OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to identify Echinococcus species by morphological and molecular means.
METHODS: A dead gray wolf (Canis lupus) was found near Erzurum province and brought to the parasitology laboratory. Sedimentation and counting technique (SCT) and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis were conducted.
RESULTS: The SCT implications indicated that the wolf had a substantial worm burden (62,720 and 49,280 parasites) due to a co-infection of E. granulosus s.l. and E. multilocularis. Genus/species-specific PCR was used to analyze DNA extracted from adult worms and confirmed as E. granulosus s.s. and E. multilocularis, utilizing COI and 12S rRNA gene sequence analysis, respectively.
CONCLUSIONS: This report presents the first co-detection of E. granulosus s.s. and E. multilocularis in a gray wolf found in an urban area in a highly endemic area for human echinococcosis in northeastern Turkey. The results emphasize that AE is not only a problem of rural areas, but also occurs in urban areas, which may pose a threat to public health. Therefore, surveillance in urban areas is crucial. The need to develop new control strategies for domestic and wildlife in the study area is also highlighted.

Livestock herding is a vital practice in Balochistan, contributing to the economy and culture. The livestock sector is significant in Balochistan, providing 20% of the national stock. Large predators and their prey species, including livestock, have coexisted in these mountainous landscapes for centuries. The aim of the present research is to investigate the impacts of livestock depredation by large predators on livelihoods and predator conservation in two districts of Balochistan, Pakistan. A human-carnivore conflict survey was conducted from July to September 2019, collecting data from 311 residents in a selected study area. Large predators in the study area preyed on a total of 876 livestock during a one-year period, including 560 goats, 292 sheep, 19 cows, and 5 donkeys. The gray wolf is the leading predator, responsible for 66.3% of livestock depredation, followed by the caracal (24.3%), Asiatic jackal (8.9%), and striped hyena (0.6%). The total economic loss was USD 78,694. Overall, 80% of respondents had a negative perception of wolves compared to 24.4% for caracals. Only 20.6% of respondents knew about the importance of conserving carnivores. Livestock depredation by carnivores in the study area created a negative perception of these animals among people. There is a lack of awareness about the importance of conserving carnivore species and their role in the ecosystem. This lack of understanding has ultimately led to detrimental effects on predator populations. It is imperative to raise awareness among people about the ecological significance of carnivores through community meetings, seminars in educational institutions, and providing basic education to herders about effective livestock guarding practices.

Apicomplexan Sarcocystis and Trichinella nematodes are food-borne parasites whose life cycle is carried-out in various wildlife and domestic animals. The gray wolf (Canis lupus) is an apex predator acting as an ecosystem engineer. This study aimed to identify the species of Sarcocystis and Trichinella found in the muscles of gray wolves in Lithuania. During the 2017-2022 period, diaphragm, heart, and hind leg samples of 15 animals were examined. Microscopical analysis showed the presence of two types of Sarcocystis parasites in 26.7% of the analyzed muscle samples. Based on the sequencing of five loci, nuclear 18S rDNA, 28S rDNA, ITS1, mitochondrial cox1, and apicoplast rpoB, S. arctica, and S. svanai were identified. The current work presents the first report of S. svanai in gray wolf. Phylogenetically, S. svanai clustered together with S. lutrae, infecting various carnivorans, and S. arctica was most closely related to S. felis from domestic cats. Trichinella spp. were found in 12 gray wolves (80%). For the first time, Trichinella species were molecularly identified in gray wolves from Lithuania. Trichinella britovi was confirmed in all of the isolated Trichinella larvae using a multiplex PCR. Gray wolves in Lithuania may serve as a major source of zoonotic pathogens due to the presence of these parasites.

Among the three main divergent lineages of gray wolf (Canis lupus), the Holarctic lineage is the most widespread and best studied, particularly in North America and Europe. Less is known about Tibetan (also called Himalayan) and Indian wolf lineages in southern Asia, especially in areas surrounding Pakistan where all three lineages are thought to meet. Given the endangered status of the Indian wolf in neighboring India and unclear southwestern boundary of the Tibetan wolf range, we conducted mitochondrial and genome-wide sequencing of wolves from Pakistan and Kyrgyzstan. Sequences of the mitochondrial D-loop region of 81 wolves from Pakistan indicated contact zones between Holarctic and Indian lineages across the northern and western mountains of Pakistan. Reduced-representation genome sequencing of eight wolves indicated an east-to-west cline of Indian to Holarctic ancestry, consistent with a contact zone between these two lineages in Pakistan. The western boundary of the Tibetan lineage corresponded to the Ladakh region of India\'s Himalayas with a narrow zone of admixture spanning this boundary from the Karakoram Mountains of northern Pakistan into Ladakh, India. Our results highlight the conservation significance of Pakistan\'s wolf populations, especially the remaining populations in Sindh and Southern Punjab that represent the highly endangered Indian lineage.

Over the past 30 years, the gray wolf population has recovered in France, initially to wolves from Italy passing through the Alps. The population is carefully monitored, but little information is available on their helminth fauna, which includes parasites of public health importance: Echinococcus multilocularis and Echinococcus granulosus sensu lato. Capitalizing on the availability of 911 fecal samples collected for the noninvasive genetic monitoring of French wolf populations, along with the intestines from 15 dead wolves, the presence of Echinococcus species among others helminth species was evaluated in French wolves. A copro-PCR approach amplifying a large spectrum of parasites was used for fecal samples while intestines were analyzed using SCT. The fecal occurrences of E. granulosus sensu stricto (2.4%) and E. multilocularis (0.3%), and indeedother parasitic species, are similar to those of other European wolf populations including Taenia hydatigena (7.2%), Taenia krabbei (2.4%), Uncinaria stenocephala (2.4%), Mesocestoides litteratus (1.9%), Taenia ovis (0.3%), Taenia multiceps (0.1%), and Toxascaris leonina (0.1%). The three most abundant species were also found in the intestines. Infections by E. granulosus sensu stricto are in accordance with the overlap of wolf pack areas and sheep breeding pastoral units. However, the wolf does not appear to play a significant role in the lifecycle of E. granulosus sensu stricto. The availability of this opportunistic fecal sampling of wolves in southeastern France means that they can be used as sentinels for the surveillance of E. multilocularis in the context of its southward expansion observed in recent years.

This paper introduces a simple strategy for diagnosing disease, which is called improved gray wolf optimization (IGWO) and ensemble classification. The proposed strategy consists of two sequential phases, which are; (i) Feature Selection Phase (FSP) and (ii) Ensemble Classification Phase (ECP). During the former, the most effective features for diagnosing disease are selected, while during the latter, the actual diagnosis takes place depending on voting of five different classifiers. The main contribution of this paper is a suggested modification for the traditional Gray Wolf Optimization (GWO), which is called Improved Gray Wolf Optimization (IGWO). As an optimization technique, the proposed IGWO is employed in the FSP for selecting the effective features. For evaluating, IGWO has been implemented using recent feature selection techniques as well as the proposed method. To accomplish the classification phase; ensemble classification has been used which uses several classification techniques such as; Naïve Bayes (NB), Support Vector Machines (SVM), Deep Neural Network (DNN), Decision Tree (DT), and K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN). Ensemble classification integrate several classifiers for improving prediction performance. Experimental results have shown that employing IGWO promotes the performance of the diagnosing strategy of different diseases in terms of precision, recall, and accuracy.

Cystic echinococcosis (CE) is an important zoonotic diseases caused by larval form of Echinococcus granulosus sensu lato. The material of this study was the gray wolf (Canis lupus), which was found dead in the rural area of Bingol province of Turkey. The animal was brought to Veterinary Faculty for necropsy and many of adult Echinococcus spp. obtained. A total of 9 whole adult worms were morphologically examined under the microscope, gDNA was isolated from individual samples, a partial mt-CO1 gene fragment (875 bp) was amplified with PCR and sequenced. According to the phylogenetic analysis, six worms were characterized as E. equinus, while three were reported as E. canadensis (G6/7). It was found that the haplotypes of both species were similar to previously published haplotypes. This is the first report in which E. equinus and E. canadensis (G6/7) adult parasites were detected together in a gray wolf\'s intestine. The findings are important in that it draws attention to the importance of wild cycle in the spread of CE.

Several viruses can infect wild carnivores but their impact on wildlife health is poorly understood. We investigated the presence, diversity and distribution of various DNA viruses in 303 wolves inhabiting a vast area of the Northwest Territories, Canada, over a period of 13 years. We found evidence for the presence of canine bufavirus (CBuV, 42.6%), canine parvovirus 2 (CPV-2, 34.0%), canine bocavirus 2 (CBoV-2, 5.0%), cachavirus (CachaV-1, 2.6%), canine adenovirus 1 (CAdV-1, 1%) and minute virus of canines (MVC, 0.3%). To our knowledge, this is the first detection of CBoV-2, MVC and CachV-1 in wild animals. We also demonstrate that CBuV and CachaV-1 were already circulating among wild animals at least 11 and 10 years, respectively, before their discoveries. Although CBuV prevalence was higher, CPV-2 was the most prevalent virus among juveniles, while CBuV infection was associated with poor nutrition conditions. Even if its prevalence was low, CachaV-1 had the highest multiple infection rate (87.5%). CadV-1 and MVC sequences were highly identical to reference strains, but we observed a high diversity among the other viruses and detected three new variants. One CPV-2 variant and one CBuV variant were endemic since the beginning of the 2000s in the entire investigated region, whereas one CBuV variant and two CBoV-2 variants were found in a more restricted area over multiple years and CachaV-1 was found only in one region. Two CPV-2 variants and one CachaV-1 variant were observed only once, indicating sporadic introductions or limited circulation. Different patterns of endemicity might indicate that viruses were introduced in the wolf population at different timepoints and that mixing between wolf packs may not be constant. Different epidemiological behaviors depend on viral factors like infectivity, transmission routes, pathogenicity and tissue-tropism, and on host factors like proximity to densely populated areas, carnivory and pack density and mixing.

The gray wolf (Canis lupus) is among the few large carnivores that survived the Late Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions. Thanks to their complex history of admixture and extensive geographic range, the number of gray wolf subspecies and their phylogenetic relationships remain poorly understood. Here, we perform whole-genome sequencing of a gray wolf collected from peninsular India that was phenotypically distinct from gray wolves outside India. Genomic analyses reveal that the Indian gray wolf is an evolutionarily distinct lineage that diverged from other extant gray wolf lineages ∼110 thousand years ago. Demographic analyses suggest that the Indian wolf population declined continuously decline since separating from other gray wolves and, today, has exceptionally low genetic diversity. We also find evidence for pervasive and mosaic gene flow between the Indian wolf and African canids including African wolf, Ethiopian wolf, and African wild dog despite their current geographical separation. Our results support the hypothesis that the Indian subcontinent was a Pleistocene refugium and center of diversification and further highlight the complex history of gene flow that characterized the evolution of gray wolves.

A 7-year-old male gray wolf was found dead at a zoo during exhibition. To determine the cause of death, histological and gross necropsy diagnoses and a molecular analysis were performed. The gross necropsy revealed a swollen abdomen, hemorrhagic exudates around the mouth, splenomegaly, a discolored liver, a congested kidney, hemorrhagic ascites, and dark gray-colored membranes and air bubbles in the fundus of the stomach. Rod-shaped bacteria were found in the liver parenchyma and hemorrhagic ascites using Giemsa staining. The nucleotide sequencing of the cultured bacteria identified the causative agent as Plesiomonas shigelloides, which is rarely responsible for systemic infections. This study describes a rare case and the first reported systemic gastrointestinal infection due to P. shigelloides in a zoo animal.