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A new study has revealed that the single greatest cause of death in wild giant pandas is a parasitic worm.
London, Dec 8 : A new study has revealed that the single greatest cause of death in wild giant pandas is a parasitic worm.
The study was done by Peter Daszak, executive director of the Consortium for Conservation Medicine in New York, US, with colleagues in China.
After going through post-mortem records of wild pandas between 1971 and 2006, the research team found that from 1990 onwards, the proportion of deaths that were linked to a parasitic disease rose from less than 10% to 50%.
The disease, visceral larval migrans, causes haemorrhaging of the liver, intestine, and lungs, and the post-mortems suggest it was caused by a parasitic worm called Baylisascaris schroederi.
"I'm confident that right now, for pandas in the wild, this is the most significant cause of death," said Daszak.
Though half of post mortems of pandas from 2001 to 2005 showed symptoms of visceral larval migrans, the researchers are confident in their statistics and say the trend is classic of a population that is becoming denser and therefore more vulnerable to disease.
Since the 1970s, the pandas' habitat has been halved by deforestation. At the same time, overall panda numbers have increased slightly. As a result, the usually solitary animals have been brought closer together, which make for ideal conditions for a new disease to emerge.
"An emerging disease in an animal that is on the brink of extinction is a serious issue," Daszak told New Scientist.
But why the panda parasite has become so deadly in recent years and the extent of its deadly rampage, remains a mystery.
"It should take just weeks to identify the parasite from its DNA, but it could take years to find out why the parasite has become so deadly," said Daszak.
But the research team believes that another animal, which has been brought closer to pandas by the devastation of the forest, most likely carries the emerging panda parasite. They believe the carrier could be a domestic animal or a small carnivore such as fox that tends to live around humans.
ANI
