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Covid-19: Govt restricts movement of people around national parks

ByJayashree Nandi
Apr 06, 2020 04:47 PM IST

The Union ministry of environment, forest and climate change (MoEFCC) issued an advisory on Monday to restrict the movement of people around national parks, sanctuaries

The Union ministry of environment, forest and climate change (MoEFCC) issued an advisory on Monday to restrict the movement of people around national parks, sanctuaries and tiger reserves across the country after a Malayan tiger tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, which causes the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), at Bronx Zoo in New York.

In an advisory to all chief wildlife wardens and state governments, the MoEFCC said there are possibilities of the viral outbreak in tiger reserves and national parks. The government anyway has imposed a three-week, nationwide lockdown, which began on March 25, to stop the spread of the coronavirus disease.

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The advisory urged the following precautions such as highlighting immediate preventive steps to be taken to stop the spread of Covid-19 among wildlife, reducing human-wildlife interface, setting up of a task force of veterinary doctors, biologists, and field managers, creating a 24x7 reporting mechanism, enhancing disease surveillance and reporting action taken to ministry.

“Human activities such as consumption of wild meat, wildlife trade, habitat change, and fragmentation are leading to increasing contact between people and wildlife. Multiple zoonotic diseases have emerged resulting in transmissions between wildlife, domestic animals and people. Covid-19 is, perhaps, the most destructive example … Interspecies transmission is extremely worrisome --- whether it be from pangolins, bats, civets or tigers. Mammals are vulnerable but we don’t know enough as of now,” said Krithi Karanth, chief conservation scientist at the Centre for Wildlife Studies and adjunct associate professor, Duke University, North Carolina, USA.

The tiger at the Bronx Zoo is believed to be the first known infection in an animal in the US or a tiger anywhere, the authorities said on Sunday.

The four-year-old tiger named Nadia – and six other tigers and lions that have also taken ill – are believed to have been infected by a zoo employee who wasn’t yet showing symptoms, the zoo authorities said. The first animal started showing symptoms on 27 March, and all were doing well and expected to recover, they added. The Bronx Zoo has been closed to the public since 16 March amid the Covid-19 outbreak.

(with agency inputs)

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