Dog Disease Infecting Tigers, Making Them Fearless
The big cat is catching canine distemper from domestic dogs, experts say.
Forced into increasingly smaller habitats, tigers are sharing more space with villagers and their dogs, many of which carry canine distemper virus (CDV), an aggressive, sometimes fatal disease that is usually found in dogs but is also carried by other small mammals.
The virus has infected 15 percent of the 400-some Siberian tigers in the Russian Far East, and has killed at least three, according to Wildlife Vets International (WVI), a U.K.-based conservation organization. (Related blog: "Protecting Russia's Last Siberian Tigers.")
Based on odd tiger behavior on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, scientists suspect the virus is a problem there and in other countries. Many of these potentially CDV-infected tigers seem to be unfazed by people,
