Others, however, appear to have been lured out for safari hunters to shoot. Bovine TB has spread through the park more quickly than the perennial dry season fires. The disease has shown up in as many as 70 percent of buffalo in herds grazing the southern regions of the park, while northern herds may have only one in 100 infected. The outbreak poses no direct threat to humans, according to the park management. And it could then move to people who drink unpasteurized milk from infected cows.
Farmers are nervous.
Buffalo TB has proven difficult to detect in living animals. He and David Wildt, also of CRC, have done research at Kruger and elsewhere in South Africa since the early '80s, where they also developed safe anesthesia techniques for wild giraffes and other large mammals, with direct benefits to zoo veterinarians back in the States as well. Bovine TB potentially poses a threat to other wildlife too. Lions, a cheetah and a leopard, a troop of baboons, and a large number of kudu have acquired the disease, either from eating infected meat or drinking contaminated water. Grobler estimates that about ten percent of Kruger's lions are infected.