In 2003 a young Amur tiger, seeming disoriented, wandered into a Russian village on the Chinese border. Wildlife Conservation Society scientists anesthetized the tiger and determined that she had canine distemper—the first case confirmed in a wild tiger. The feline patient zero died six weeks later.

Since then, canine distemper, an untreatable virus that can infect many types of carnivores, has spread among Amur tigers across the subspecies’ range in Russia’s far east. An exhaustive new analysis suggests that if the virus runs its course, it could wipe out a key population of these endangered cats. But this risk can be lessened, the researchers found, by vaccinating the tigers. Read more…

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