She stopped nursing and playing. Within five days, the elephant, Kumari, was dead. We did a full necropsy, and it was still a mystery. Kumari's death troubled zookeepers and wildlife conservationists. The population of Asian elephants has plummeted, and they are an endangered species.
Every calf born in captivity is important for perpetuating the species.
Kumari was the first Asian elephant born at the National Zoo. Richman, now a doctoral student at the School of Medicine, concludes that a herpes virus killed Kumari, and was responsible for several earlier unexplained elephant deaths in the United States and Canada. She and her colleagues have also determined that herpes was transmitted across species, from African to Asian elephants. Richman and Hopkins molecular virologist Gary Hayward report their findings in the February 19 Science. It is going to have far-reaching implications for the protection of these animals.