The government of Namibia has genuine concerns about how to best manage its animals, said scientist Michael J. Kinsel of the Zoological Pathology Program at the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine. These concerns are very important for the international wildlife community.

Namibia sought help from Chicagos Brookfield Zoo and the UI in 1994. A collaborative program, which primarily focuses on the 8,600-square-mile Etosha National Park, has led to an unprecedented database of demographics, habitats, diseases, genetics and reproductive issues related to the lion (Panthera leo).

Two years ago, the researchers reported that all of Africas lions south of the equator are of the same sub-species, said Michael B. Briggs of the Chicago Zoological Society at the Brookfield Zoo. We found regional differences, displayed in their adaptation to their environment, but it was clear from a genetic standpoint that it wouldnt hurt to move animals from one place to another, he said. Various samples (tissue, blood, serum, parasites, sperm, etc.) have been studied at the zoo and at the UI Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory in Urbana. The samples are archived at the zoo.

Now Kinsel and Briggs are working with the Namibian Carnivore Monitoring Program, a collection of government and non-government agencies and interested individuals, to obtain the same information for leopards (Panthera pardus) and cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus).

A big question is what diseases affect leopards, said Kinsel, whose UI office is at Loyola University near the zoo. If you search the literature, you will come up with very little. Nor do we know much about the genetics of leopards. They
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Contact: Jim Barlow
b-james3@uiuc.edu
217-333-5802
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
28-Sep-2001