Lion Deaths Tied to Climate Change

According to a new study, large numbers of African lions perished from two diseases brought on by droughts and downpours aggravated by climate change. The diseases -- canine distemper virus (CDV) and tick-borne infestations of blood parasites called Babesia -- normally exist in isolation, but on two occasions converged to create lethal, synchronized infections that decimated about one-third of both the Serengeti lion population in 1994 and the Ngorongoro Crater lion population in 2001. The findings were published this week in the journal PLoS ONE.

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photo courtesy Lance and Erin, Creative Commons