SEATTLE — COVID-19 vaccines have at last landed in Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo, which recently joined dozens of other zoos across the country in immunizing their highest-risk animals against the coronavirus.
The zoo, located in Seattle’s Phinney Ridge, announced Tuesday that 40 Woodland Park animals have received their first dose of COVID vaccine over the past few weeks, including gorillas, orangutans, lions, tigers, snow leopards, otters, maned wolves, an Arctic fox and other monkeys.
“Although the number of human COVID-19 cases has reduced in recent weeks, recent reports show that animals in zoos are still susceptible to the virus,” Dr. Tim Storms, the zoo’s director of animal health, said in a statement. “Keeping our animals safe and healthy remains our top priority, so it’s still essential to vaccinate to prevent infections.”
COVID vaccinations for zoo animals arrive in vials containing 10 doses, which are good for only 24 hours after they’ve been opened, so the zoo has had to vaccinate animals in batches, Storms said.
Each animal receives the same dosage regardless of size, he added, though the young gorillas will be vaccinated after their mother for logistical reasons.
In all, 50 Woodland Park animals will receive shots, so the final 10 will be vaccinated next month. Everyone also needs a second dose, which they’ll get three weeks after their first.
“All animals that we have vaccinated are doing great,” Storms said. “To date, we have not seen any adverse effects.”
Other zoos have reported side effects to the vaccine, including lethargy or coughing, he said.
The vaccine for animals was created by Zoetis, a company headquartered in New Jersey that produces medicines and vaccines for pets and livestock, and is designed specifically for zoo animals, according to the statement.
The company has donated more than 11,000 doses to 70 zoos and more than a dozen conservatories and other organizations across the country.
Woodland Park had been on the company’s waiting list for months and just recently received its allotment of shots, the zoo said.
While the zoo was waiting, caretakers prepared their animals for vaccination efforts by “training to allow stress-free injections,” according to the statement.
Gorillas and orangutans, for example, were trained to press their shoulder against the bars in their enclosure to receive the shot, the zoo said. In a video clip, one orangutan, Godek, is shown getting his first dose. He easily offers up his arm before opening his mouth for a food reward.
In another clip, an Arctic fox gets vaccinated by squeezing into a smaller space where caretakers can safely inject the shot by hand, the zoo said.
Animals have also been trained to participate in routine exams, other vaccinations, blood collections, ultrasounds and physical rehabilitation techniques as part of the zoo’s medical behavior training program, according to the statement.
“Training our animals for these behaviors can dramatically reduce stress and risk by helping them become more comfortable with medical procedures,” Nancy Hawkes, Woodland Park’s director of animal care, said in the statement.
Because more data is needed around animal COVID vaccines, the shots remain “experimental,” the zoo said, though Storms noted that the “benefits of protecting our susceptible animal species far outweigh the challenges of vaccinating them.”
None of Woodland Park’s animals has become sick with the virus while at the zoo, though last year one of its new tigers, Azul, had become one of the first animals in the world to be diagnosed with COVID when she was living at New York’s Bronx Zoo.
Zoos in other parts of the country have reported small outbreaks — including a group of lions and tigers at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., and eight gorillas at a zoo in Atlanta.
Last fall, three snow leopards at a Nebraska zoo died due to complications from the virus.
