When zoologists studied the life of African lions in the Botswana area, they found an unexpected scene: when a male lion and a female lion successfully preyed on a zebra, the female lion circled the zebra's remains a few times as usual, and then began to call her children to come to dinner. However, many of its children did not come here.
Later, zoologists found the three little lions in a haystack, but they are now extremely stunted, with sparse hair, and a thin and tired body. Yet they were still so healthy a few weeks ago, and after only a few weeks, they were already weak like this.
After a simple examination, it was found that the little lions were all suffering from feline AIDS. They are not the only population infected with feline AIDS, in the African land, many lion populations have been found to be infected with feline AIDS individuals, but few individuals will develop the disease.
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FIV virus is the cat immunodeficiency virus, and human AIDS, infected with the virus of felines will suffer from cat acquired immunodeficiency, but unlike humans, feline AIDS is not only transmitted through sexual behavior, but mainly rely on feline fights, as well as the virus containing saliva licking wound transmission, the study is not yet able to know whether lions can transmit the virus to their cubs through mother and baby.
Lion mortality rates with feline AIDS are actually not as high as human AIDS, even if they carry the virus, many individuals will not get sick, but only carry it for life. Only once the disease occurs, the animal's physical function will decline, and it will also cause the pregnancy rate of the lioness to decline, and the mortality rate of the cubs will increase, which is very unfavorable to the development of the lion population.
Although feline AIDS threatens the development of lion populations, studies have found that the virus is only useful for felines, that is, leopards, tigers and domestic cats will be attacked by the virus. Most individuals do not develop symptoms after contracting the virus, but are carriers for life and survive to a normal lifespan. Only domestic cats will show traits and develop the disease.
The reason for this is that scientists believe that this is because feline AIDS has been prevalent in lions for many years, even tens of thousands of years, among which the more sensitive organisms to feline AIDS have been eliminated, and the remaining individuals almost all contain antibodies to feline AIDS, and this antibody may be passed on to future generations.
It's just that cats have a short history of feline AIDS, so they will get sick, but feline AIDS does not infect humans, so even if domestic cats are infected with feline AIDS, they do not have to abandon it, after all, abandonment will cause them to infect more wild cats.
The fact that other animals eat lion carcasses does not cause the virus to spread, for example, when spotted hyenas and vultures eat the remains of lions, the virus does not transfer from lions to spotted hyenas and vultures.
The reason for this is that if the virus wants to infect an organism, it needs to bind to the receptor protein on the surface of the biological cell, the receptor protein is equivalent to a lock, and only the surface properties of the virus can just open the lock to enter the inside of the cell and infect the organism.
However, organisms with smaller genetic similarities, that is, organisms that are more distantly related, are less likely to have the same receptor, so it is difficult for the virus to infect other organisms. For example, human smallpox can only infect humans, so we can completely eliminate smallpox.
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Although many lions carry feline AIDS, they rarely develop the disease. In addition, scientists have now developed a vaccine to prevent FES, and if necessary, these lions can be vaccinated to prevent it.
In fact, the real threat to lions is not feline AIDS, but tuberculosis and canine distemper, etc. In the wild, lions will come into contact with many wild animals, most of which are not vaccinated, so that some viruses will be transferred from other animals to lions.
Coupled with the fact that lions belong to the social population, once one of them is infected, it can spread rapidly in the population. For example, in 1994, the canine distemper virus circulating in lion populations caused the death of more than 1,000 lions.
This also means that when we protect wild animals, we must not only protect their habitats and ban poaching, but also eliminate infectious diseases that circulate in the population. Once infectious diseases cause the number of individual lion populations to decline, the genetic diversity of the surviving species will be greatly reduced, eventually exacerbating the occurrence of extinction.