Ecologists working in and around the Desert National Park in Rajasthan have raised an alarm over mange, a contagious skin disease, in desert fox. On Thursday, they spotted six animals with the disease, cause by infestation of mite, in Fatehgarh area of Jaisalmer.
Earlier, Wildlife Institute of India researchers working in the area recorded a fox with mild mange disease symptoms in Sudashree ‘A’ enclosure. Three more foxes with mange-like symptoms have been reported from outside the sanctuary area in and around the field firing range in Pokhran.
This has put the wildlife officials on alert even as the officials of the animal husbandry department are managing mange in domestic camels in Jaisalmer.
“The field staff has been alerted to report any new occurrences and the animal with symptoms are being tracked so that in case of a need, appropriate intervention could be undertaken,” said a department note sent to Jaipur by the office of deputy conservator of forest (wildlife), Desert National Park.
Mange was first reported in the national park in 2006. After that, every year, the occurrence has increased. “In last one year, we have observed about 30-35% desert foxes with infection, 5-8% of them with severe infection (without hair on body) in which stage the animal loses its appetite for hunting and is always scratching body before finally dying due to maggot infection on deep scratches,” said ecologist Dr Sumit Dookia.
According to the state forest department’s wildlife census of 2019, there are about 1,000 foxes in Jaisalmer. “My guess about the infection in population is of around 30% in the above mentioned areas and this needs attention of the state authorities,” said Dookia.
He said major areas of infection are Sanvtha, Nedan, Sanavada, Lathi, Bhadariya, Odhaniya-Chacha, Dholiya (all in Pokhran block) and Sam, Sudasari, Ganga, Bidha, Jamra, Nimba, and few surrounding areas (all in Desert National Park).
Dookia, assistant professor in School of Environment Management at Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University in New Delhi, worked on a UGC-funded project on ecology of desert fox from 2012 to 2015. “During that time, my research scholar continuously followed many desert foxes with mange infection. The ultimate end is all of them died and at the same time village dogs were also seen with infection,” he said.
Dookia said that even though Indian fox is also present in same habitat, but none of them were found with this infection.
The note from DCF said the disease is self-limiting “so there’s hardly any chance of rapid mass spread in the wildlife population”. “As the disease does not take the shape of an epidemic threatening the fox population, at this point, this office does not find it necessary to make any clinical intervention,” the note added.
Principal secretary of forest department Sreya Guha said the animal husbandry department is dealing with the outbreak in domestic camels; forest department is on alert.
Bhawani Singh Rathore, additional director (health) in animal husbandry department said they were doing survey of the affected areas to provide treatment to camels and undertake control activities.