Sample collection for our pilot study at the Houston Zoo was a team effort! This required the collaboration of the project coordinators, Alison, Tierra, Christine, and Kirsten, with the elephant keeper team and the veterinary team at the Houston Zoo, where nine elephants contributed to the study twice a week for 5 weeks.
On each collection day, the elephant keepers collected whole blood, trunk washes, oral swabs, feces, chewed hay, and chewed browse from each elephant. The samples were then handed off to the veterinary team, who indexed and stored the samples until sample processing could begin.
Thank you to the Houston Zoo elephant herd for participating in our study!
Elephant endotheliotropic herpes virus hemorrhagic disease (EEHV-HD) is the leading cause of death of young Asian elephants in North America and Europe, and suspected to occur in Myanmar. We will validate EEHV testing methods for feces and chewed plants, samples that can be easily collected, to enable a longitudinal study of EEHV epidemiology in captive and wild elephant herds in Myanmar. The ultimate goal is to identify management-related mitigation strategies for this devastating disease.
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