Wildlife Exploitation May Increase the Risk of the Next Pandemic
March 3rd is commemorated as the World Wildlife Day. The international day is the adoption of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) on the planet to raise awareness and benefits fauna and flora in 1973, on the same day. The United Nations General Assembly decided to proclaim this day as the World Wildlife Day.
This year, the World Wildlife Day will celebrate forest-based livelihoods and seek to promote forest and forest wildlife management models and practices that accommodate both human well-being and the long-term conservation of forests, forest-dwelling species of wild fauna and flora and the ecosystems they sustain. The theme goes in parallel with the Sustainable Development Goals 1, 12, 13 and 15, and their wide-ranging commitments to alleviating poverty, ensuring sustainable use of resources, tackling climate change and conserving life on land.
The big day is usually celebrated in the United Nations’s Headquarters in New York. But the Covid-19 pandemic has hit differently this year, causing the celebration to go virtual. This year-long pandemic has been presumed to be a zoonotic viral disease spread by bats, from the Wuhan market. As WHO claims, over a hundred years, mankind has found around 200 types of zoonotic diseases caused by wild animals transmitted to humans.
How does zoonotic virus spread to humans?
The starting point of zoonotic viral transmission presumably comes from the decreasing population of wild and endangered faunas, caused by hunting, poaching, and habitat loss. This transmission risk is a direct consequence of our actions involving wildlife. Poaching and wildlife trade, in addition to wild animal extinction, also increase the likelihood of zoonotic diseases.
Domesticated or wild animals are the host of many pathogens causing infectious diseases, which include viruses, bacteria, or parasites. For instance, bats have various zoonotic viruses: SARS, Nipah, Marburg, and Ebola. Normally, these viruses reside in their bodies and ecosystems without harming humans. As Peter Alagona stated in The Conversation, people raise the risk of transmission between species when they encroach on bats’ habitats or harvest bats for medicine or food.
Bats host many viruses and pathogens without getting sick. Genetic mutations that boost their immune systems may help. But Alagona stated that a better answer is: bats are the only mammals that fly. According to many scientists, when bats fly, they generate so much internal heat that their bodies are able to fight off the germs they carry. This is known as the “flight as fever hypothesis.”
Human’s health depends on environmental health
If you think that exterminating animals would prevent zoonotic diseases, then you’re missing the point. This very human-centrist way of avoiding viruses may interfere with the animal population. When their population decreases, animals tend to move from one pack to another. In fact, this intercommunity interaction may speed up virus transmission.
Moreover, animals experience habitat loss that make them go into human residential areas. This close contact means accelerating the chance to be exposed to viruses the animals may have. The more humans chopping off forest for agriculture or infrastructure development, the greater chance humans contracted nasty viruses.
Poaching and wildlife trade would still exist while the demand rises. In 2020, World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Indonesia noted around 60 cases of wildlife poaching and trades for the past five years. Wildlife trade consists of breathing and inanimate specimens, even derivative products from wild animals. This includes the hunting of tiger skin and bones, primate babies, exotic birds, and rhino horns.
Lemurs and orangutan babies are being hunted as pets. Sometimes we can still see macaques in the abusive topeng monyet (dancing monkey) attraction; they’re victims of poaching and kept in small cages. Before rhinos are considered to be critically endangered, they were hunted for their horns for their purported healing powers. In fact, rhino horns are made from keratin, the same substance as our hair and nails.
As long as we’re happy with domesticated animals such as cats, dogs and rabbits, there’s no need for keeping wild exotic animals. Let them roam in their own habitat, in the conservation area, with their pack. That can also protect us from contracting zoonotic viruses.
It’s like what the lead author Christine Kreuder Johnson, director of the EpiCenter for Disease Dynamics at the One Health Institute had said in The Guardian: we need to be really attentive to how we interact with wildlife and the activities that bring humans and wildlife together. We obviously don’t want pandemics of this scale. We need to find ways to co-exist safely with wildlife, as they have no shortages of viruses to give us.
References
Alagona, P. (2020, April 8). Jangan salahkan kelelawar atas merebaknya coronavirus. Retrieved from The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/jangan-salahkan-kelelawar-atas-merebaknya-coronavirus-135204
Aninta, S. G. (2020, April 18). Semakin banyak kita membabat hutan, semakin tinggi risiko muncul penyakit baru bagi manusia. Retrieved from The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/semakin-banyak-kita-membabat-hutan-semakin-tinggi-risiko-muncul-penyakit-baru-bagi-manusia-135041
Gunawan, J. (2020, December 18). WWF Catat 60-an Kasus Perdagangan Satwa Liar di Sumbagteng. Retrieved from Gatra.com: https://www.gatra.com/detail/news/498608/hukum/wwf-catat-60-an-kasus-perdagangan-satwa-liar-di-sumbagteng
Haider, N., & et., a. (2020). COVID-19-Zoonosis or Emerging Infectious Disease? frontiers in Public Health, 1–8.
Mackenzie, J. S., & Smith, D. W. (2020). COVID-19: a novel zoonotic disease caused by a coronavirus from China: what we know and what we don’t. Microbiology Australia, 45–50.
Mandal, A. (2020, April 8). Infectious diseases from animals likely to cause further pandemics. Retrieved from News Medical: https://www.news-medical.net/news/20200408/Infectious-diseases-from-animals-likely-to-cause-further-pandemics.aspx
Marpaung, A., & Ma’rup, M. (2021, March 1). World Wildlife Day 2021: Hutan, Mata Pencaharian, dan Keberlanjutan . Retrieved from Greeners.co: https://www.greeners.co/berita/world-wildlife-day-2021/
O’Shea, T. J., Cryan, P. M., Cunningham, A. A., Fooks, A., Hayman, D. T., Luis, A. D., et al. (2014). Bat Flight and Zoonotic Viruses. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 741–745.
Reddy, B. L., & Saier, M. H. (2020). The Causal Relationship between Eating Animals and Viral Epidemics. Microbial Physiology, 1–7.
Vidal, J. (2020, April 8). Human impact on wildlife to blame for spread of viruses, says study. Retrieved from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/08/human-impact-on-wildlife-to-blame-for-spread-of-viruses-says-study-aoe
World Health Organization. (2020, July 29). Zoonoses. Retrieved from WHO International: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/zoonoses
World Wildlife Day. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://wildlifeday.org/about
Written by: Melisa Qonita Ramadhiani
Originally published at https://greeneration.org.
