COVID-19 effects on zoos and animal conservation

FunkyGibbon said:
However, some context. Wet markets are not unique to China, they are a common feature of human society prior to a certain point in development. The idea that China is in some sense different from India, Indonesia or Nigeria (to name but three) in this regard seems highly unlikely to me (happy to be taken up on this point).
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This is the big point to me! Whenever I've been discussing COVID-19 with friends or relatives and the wet markets pop up, I've always made a point to discuss the overall problem with these types of markets in not only China, but many Asian countries as well as Africa with their bush meat trade. Now I know these types of markets are likely to be found to some capacity on all continents, but the Asian wet markets and the African bush meat trade are the two I know best. Of course, these types of markets are not inherently the problem, it's the unregulated wildlife trade and the overall lack of hygiene in them that create these issues. As you said, the reasons for this are much more complicated than most of us (myself included) know, but the sale of local animal meat in and of itself is not the problem, it's the manner in which it's been conducted and until this changes we will continue to see the likes of SARS, ebola, and COVID-19.

~Thylo
 
Coronavirus: London Zoo warns ‘even worse’ pandemics than Covid-19 could arrive without research

Many of the recent outbreaks of deadly disease across the world – including Covid-19 as well as others such as Ebola – began as infections that moved from animals to humans. Some 75 per cent of new human diseases have come about through this route. And scientists at the ZSL, which runs the London Zoo and carries out conservation work, has said the UK needs to better invest in understanding how diseases function in wildlife populations. Such research needs to urgently identify how those diseases come into human populations, they warn, or the world risks other pandemics that could be even worse than the current Covid-19.

While the government has committed £46 million to developing a vaccine for Covid-19, the scientists warn that only offers an short-term response to such an outbreak. The government also must look towards long-term research to avoid similar outbreaks in future, ZSL warned.

“No-one knows how many infections circulate in wildlife populations or under what circumstances they could create the next human pandemic," said Dominic Jermey, director general of ZSL. "But if we know the risk factors for zoonotic virus spill-over, we can put in place safety measures to stop it happening in the first place without adversely affecting wild animals in which the viruses occur naturally. These links between wildlife and human health are increasingly recognised but still very poorly understood."

Full article: London Zoo warns ‘even worse’ pandemics than coronavirus could arrive
 
ThylacineAlive said:
The WCS shared the following on their social media today:

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~Thylo
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An additional image has been posted:

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~Thylo
 
THE PANGOLINS ARE FIGHTING BACK, MAN! THEY'RE TIRED OF BEING HUNTED!

In all seriousness, I'm hoping that this will result in governments taking poaching and trafficking more seriously. But I won't get too optimistic, there's too much money wrapped up in this business for it to go down easy.
 
Many conferences in the "Zoo industry" have now been cancelled; this includes the upcoming EAZA Welfare forum that was due to take place Apenheul, and the ABWAK Symposium at Chessington World of Adventure :( I was especially looking forward to this years Symposium... but the cancellation was inevitable, and has been delayed until later in the year.
 
An update from the Netherlands: Avifauna, DierenPark Amersfoort, Wildlands (Emmen), GaiaZOO (Kerkrade), Dolfinarium Harderwijk and Burgers' Zoo (Arnhem) are closed untill at least the end of the month, ARTIS (Amsterdam), Beekse Bergen (Hilvarenbeek) and the Rotterdam Zoo are closing off all indoor areas.
 
Blijdorpenaar said:
An update from the Netherlands: Avifauna, DierenPark Amersfoort, Wildlands (Emmen), GaiaZOO (Kerkrade), Dolfinarium Harderwijk and Burgers' Zoo (Arnhem) are closed untill at least the end of the month, ARTIS (Amsterdam), Beekse Bergen (Hilvarenbeek) and the Rotterdam Zoo are closing off all indoor areas.
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AFAIK Avifauna is not closing, they are only closing their indoor exhibits as announced on facebook.
 
That message is outdated, as can be seen here: Nieuws - een wereld aan vogels

EDIT: this just in, AquaZoo Leeuwarden, Beekse Bergen (Hilvarenbeek), ZooParc Overloon and Dierenrijk will also remain closed this month

EDIT EDIT: new announcement, the Rotterdam Zoo will only be open to those with a season pass
 
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Zoo Zurich will be closed from Saturday on until further notice.
Grounds of Zoo Basel will remain open, but animal buildings and restaurants will be closed, dito (more or less) for Wilhelma Stuttgart
 
Thylo, Has this officially been changed to a Zoonotic disease? I thought that had been ruled out, and one of my vets (a European surgeon) specifically said surgical patients were not in danger. Has this been announced? If this is true, it could also explain why zoos are now suddenly closing en masse.

Funky Gibbon, I too appreciate your knowledge of wet markets worldwide, and dt644's translation really puts in perspective what endangered species are being sold. I can't stress enough, in contrast, though that venison eaten here is the product of sport that many discard and is also an animal that MUST be hunted because its populations are SO vast and out of control. I know I've mentioned this, but I live 40 miles from NYC in heavily-populated suburbia, and I see deer in my town several times a day. They have lost habitat as the mountain nearby has been overbuilt with homes, and they have had to lose natural fear of highways and people. Venison is very "gamey," and a friend who runs a slaughterhouse reports that they process as many donations during hunting season as they do paying jobs. It's not a delicacy, not in great demand, and not at all in the same league with eating Chinese giant alligators.o_O
 
AmbikaFan said:
Funky Gibbon, I too appreciate your knowledge of wet markets worldwide, and dt644's translation really puts in perspective what endangered species are being sold. I can't stress enough, in contrast, though that venison eaten here is the product of sport that many discard and is also an animal that MUST be hunted because its populations are SO vast and out of control. I know I've mentioned this, but I live 40 miles from NYC in heavily-populated suburbia, and I see deer in my town several times a day. They have lost habitat as the mountain nearby has been overbuilt with homes, and they have had to lose natural fear of highways and people. Venison is very "gamey," and a friend who runs a slaughterhouse reports that they process as many donations during hunting season as they do paying jobs. It's not a delicacy, not in great demand, and not at all in the same league with eating Chinese giant alligators.o_O
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The only endangered species listed there are the Giant Salamander and Chinese Alligator (and then only if one assumes that "alligator" is that species). Potentially "pheasant" could include endangered species also. However the majority of the species listed are either domestic or farmed animals.

Giant Salamanders are farmed in huge numbers in China for meat (literally in millions, although wild animals are still also hunted), and alligators and crocodiles likewise.
 
AmbikaFan said:
Thylo, Has this officially been changed to a Zoonotic disease? I thought that had been ruled out, and one of my vets (a European surgeon) specifically said surgical patients were not in danger. Has this been announced? If this is true, it could also explain why zoos are now suddenly closing en masse.
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Even if it's not a zoonotic disease, zoo closures are going to be seen as necessary because any kind of crowded place is going to be a breeding ground for contagious disease.
 
AmbikaFan said:
Thylo, Has this officially been changed to a Zoonotic disease? I thought that had been ruled out, and one of my vets (a European surgeon) specifically said surgical patients were not in danger. Has this been announced? If this is true, it could also explain why zoos are now suddenly closing en masse.
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I thought the virus was always thought to be zoonotic tbh. With a 99% match in pangolins, the previous Saudi Arabian Coronavirus epidemic having come from bats, and the WCS's zoonotic disease branch heavily studying/monitoring the situation, it seemed like a no brainer to me even without the suspected origin being a wet market.

~Thylo
 
ThylacineAlive said:
I thought the virus was always thought to be zoonotic tbh. With a 99% match in pangolins, the previous Saudi Arabian Coronavirus epidemic having come from bats, and the WCS's zoonotic disease branch heavily studying/monitoring the situation, it seemed like a no brainer to me even without the suspected origin being a wet market.

~Thylo
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I agree--I was the one who started the thread featuring the pangolin/COVID-19 connection--but I've seen many articles and doctors on TV and my own vets (just four days ago at a visit) say it's not transmissible. I mentally filed that away as, thankfully, a given--until I saw your post.

The closings here started very suddenly, so suddenly that NZP had nothing ready to send members until hours after SI had put out the press release and in the meantime even sent members an ad for the May 20 Bite! Event, suggesting no knowledge of a closure. Yes, there is the danger of human transmission indoors, but the suddenness yesterday is striking--before even public schools. Zoos are mostly outdoors and could have just closed buildings and reduced ticket prices. I'm wondering if there has been some determination by the CDC or even NZP of your theory, Thylo, that may have just been released yesterday, hastening zoo closures.

But God, I hope you're wrong. Exotic, domestic, and wild animal populations worldwide could produce staggering death tolls, along with a serious problem of what to do with the bodies. Has anyone heard anything either way, definitively, from health agencies or even statistics from China?
 
Chlidonias said:
The only endangered species listed there are the Giant Salamander and Chinese Alligator (and then only if one assumes that "alligator" is that species). Potentially "pheasant" could include endangered species also. However the majority of the species listed are either domestic or farmed animals.

Giant Salamanders are farmed in huge numbers in China for meat (literally in millions, although wild animals are still also hunted), and alligators and crocodiles likewise.
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The distinction I was trying--poorly--to draw is that no one is farming deer with any intention of selling their meat, probably because there is no demand as there is for animals in countries with wet markets. And, yes, I see FG's distinction of wild animals versus endangered; I tend to think of koalas as endangered. Sorry ,my mind is all over the place. I'm quite shaken by this zoonotic possibility.
 
Well, a virus being zoonotic in origin doesn't mean it will continue to jump from species to species - so even if (as seems likely) it jumped from pangolins into humans, it is unlikely to have the ability to infect further species in a scattergun fashion.

Look at it this way - it presumably had to mutate in order to enter humans given biochemical and anatomical differences between ourselves and the original wild reservoir. It would have to mutate again - multiple times, in all likelihood - to enter further species which differ biologically and anatomically from us.

To give a past example, HIV was also zoonotic in origin - the two species of HIV having their origins in separate zoonotic events where different strains of SIV (found in chimps and mangabeys respectively) leapt into humans - but it hasn't moved from us into further species, has it? :)
 
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