March 30, 2020
We Can't Blame the Coronavirus on an Innocent Animal.
Scientists all over the world are desperately trying to tie the source of the Coronavirus to one of the exotic animals from the dreaded Wuhan wet markets. But regardless of which poor animal this pathogen first inhabited, it’s not hard to see that the real culprit of this unprecedented outbreak is indeed - us.
Sure, the Coronavirus may have been cohabiting harmlessly with a wolf cub, a turtle or even a bat as it is widely speculated – but the truth of the matter is, that this contagion would never have occurred if we humans weren’t so preoccupied with adapting everything to suit our own purposes. From what I can deduct in the case of COVID-19, an unsuspecting wild animal was harbouring a pathogen, which was otherwise harmless to it. Then a form of cross-mutation occurred when the animal was consumed by some kind of adrenalin junky carnivore. Clearly unsatisfied with the regular meat options on the menu, he or she decided to imbibe an exotic animal that was undoubtedly trafficked from the wild, which was by no means fit for human consumption. The very idea makes me quite sick. And that is precisely what happened: man eats pathogen – pathogen mutates into deadly highly contagious virus, and then spreads across the entire globe reminding us all, that we just can’t continue like this.
As Sonia Shuh describes, ‘It began with the Neolithic revolution, when we first cleared wildlife habitat to make way for crops and yoked wild animals into servitude. The “deadly gifts” we received from our “animal friends,” as Jared Diamond put it, include measles and tuberculosis, from cows; pertussis from pigs; and influenza from ducks.’
But there is good news in all of this. We don’t have to allow these disease-causing microbes to emerge at all. ‘We can protect wildlife habitat, so that animal microbes stay in their bodies and don’t cross over into ours, an approach championed by the “One Health” movement, among others.’
The above quotes are from: ‘Think Exotic Animals Are to Blame for the Coronavirus? Think Again.’ Click here to read the full article.
Written for Flying Fox Supporters with excerpts from Sonia Shuh.
