How zoos persuade animals to get the coronavirus vaccine. (M&Ms and ice cream help.)

7-min read

Unlike some humans, she didn't hesitate when it came time to get her shot. A keeper gave a verbal command, and she slinked up to the enclosure's fence, offering her hip for the jab. After a few warm-up pokes, a veterinarian injected the vaccine.

The Oakland Zoo was one of the first to vaccinate, but others are moving to do the same. The San Diego Zoo, the Denver Zoo, the St. Louis Zoo and the Smithsonian's National Zoo all have started vaccinating some animals, while the Nashville Zoo and Maryland Zoo were, as of press time, waiting on vaccine shipments from Zoetis.

Zoetis, a former Pfizer subsidiary, started by focusing its research on cats and dogs, but the U.S. Department of Agriculture "said that they didn't feel like cats and dogs were going to be a significant concern, so we parked that program," Mahesh Kumar, vice president of global biologics research and development at Zoetis, told me. The company then shifted toward making one for minks, whose pelts are a nearly $50 million industry in the United States.

But the Zoetis vaccine doesn't employ messenger RNA like the Pfizer or Moderna human vaccines. Instead, it uses a viral spike protein created in a lab. When injected, it triggers an immune response in the animal's body. It's a technique that Zoetis has used before to create vaccines for animals. In terms of efficacy, Kumar says, it's similar to the human vaccines.

The conditions of the felines have since drastically improved, but there is still the possibility of significant lasting impacts, as happens with people. Some "domestic dogs and cats have been shown to have cardiac disease, post-covid infection," the National Zoo's chief veterinarian, Donald Neiffer, told me. "Shera is not out of the woods yet. Whether or not she'll have problems in the future remains to be seen.

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