Next Steps for the Serengeti

While holiday lights shine here in Chicago, a group of zoo experts traveled a world away to illuminate the next steps in our effort to preserve the Serengeti ecosystem.

As you may know, Lincoln Park Zoo's Serengeti Health Initiative has vaccinated more than 1 million domestic dogs in villages around Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park. This labor-intensive effort protects local people and pets from the deadly effects of rabies. It also prevents dogs from spreading diseases like distemper to Serengeti predators such as lions and African wild dogs.

Serengeti residents line up for free dog vaccinations through the zoo-led Serengeti Health Initiative. The project, which has vaccinated more than 1 million dogs, protects the region's people, pets and predators such as lions from diseases like rabies and distemper.

For the resistance to remain effective, though, the immunizations need to be repeated every year. Vaccination isn’t a one-time job. And so a group of zoo experts traveled to Tanzania recently to help plan the future of this essential project.

In early December, zoo scientists Lisa Faust, Ph.D., Rachel Santymire, Ph.D., and Anna Czupryna attended a conference hosted by the Tanzanian Wildlife Research Institute. The gathering offered a vital opportunity to meet with Tanzanian and international colleagues, strengthening existing collaborations and exploring new ones. Anna also presented some of her research affiliated with the Serengeti Health Initiative, sharing how domestic-dog population trends have been affected by the vaccination campaign—a key question for long-term planning.

Serengeti Health Initiative research coordinator Anna Czupryna, Vice President of Conservation and Science Lisa Faust, Ph.D., and Rachel Santymire, Ph.D., director of the Davee Center for Epidemiology and Endocrinology, traveled to Africa to plan how Lincoln Park Zoo can continue to protect one of Africa's signature ecosystems.

Our scientists also met with partners from Washington State University to map out the year ahead. It was a fortuitous time for a meeting, as the World Health Organization has led a group of global partners in announcing a commitment to eliminate human rabies worldwide by 2030. The vaccination campaign in the Serengeti is an important building block in this larger campaign. Indeed, rabies has been virtually eliminated in the vaccination zone since the program began in 2003; it’s exciting to think of the Serengeti’s gains expanded worldwide.

In the last stage of the trip, the group oversaw the hard work of our ongoing vaccination efforts. Over two days our Tanzanian field team vaccinated 1,000 dogs in rural villages and the town of Bunda. Afterward, the zoo’s experts closed their journey with a trip to Serengeti National Park, where they saw the wildlife we’re working so hard to protect: lions, leopards, hyena, African wild dogs and many other species.

African lions are just one of the predators protected from disease by the zoo-led Serengeti Health Initiative.

As you’d expect, vaccinating tens of thousands of dogs every year across rural Africa isn’t easy, nor it is cheap. But it is a vital part of Lincoln Park Zoo’s work to save species a world away, even as we share their wonders in the heart of Chicago. You can learn more and support this important effort at www.lpzoo.org/conservation-science/projects/serengeti-health-initiative.

Kevin Bell

Learn More

Saving the Serengeti
See how a zoo-led vaccination program protects people, pets and predators such as lions in one of Africa's signature ecosystems. Lincoln Park Zoo scientist Anna Czupryna walks us through her research a world away.

Safeguarding an Ecosystem
By vaccinating domestic dogs against diseases such as rabies and canine distemper, Lincoln Park Zoo and its partners benefit the entire Serengeti ecosystem--including people, wildlife and domestic animals.