quality analysis of
waterholes should be exercised. Usage of the thermal camera can play an
important role in identifying and monitoring the affected individuals, as they
emit severe heat loss signatures due to extensive alopecia.
For images
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