Gastrointestinal Parasites in Animals and Birds of Sepahijala Zoological Park, Tripura

The present study was conducted to find out gastrointestinal parasitism of captive wild animals and birds of Sepahijala Zoological Park, Tripura, India. A total of 33 faecal samples were collected from captive wild animals and birds and examined for the presence of parasite eggs/ova. The present study revealed 57.58% of captive animals and birds were found to harbour different parasite eggs/ ova. The prevalence of different gastrointestinal parasitism in wild captive carnivores, herbivores and omnivore were found to be 46.67%, 77.78% and 55.56% respectively. Among the helminths, nematodes like strongyles, Trichuris, Strongyloides, Toxocara cati, Ascaridia and Capillaria, trematodes like amphistomes and Paragonimus and cestodes like Diphyllobothrium latum were observed. Eimeria spp. was the only protozoan parasite detected during the present study. This indicates that an undetermined number of wild animals may be parasitized without showing any clinical signs of infection.