Did you know that diseases like canine distemper virus can spread from domestic dogs to wildlife? It's a problem around the world, with infections in lions, tigers, hyenas, ferrets, North American river otters, raccoons, bears, and more. Two seal species, Baikal and Caspian seals, have also experienced distemper outbreaks. In January 2015, Joe Gaydos presented a paper titled Canine Distemper in Wildlife: How Private Practitioners Can Help at the North American Veterinary Conference in Orlando, Florida.
Proper vaccination of domestic animals can help contain outbreaks. A similar virus, Rinderpest, which circulated between wild and domestic animals in Africa, was eradicated after a massive campaign to vaccinate domestic livestock.
In 2008, SeaDoc published a paper investigating whether the Giardia and Cryptosporidium parasites in harbor seals in the Salish Sea were connected with canine parasites.
Video of lion with distemper: