Earlier in the season we joined forces with the Serengeti Health Initiative team to vaccinate dogs for rabies, distemper and parvovirus in Nangale village. The line was long, the sun was hot and there were lots of nervous puppies around. By the end of the day we vaccinated 350 dogs!

Anna and Chunde (at right) joined up with the Serengeti Health Initiative team for vaccination day.

Chunde and I helped with registration and vaccinations, all while keeping our eyes open for our study dogs. We marked every vaccinated dog with a green collar so we could later identify who has and who has not been vaccinated. The bright green collars are visible and particularly helpful if vaccination certificates get misplaced.

Anna vaccinates a dog. By inoculating domestic dogs in the Serengeti against rabies and canine distemper, the zoo-lead campaign protects people, pets and predators such as lions.

Kids hold the dogs they've brought to be vaccinated. Vaccination day has become an anticipated event for people in the region.

Vaccination day is a very important aspect of my research because I want to determine if domestic dog survival and life expectancy differs between dogs living in vaccination villages and dogs living in non-vaccination villages. Additionally, I’m interested in looking at differences within the vaccination villages, because not all vaccination village dogs make it to vaccination day. Remember, these dogs are free roaming and therefore sometimes hard to catch…especially if they sense they’re going to get a shot.

Anna Czupryna

Anna Czupryna is a research associate with the Alexander Center for Applied Population Biology. She's currently in the Serengeti studying how the zoo-led vaccination campaign impacts the population dynamics of the regions domestic dogs.