COVID-19, Humans, and Wildlife: What Do We Know? | National Geographic

Hi YouTube, my name is Natasha Daley and I am a staff writer at National Geographic. We have a fantastic panel for you today on the intersection of COVID-19, humans, and wildlife. I'm gonna be joined by three wonderful Nat Geo explorers to talk all about what we've learned now that we're several months into this pandemic.

Now that I think it's become very clear to everyone all over the world that our relationship with nature and our connection with nature is intrinsically linked to our own human health, etc. So we're gonna really dive into what we have learned so far when it comes to humans and wildlife and how it's all connected to what's going on right now with COVID-19. We're gonna dive into what lessons we may be able to take going forward to prevent something like this from ever happening again in the future.

I'm so excited, first of all, and I'm just gonna introduce myself again quickly. My name is Natasha Daley, I'm a staff writer at National Geographic where I cover animal welfare, wildlife exploitation, and wildlife conservation. Over the past several months, my coverage has been very much dominated by the pandemic. Initially, sort of what gave rise to it; we know it all sort of took root or at least had an initial outbreak in a wildlife market in China. So I'm covering it from that perspective and now I'm doing a lot of coverage on how animals are being affected.

So, I'm so excited to be joined today by three National Geographic explorers. These are all experts in their field and I'm so excited we have them on this call today. If you don't know what a Nat Geo Explorer is, Nat Geo Explorers are individuals who have received funding or recognition from the National Geographic Society for their work in conservation, education, research, storytelling, and technology.

First, I want to introduce Dr. Chris Golden. Chris is an assistant professor of planetary health at Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He has a background in ecology and epidemiology. He investigates the intersection of trends in global environmental change and human health. For the past 20 years, he's been conducting environmental and public health research through his own nonprofit in Madagascar. Chris, if you can give a wave so everyone sees who I'm talking about. Perfect!

Next, I want to introduce Dr. Rodrigo Medina. He is a senior professor of ecology at the University of Mexico. He has dedicated his life to the study and conservation of bats and other mammals as well. He has projects and students in 16 countries on 4 continents and he has directed over 50 thesis projects. He's joining us today from Mexico City and we're so excited to have him with us to talk about all things bats and mammals.

Lastly, but not least, I want to introduce Dr. Suzanne Marie. Suzanne is a program director at Smithsonian's Global Health Program. She is also the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute Chief Wildlife Veterinary Medical Officer. She leads a team engaged in worldwide efforts to address health issues in endangered wildlife and combat emerging infectious diseases of global significance that we're dealing with right now, including zoonotic diseases. She's joining us from Washington, D.C., where I am as well.

As I said, we're sort of gonna focus on what we know and how we can use these lessons going forward, connecting humans, wildlife, with this pandemic, and how everything's essentially interconnected. So I'm just gonna dive right in, I think, to the first question. I think maybe we can kind of broaden out a bit just to maybe set the stage a bit.

So I'm gonna kind of come to you, I think, Suzanne first. Could you tell us, I mean what is a coronavirus and what are the characteristics of the COVID-19 coronavirus?

Well, first, very disapproving, all of us on this panel, it's um, we all did such great work, right? But if we're not able to with others and with National Geographic, it doesn't mean quite as much. So what a great avenue and thank you for the Explorers program.

In terms of the coronavirus, very quickly there's a family of viruses, it's named for Corona, it's named for the shape of the virus itself, which looks like a crown. Its characteristics are that it's an RNA virus and there are many different coronaviruses—there are hundreds of them in many different species. Some of the characteristics are that they adapt quickly and mutate quickly, and that gives them the ability to jump species.

Sometimes most commonly we see it as a common cold and in some cases, much more, with a lot more clinical signs, such as this COVID outbreak. And so all that being said, what do we know about how the current virus originated?

Well, we know an awful lot, and the more we know, the more we need to know, right? So we know that many species, many mammalian species—cattle, goats, bats, you know, have coronaviruses and so we know that they are out there in the wildlife. We also know that for emerging infectious diseases about 75 percent of those come from animals first and then jump into humans. So this appears to be one of them.

We also know that there are many different species of coronaviruses in many animals, including many bats, and this virus itself appears to be very closely genetically linked to other bats. Our team found other coronaviruses our teams have found in China, so that's still the strong supposition of where it came from. We're gonna hear a little bit from Rodrigo that this does not mean that bats are the whole source—that bats are dangerous. Quite the opposite! That what we need to think about is safe living with bats and we need to think about the drivers of emerging diseases, like land-use change, markets, cutting down forests, and safe living with wildlife as opposed to exterminating wildlife.

Now, that's what you were asking, but just to hit that right in the beginning.

Yeah, fantastic! And I mean, could you quickly define what is a zoonotic disease? Because I think something that's important for everyone to understand is that there is an intrinsic wildlife connection to this disease. People hear the phrase zoonotic disease thrown around in association with COVID-19. Could you just sort of explain what makes this disease zoonotic?

Alright, what does it mean? I mean, it's pretty easily defined. It's its ability to jump species and when we think of species, humans, so I just have another species of mammals and that's what you're saying early on that we need to look at health as a continuum, a continuum of all species. We've passed the time at which we need to look at species individually if we're thinking of survival. We need a holistic approach that looks at the environment, human health, and animal health.

So to answer your question in terms of zoonotic viruses, it's something that can jump species easily—got it to humans, back and forth.

And so I’d love to come to you now, Rodrigo because I think anyone who's been reading about or trying to find out about how this all sort of began has come across bats being sort of named as a possible original reservoir for the disease. Can you explain to us what is this bat connection? Is it true and sort of what do we know about this?

Thank you, thank you very much for that question. Let's try to go back. Unfortunately, there were some people who jumped the gun and basically made the claim that this is a very closely related virus to one virus that we find in bats. So therefore, bats "gave us" this virus. That is an absolute lie. That is not the case at all!

The bat virus has about 96 percent of its genome similar to the source code to the virus that gives us COVID-19. People have been saying that they are very interchangeable, like that if they come from this one and the other, that is as much as to say that given that we share 99 percent of our genome with chimpanzees, then we come from chimpanzees—as they come from us—and that is not the case at all.

What is the truth? The truth is that the chains are not species; we share a common ancestor maybe five million years ago or something like that. In this case, the bat coronavirus shares a common ancestor with us.

Our coronavirus shows an additional element here: out of the unfortunately 9.5 million people who have been infected in the world, every last one has been infected by a human being. This is a human virus! It's not true that if a bat flies by you, it is going to expose you to COVID-19. That is an absolute lie; there's absolutely nothing to be afraid of in that sense.

At the same time, people have been saying there’s been some really high-profile scientists stating that if you live with bats in your house or you're going to a cave, etc, you are exposed to this coronavirus. That’s absolutely not true.

In this situation right now, we may be... there’s still no clear indication or clear evidence about what caused the first patient, patient zero. It's likely the patient zero came in contact with an animal—we don't know what it is. It may have been a pangolin, it may have been a civet, it may have been a bat; nobody knows.

And that is the jump that Suzanne was referring to in terms of transmission from one species to another—whatever the species. We also have to be very aware of the fact that today, it's June 26th, there's a lot of information being put out there. What we learn now, what we know now, what we're talking about today may change next week because we're learning all the time.

So just a point that I want to make is that there's really no evidence whatsoever that there is a bat connection, other than that in terms of bats giving us that virus at all. And in addition, of course, you know that bats give us incredible ecosystem services—pest control, seed dispersal, pollination. I’m not going to go into that, but just because of that it's counterproductive to go and kill bats.

In any pleasure, hopefully, let's leave the bats alone.

Thank you Rodrigo! And so, I mean a crucial sort of takeaway that you would leave anyone who’s, you know, become more afraid of bats or is wondering should I stay away from bats in my own community... You’re saying that it's possible that we don't know that a bat may have been an initial host, but bats in your own community all over the world, there's no reason to be afraid of them or to want to exterminate them, is that correct?

That's exactly correct!

What last thing is that the coronavirus has this spike protein that creates the crown—the corona—why this family is called coronaviruses. That spike protein is the key to unlock the door to enter the cell that the virus is going to infect. Well, guess what? That bat coronavirus has the wrong type of key. It has the wrong type of spike protein and therefore cannot infect their cells.

So even if some crazy scientist out there was taking that virus from a bat and trying to put it in a human being, that wouldn’t even infect us.

Got it! Thank you, that's so helpful and I think really important, as you say, to sort of clear the air a bit about some misconceptions out there about bats.

And so, I mean, I think you touched on this a little bit, but I think that this is a crucial component that we need to discuss and we're trying to learn about the wildlife connection to the virus.

In particular, how these sort of, you know, what are some things that may increase the risk of wildlife-human diseases? You know, what are some things that may increase our risks to sort of come in contact, in the first place, with these sort of, you know, viruses that jump into us and may, you know, wreak havoc on human populations?

So I think I’d like to jump to you, Chris, actually!

No, sorry, let’s jump to Suzanne and then we’ll come back to Chris because Suzanne, I know you want to talk about this a little bit. So what are some things that could increase the risk of wildlife-human disease transmission?

Thanks for your asking, and I think that this is a really great opportunity for us to think about both the hard and the soft sciences. The hard sciences being like modeling and pathogen discovery, and the soft sciences being anthropology and understanding cultural and behavioral norms, right?

So there are things that bring people and animals into contact and there's a number of different things that is a place where we do use modelers to look at all the different drivers of disease to help us figure out what are the locations and countries most at-risk, where are the communities most at-risk?

Then we work with behavioralists to actually go and spend some time with communities. I think that’s the other big thing that as we look at what are the drivers and what can we do to prevent some of the spillover. One of the really key factors here is engaging the communities most at risk.

It doesn’t work as an outsider to say, “Oh maybe you shouldn’t do this,” or “You shouldn’t do that.” It’s really being part of the team and figuring out what the issues are. Having said that, some of the drivers are things like increased anything that brings humans into contact with wildlife, whether it’s cutting down forests, building new roads, some of the markets where there’s wildlife present, in particular when there’s a number of different species that are present at the same time.

Sometimes bushmeat hunting—the risk itself can really vary, whether it's a bushmeat hunter who is in the forest and exposed directly to that animal or whether it's the person in a wildlife restaurant who is actually preparing the meal in the back, you know?

So the risks really vary and it’s one of the really new things that we’re looking forward to and it’s one of the real reasons to engage the public health professionals as well.

Fantastic! Thank you! And yeah, I mean you raised the point of wildlife markets, and this is something I have reported on a lot over the past few years, especially the past few months.

And so I think, you know, something that’s stuck in my head is what one researcher told me when we were talking about how wildlife markets are almost sort of, create these environments where these viruses can rapidly spread.

He described often wildlife markets that are selling, you know, live animals and bushmeat as almost cauldrons of contagion. You have many different species together in the same place, many of these animals are sick, many of these animals are potentially diseased, secreting blood, other, you know, various secretions and you have this environment where it’s just not necessarily a natural circumstance for all these species to be together in one spot, especially in close proximity to humans.

So I think that that's something that's really sort of taken on headlines over the past few months and, if anything, has sort of raised people's awareness about these kind of wildlife markets.

And this is, I want to come to you now, Chris, because I wanted to talk this is sort of pivoting into the bushmeat and wildlife trade.

You know, how do these zoonotic diseases, you know, viruses relate to the various kind of dynamics of the bushmeat trade? You know, for instance, for example, both subsistence consumption—for people buying meat just to kind of eat and live—and then, of course, we have the luxury trade, which is another huge component of this.

So I’d love to hear your thoughts on sort of how this all factors into the current circumstance.

Sure! So, if you think about it, wildlife hunting for food is typically driven by two types of demands: subsistence consumption, or the need for food, or this kind of non-essential luxury trade that’s really driven by cultural preferences.

And so the entire industry of wildlife trafficking for international consumption or medicinal purposes falls into that latter category. And so, from a moral framework, these two types of demand are very different, and I feel totally comfortable saying that all hunting that’s driven by trade income generation or medicinal purposes really should be banned and heavily monitored and enforced.

Whereas hunting for sustenance is really a different matter. My work in Madagascar has shown that local people can heavily depend on wildlife for their nutrition, and without concerted efforts really from development and public health initiatives, we can’t expect to wean nutritionally vulnerable populations from these wild foods without severe consequences.

And it wouldn’t really be right to do so. And so I think disentangling this kind of subsistence consumption from luxury trade will be important as a touchpoint for how we can best intervene.

Interesting! And I mean do you think we’ve seen all over the place these calls for the global calls for the end of the wildlife trade. I mean, do you think that having a blanket sort of call for stopping the wildlife trade is—I think you just touched on this—that if we’re lumping everything under the same basket, that is problematic in many senses.

I mean, do you think that we have to sort of narrow in on what aspects of the wildlife trade we really should be looking at?

Absolutely! So I think that this kind of touches on Suzanne’s point where we bring together the social and natural sciences into one integrated framework. And so a lot of the work that I do falls into more of this kind of social science understanding of the role and value of wildlife to local communities.

And I think that by understanding the different types of demand and how they are needed by different people, we can classify them as essential or non-essential. Unfortunately for us the non-essential components are really the ones that might be producing the majority of risk.

Great! That’s really interesting! Thanks for making that point. I think it’s important for people to understand there’s a difference between essential and non-essential.

And in fact, as you said, perhaps maybe dragging the risk or major risk factors in this whole thing.

Before I go to Rodrigo because I would love to hear your thoughts on this as well, I want to let everyone know watching that if you have questions for me for any of our panelists, feel free to write them as a comment right on this video and we are going to, after we kind of get through a conversation, we’re going to take some of your questions and trying to answer them the best we can.

So coming to you Rodrigo, I'm on the same topic. You study bats, of course! You study mammals in general.

I mean, how do you sort of see the role of the bushmeat and kind of wildlife trade in this, you know, playing a role in this pandemic both now and potentially in the future?

I fully concur about this because it's really clear that in the developing world, many people—millions of people in Africa, Asia, Latin America—rely on this type of bushmeat.

But on the other hand, there’s quite a big market for the luxury elements that Chris has expressed very eloquently. So, you know, bushmeat consumption for the time being is here to stay. It’s not going anywhere and we're gonna have to—we all are gonna have to make it sustainable and healthy for the benefit of both the human beings that are needing that protein and to the species that are providing that protein because they have to be harvested in a sustainable way.

In fact, the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species has a bushmeat group that is trying to make this situation sustainable. It’s not an easy task, let me tell you, much of it is illegal, much of it is undocumented, much of it flies around under the radar, and we only know little bits and pieces from people like Chris about these issues.

Got it! Thank you! That’s a really important point to make.

I think, pivoting from that, looking sort of towards the future and what we can do—I know we’ve all sort of touched on it a bit already—but what can be done, I mean concretely, to limit the transmission of these diseases? It’s key, focusing on the non-essential wildlife trade and clamping down on that.

Are there other things—and I think Chris, I’d love to get your thoughts on this because this is a key area of research for you—what do you think can be done to limit the transmission of these diseases in the future?

Yeah, I think that’s a great question and I think it really requires almost this philosophical transition for us. And what better time to have that than right now during this pandemic?

I think it’s really important to think of futures with co-beneficial solutions that link biodiversity conservation and public health. And this is the heart of what I’m working on with Colby Bishop and Alex Moen as a National Geographic fellow in Planetary Health with the Society.

Environmental conservation can help to reduce disease transmission through something called the dilution effect. I know that Rodrigo is planning to discuss this in more detail, but really what this is is it expresses this concept where greater amounts of biodiversity have been shown to limit disease transmission.

In addition to that, there are so many other benefits of conserving biodiversity, like maintaining access to wild foods, traditional medicines, keeping healthy pollinator populations active, and contributing to agriculture. Even more mitigation efforts to slow climate change could reduce deforestation or forest fires.

This, of course, has an environmental and climate benefit, but it also has major human health benefits. Reducing forest fires can limit air pollution that can affect asthma and cardio-respiratory disease, and forest fires and other forms of habitat degradation can stress out animals. These stress events can then lead to increases in something called viral shedding, which is when a virus replicates itself and then can be released into the environment.

All of these kind of various examples and points lead us to believe that efforts to create a more stable and conserved environment could have major human health benefits. And so really, thinking from this kind of philosophical standpoint, the more that we can do to link conservation and human health together into one unified framework, will do all of us a lot of good.

Fantastic! Thank you! And Rodrigo, what are your thoughts on this topic about what can be done to limit the transmission of these diseases? Do you agree with Chris? Do you have some additional thoughts as well?

Thank you! That’s a yes! I have always said that the first line of defense against an epidemic is ecosystem conservation and biodiversity conservation.

And the mechanics of the underlying mechanics are very easy and straightforward, and they are best illustrated by the dilution effect that Chris just mentioned.
Imagine an ecosystem that is completely pristine, intact with the entire complement of plants and animals that are supposed to be there.

They are there and the pathogens are there as well, but everybody—all of the species are diluted or in low densities, so therefore the pathogens are not in big outbreaks or anything. But then, of course, along come human beings and we disturb the ecosystem: we start removing forests, removing trees, start removing certain species, etc.

And of course, the number of species goes down significantly and then there are a few species called opportunistic species that become incredibly abundant—super abundant! Those species that are opportunistic and their pathogens then have the perfect setting to be extremely successful and create outbreaks.

Why? These opportunistic species have been released by the pressure of not having predators anymore, not having competitors anymore and they have a feel-free for them.

That is this perfect setting! This has been demonstrated for Lyme disease, hantavirus, rabies, and many other pathogens that affect human beings.

So the best way to prevent the next pandemic is please, think about biodiversity conservation, ecosystem conservation. Let’s leave the tiny remaining pockets that we have—everywhere in the world: land, oceans, everywhere—alone! That’s our only hope really for the future.

I’m sorry, I was muted! I didn’t notice. Thanks Rodrigo!

Suzanne, do you have any thoughts on what we can do to limit the spread in the future?

Yes, I do! I think there’s a lot that we have learned and a lot more that we’re learning. Just briefly, if we wait until people start getting ill to try and figure out how to build the laboratories and the protocols, and figure out what virus they have, and then try to go backwards and say, “Well, what species did it come from?” and “What did people do to put themselves in harm’s way?”

We have lost months, two years! We’ve lost hundreds of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars! So it makes very good moral and economic sense to prevent disease rather than to wait until it’s there and then try and contain and treat.

Some of the best ways that we can prevent spillover is by understanding what viruses are there first, building the capacity to respond to detect and respond. We already know that we have identified less than 1 percent of the viruses that are out there, so we've got 99 percent more!

Not all of them are going to be bad actors, but the more that we have their genetic information in the database, the more quickly we can respond.

The other big thing I think is capacity building within the communities at most at danger—most of that risk. And a lot of this is wildlife health surveillance.

So if we can get out there and train folks to get the samples from wildlife in a very safe manner and get them to the laboratory to be analyzed, to some extent, we are doing—it's the best of both worlds, right?

We're training wildlife a wildlife veterinarian, wildlife personnel globally to care for wildlife and collect samples for the purposes of human lives. But at the same time, it's the same personnel and laboratories if you're trying to save the last rhino, the last cheetah, or lion or panda.

So it’s really a great opportunity for us to, yes, pay attention to global health and pay attention to trying to save human lives and at the same time, save wildlife and support biodiversity.

So I do think that this is a really critical way for all of us to pull together. It’s one of the reasons we want to thank National Geographic because this is a really good example of a collaboration—three different people from different walks of life coming together, sharing expertise.

No one can do everything, but everyone can do something. And for me, that’s the key. The more that we all work together on a continuum and do our little piece of the puzzle and share information, the more that we’re going to be able to save people and animals and the planet.

And as you said, I mean everything you just thought underscores the takeaway that everything is connected in this entire situation.

And so, Suzanne, a follow-up question I have for you—As we look towards the future, you've all outlined very clearly what can be done to help, you know, potentially prevent this from happening again. But I think, you know, a question on everyone's mind is, you know, are pandemics going to become more frequent, especially if we don’t take action?

Is there any other way that we haven’t already talked about that we can be more prepared?

I think knowledge is power. I think we do know that spillovers are coming more frequently! The data has shown that they’re coming more frequently. If we don’t do anything to stop that, they will be coming more frequently.

So the more that we can work internationally—and I think for a long while different nations have been looking at the economy as a global entity—it's time to look at health as a global entity.

Not just veterinary medicine or public health or human health, but the whole combination of that. We need to, from my perspective, I think we need to look at health globally and interdisciplinarily.

That's a longer word—interdisciplinary.

Yes, perfect! Thank you!

And so now, I mean, I think we’ve been talking a lot about, as you just said, we’ve been using sort of big words—science-based—we’ve been talking a little about a lot of science-based efforts that, you know, scientists around the world are going to have to do, researchers etcetera—absolutely critical to understanding this and preventing it in the future.

But I’d like to sort of maybe talk a little bit, especially for many of our viewers, about what people can do just in their everyday lives.

You know, the average person who may not, you know, be able to contribute to research, you know, on these on the pandemic, but what can people do in their everyday lives to help this effort to both, you know, to prevent something like this from happening in the future?

And Rodrigo, I’m wondering if you have any thoughts about that.

Yes, absolutely Natasha! Thank you for that question. There’s a lot that everyone can do! And as Suzanne was saying, this pandemic is an amazing learning opportunity!

We are all learning of new ways of living our lives. The next time we embrace our uncle or grandmother or whatever, it's going to be the most amazing embrace.

Right? Well, let’s keep learning about all of these things, including—for example, and I mean no offense—but here in this National Geographic panel, we are preaching to the choir. We are already reaching out to people who know something about this issue, who are convinced about this.

We need to start thinking outside the box and expand the message!

So, everyone out there who is watching this panel, please take it to heart, talk to your neighbor, your office mates, whomever—someone who is not in this frequency of science and biology, please take these messages and share them and spread them all over the place.

Also, it’s very, very important to think of our own ways of living our lives.

I myself am rethinking many things that I used to do in a different way. I’m cutting back a lot on meat consumption because, you know, zoonoses do not come only from wild animals.

I mean, Chris was saying something about that effect. But let’s think for a second about avian influenza. Even influenza has been sprouting left and right—there are new viruses here and there!

Because those are also viruses that mutate fairly easily. And if you look at now, if you look at a poultry farm, the way they have them packed with tiny amounts of space for each chicken—it is the perfect breeding grounds for the next pandemic!

And that is driven by us! It’s very easy for me to go to the supermarket and take this little white thing with a chicken breast there. Oh, I have my chicken! And I don’t even think for a second where did that chicken come from? How was it produced?

This is the moment in which we have to start asking those questions and become involved. Become involved in several ways!

Number one, lower your amount of consumption of chicken and beef and pork, etc. Number two, get involved in how, ask them how this is being produced, because in the end, the health of those animals goes to our health.

If they are in good shape, we are in good shape! If their rights are respected, our rights will be fine! So—and it doesn’t stop there! Think about the way we use water.

We use water for the shower, etc. Just time yourself in the shower tomorrow morning and try to cut off one minute, two minutes, three minutes.

I am now down to four minutes in the shower! Granted, I do have an advantage, right?

I do have an advantage! But everyone in the world can start cutting back a little bit in all of the consumption that is crossing this pond.

We are not detached from the fact that this happened in China. We are not detached from whatever happens in Africa with Ebola. We are not detached. We are one world!

Thank you, Rodrigo! That’s so helpful and I think, you know, as you pointed out, when nature is sick, when animals are sick, we can get sick.

We’re all just very interconnected, as you pointed out—there welfare affects our welfare and vice versa.

So what I’m gonna do now—this has been a fantastic conversation. I’m going to—we’ve gotten a lot of great questions from viewers, so I’m gonna look at those now and we’ll see how many we can get through over the next few minutes.

So let's see...

First, and I’m gonna throw this to you Suzanne. Shaz asks, “How many strains of SARS-CoV-2 are there?”

There are many different strains of SARS- CoV-2, and I think if I’m understanding the question correctly—that is in the context of COVID-19. There are already many mutations that have happened since the initial outbreak.

I don’t know the exact number, but the World Health Organization, amongst other organizations like CDC, has been tracing all the different mutations. So I’d have to say while we know that there are many mutations already in different strains, I don’t know the exact number.

That does help us as we look backwards to figure out, you know, where things came from, and a lot of times looking backwards helps— too, you know, the best predictor of the future is looking at our past.

Wonderful! Thank you! Moving on to the next—this is, I’m going to throw this to you Rodrigo because it touches on what you were just talking about—the recent outbreak of COVID-19 in poultry and meat factories supplying large supermarkets.

How concerning is this going forward? And this is, you know, I imagine this person is asking from their own perspective, for their own health, the family’s health if they are to buy these products.

Well, that’s exactly the point!

I mean at this point in time, there is no outbreak of avian influenza in the world, but mark my words, there will be one, two, three more. There are already pandemics brewing someplace in the world!

We’ve had outbreaks of avian influenza before, mostly in Asia, but also in North America, also in Europe. So it’s really time that it’s safe to consume it, of course, if you cook it, etc.

But that is just a time bomb there! If we don’t get engaged, if we don’t get, you know, to know how these animals are being produced and not, if we don’t fight for the rights of those animals to live a sort of a healthy life—another issue here is that if you buy a free-range chicken, try to understand what the concept of free-range means.

And of course the ideal would be a chicken that has been digging in the dirt and eating earthworms and things like that. That is the healthiest chicken that we can eat!

But it’s not very easily accessible and it’s gonna be more expensive than the industrially produced chicken.

So just get engaged in that! Get involved! Learn about it! And exert your influence.

You’re one individual, but like Suzanne was saying, the work of one person makes the change!

Yeah, I mean as I’ve learned throughout many stories I’ve reported, consumers have a tremendous amount of power to make change.

Oh yes!

So one person turning into multiple people turning into enough people to sort of change the market towards, you know, a certain direction, it actually has a tremendous amount of power!

Money talks!

So the next question I’d like to throw this to you Chris. Elise asked, “What does the Chinese black market for traditional trappings primarily in traditional medicine have to deal with COVID-19?”

Right, yeah, that is a good question! I think that actually ties into what Rodrigo was just talking about in terms of ways in which we can change and shape the market.

And it might be that the actual medicine that ends arriving in a Chinese black market might not be the immediate risk factor or exposure for a disease transmission event, but it is the entire structure of demand through these markets that is driving so much of these environmental pressures to increasingly encroach upon wildlife habitats.

And so the presence of that demand, albeit in very, very distant kinds of geographical transoceanic waters, is ultimately going to facilitate these transmission events.

And so I think that it is not only a matter of trying to isolate where these events began or started, but also trying to take accountability for what is driving those events in the first place.

That makes sense! And another critical part of this, of course, is policy!

You know, China, for example, back in I think it was February and announced a total ban on the sale and purchase of meat for consumption and live animals for consumption.

However, notably exempt from that ban was meat and live animal products for traditional medicine—for, you know, goods!

So I think that this sort of highlights that yes, there can be policy changes and momentum on the policy front over the last few months—but you know when it targets a very specific area and leaves a whole other very lucrative segment of the industry out—that essentially allows that to continue to flourish.

So I think that—that’s, I mean, I don't know if anyone wants to jump in—do you think sort of policy changes on a country-by-country basis are going to be very important going forward to control this trade?

Chris, do you think policy is an important part of all this?

I think that policy is absolutely an important part of it, as I unfortunately don’t have the expertise in terms of the international wildlife trafficking and trade, whether they're legal or illegal, to kind of weigh in on that specifically.

But I think that these types of policy instruments are exactly the types of things that we need to be targeting!

But it needs to not only come from conservationists; it needs to come from the public health sector. It needs to come from the economic sector and have everyone join where there are these kind of co-beneficial interventions that will touch on all aspects of society.

Got it! Thank you.

Okay, I wanted to jump into—Chris, I want to say too—in terms of being co-beneficial, we also need to look for opportunities that would also help the communities that are at risk.

So the folks need protein if the different communities that are currently relying on wildlife products for protein—just taking that away isn’t necessarily the answer without coming up with other, say, forms of protein in which to feed families.

Of course, that’s, I think is a—we were all implied it.

I always wanted to make sure that we’re saying that out loud, too—that policy, obviously, is really critical, but policy that involves the communities at risk.

Got it! Just wanted to bring that up!

Um, next question, and maybe you can take this Suzanne. Kellen asked, “Can I know what are the early symptoms of COVID-19?” And since we’re focused on kind of wildlife and animals here to a bit, maybe you can, and you’re a veterinarian, maybe you can talk us through human symptoms contrasted with what you might look for in your pets, your cats or dogs, if you’re at all concerned that they may be sick?

So the symptoms in humans range from an apparent—so, so many people have been affected and are not even aware of it. The most commonly reported things are dry cough, fever, and chills.

And then for those who become more ill? Difficulty breathing—so those are the things that we see most often.

We do—we have seen there has been evidence of dogs being able to shed the virus and also some zoo animals as well that have been thought to have been contracted from people.

However, neither of these hosts seem to be competent in terms of releasing large amounts of antigen or to be a substantial role of infection.

Whereas person to person, contact with coughing and sneezing seems to be the predominant way that this COVID is spread.

So yes, while there’s been evidence of animals testing positive, they're not thought to be a significant role.

Thanks for clarifying! I think that’s probably really important for everyone to keep in mind, that there has been no evidence to date that animals are a significant driver in the spread of COVID-19.

Of course! Well, tigers or lions!

Yeah, yes, exactly! This is very much a disease driven by humans, would that be correct to say?

It’s currently a disease that’s being passed from human to human—very, very frequently!

Yeah!

Okay, let’s move on to the next question—let’s see!

Okay, we had just touched on this but maybe we can—if we have anything else to add, I know I have written several stories on this topic but someone asked, “At least asked, what about big cats? I remember reading about tigers that got COVID-19. So how did they get the disease?”

Suzanne, you just mentioned for anyone who doesn’t know, five tigers and lions at the Bronx Zoo tested positive for COVID-19 and Suzanne, as you said, it’s believed that they contracted the virus from an asymptomatic zoo worker, is that correct?

Right, exactly! And the zoos have pretty strong policies; if you’re showing symptoms or feeling ill, you know, not to come in. People adhere to that very carefully.

So yes, while there’s a lot of supposition going on, I think that everything points to an asymptomatic carrier having inadvertently transmitted to a large cat.

Got it! And for anyone wondering how they’re doing, I did talk to an expert just the other day about them, and all of the big cats have recovered and are doing well for anyone who is concerned.

So let’s see... Next question.

And I’m not sure, I’m gonna ask this question and we’ll see who—oh, sorry! Rodrigo, did you want to say something?

Yes, can I add a few words about that transmission from humans to other animals? Beyond the cats in their Bronx Zoo, we know that in the Netherlands, for example, there have been cases of minks in farms—in mink farms—of course thankfully going out of fashion for the pelts and things that people wear.

But there were several cases of humans infecting minks, and I’m not sure about minks infecting humans, but that led to sacrificing the entire farm of minks. That’s the latest.

I'm going to change hats here, I’m the co-chair of the Bat Specialist Group of IUCN (the International World Conservation Union). We had to start looking at what were the chances of humans infecting bats.

There are a couple of studies—one of them has already been published in Germany with a fruit bat colony, a captive fruit bat colony in Germany. They infected the bats with hundreds of times greater doses of viruses that are needed to infect a human being.

Then they looked at what happened, and from nine animals that were infected, four kept the virus and four developed transient symptoms. But there was no transmission between bats like that.

There are two studies underway, coordinated by the Fish and Wildlife Service in the United States, with two different species of bats that they’re trying to see what the situation is.

In the meantime, the IUCN Bat Specialist Group has issued recommendations. They’re on our website. They’re saying basically if you don’t have anything to do right now with bats, please leave them alone!

Do not handle them! If you have to, please take precautions—take PPE, different versions of PPE—maybe just gloves, maybe a face shield, something like that that will lower the chances.

It’s very minute, it’s very tiny, but we don’t want even one case to happen! So we’re lowering the chances there.

In the meantime, we continue to make progress in understanding how this virus is going to behave in the future.

Thanks Rodrigo.

Sonic has asked a question for Chris specifically. So we just talked about the minks in the Netherlands. And Chris, you had touched early in our conversation on how non-essential versus essential wildlife trade—the minks that we’re talking about in the Netherlands and now Denmark; they’re at fur farms being farmed for their fur for the fashion industry.

Sonic asked, “Why aren’t the fashion industries being penalized?” This is at the backdrop of minks across the Netherlands, I believe on 13 fur farms, and hundreds of thousands of minks being culled.

The Netherlands has announced that the mink farming industry will be done—finished by the end of 2020—which has been a result that’s come out of this. But, you know, just on sonic’s question, why isn’t the industry penalized for this?

I mean, is this something that we should be looking at?

I think you could think of any of these different types of market drivers in this type of accountability framework. And so I don’t think that a mink farm per se would be a driver of disease transmission.

We don’t know that that is actually kind of a potential mechanism for these diseases to transfer, but at the same time I think it goes back to exactly what you said. This distinction between essential versus non-essential use of wildlife.

And this certainly falls into the category of non-essential and so this should absolutely be something that is banned and enforced.

We should never be using kind of animals for fur or any sort of thing like that. But there are limited cases where we do need wildlife. As Rodrigo mentioned, millions of people rely on wild capture seafood and terrestrial wildlife.

And so we need to really think about ways in which we can create interventions that will maintain that type of nutrition while at the same time preventing disease transmission or other types of adverse outcomes.

Great! Thank You Rodrigo!

Someone asked this and I’m sure you will be very happy to answer this question: if how would it affect the ecosystem if all the bats were exterminated?

Could you tell us briefly how important are bats for the ecosystem and what would it mean for the world if they were suddenly wiped out?

Well, very briefly, because we’re running out of time. But let's just think of the fact that just in the northern border of Mexico, the Mexican states of Sonora to Tamaulipas, we estimate about 20 to 40 million bats of one species.

Mexico has 140 species, the world has 1,400 species. And we’re talking about one species; we have 20 to 40 million bats of that one species. Each million bats destroys ten tons of insects every night!

Every night! Just picture 10 tons of insects and then multiply that by 20 or 240, and that’s what every day bats destroy! So imagine, of course, if we lose the bats, we’re gonna have a major pest problem in our crops.

We have already demonstrated, and several other studies have demonstrated that with—we exclude bats from a field of rice, or coffee, or corn or cotton or whatever, the level of damage to the crop grows exponentially!

It grows to be about 30 to 40 percent of the crop would be lost if the bats were not there. And that is just for our well-being in terms of the ecosystem.

But the seed dispersal they provide in all of the tropical forests of the world—it’s the absolute key for the recovery of those forests!

We have demonstrated that bats disperse between 2 and 5 seeds per square meter per night! Just imagine that! Two to five seeds per square meter per night, multiplying that by the amount of forage that we have.

If we allow to continue with their work, we will have the forests restored in 30 or 40 years!

So yes, losing bats would be very meaningful and very negative for all of the ecosystems on earth.

Great! Thank You Rodrigo!

Let’s see, maybe we have time for one more question. And I'm gonna throw this out to whoever would like to answer it.

This is especially relevant for all our viewers living in cities. Someone asked, “Can urban wildlife like rats or pigeons be carriers for the virus and is this something that city-livers should be concerned about avoiding these animals?”

Suzanne, maybe you're on that?

I'll take the first stab at that, and then I'll pass on to my esteemed colleagues.

I would say that we have discovered through modeling and genetic analysis and with the help of virologists that there are species that are most likely to carry illnesses that could potentially transfer over to humans. Those being rodents.

So in general, those rodents are something that we should be watching out for in terms of this particular COVID outbreak.

We have not seen them as a part of the cycle of transmission—certainly not in a meaningful way. So I think in general, yes, there's a good idea to avoid wild rodents.

And there are many examples. Rodrigo’s mentioning hantavirus earlier and things like raccoons—they carry things also like, you know, rabies—but they also don’t appear to be involved in this particular outbreak.

Got it! Thank you!

So we’re running up on the hour! And so I think this has been a really fantastic conversation. I’m so thrilled that all three of you were able to join us today.

But I think we’ve talked about so many different interesting elements of this.

I’d love to leave our viewers with each of you sort of talking about what to you is a big takeaway from this entire thing.

What would you like to leave viewers thinking about as we sort of wrap this up? And maybe I'll start with you, Suzanne.

I would say the big message for me is that we’re all connected! We’re connected by a lot of things that we want to be connected by—culture, and economy, and things that we're—and we’re also connected by some things that we don’t want to be connected by, like viruses and some kind of some diseases.

The more that we can embrace the positive—let's find a way of working across countries in a multidisciplinary approach!

I think there’s a lot that we can do! If there’s a silver lining here, it’s that we are—I think we really are all looking and reaching out across countries, borders, across disciplines!

Then we are given this great platform through National Geographic to share our thoughts.

So that’s my thought! We’re all connected and everybody has a role to play!

Great! Thank you so much, Chris! How about you?

Sure! I guess I have two thoughts; one is technical and the other is kind of more philosophical.

So from a technical standpoint, I think that the need for these nationally systematic and coherent databases is critical to us fighting against these types of viruses or any sort of connections between environment and humans.

And so without these types of information platforms being available, there will be enormous inaction and us making progress against this.

This is not only within our own country but also in the way that all of this type of disease and information could connect between countries.

I think from a more philosophical standpoint, the most vital takeaway for me is that you can’t separate this desire for a healthy human population and a need for a healthy planet!

And so these two elements are really inextricably tied together. All efforts to conserve biodiversity can also be seen as key public health interventions.

So really just kind of letting that sit in your head as if these two things are really deeply connected to each other.

Wonderful! Thank you!

And Rodrigo, how about you?

I have basically two take-home messages, two lessons that I myself have learned in the process of this quarantine that we’re all in.

Number one is that we all have something to do. We are drivers of change ourselves! You choose: what are you going to do? You’re going to write to your senator, you’re going to engage in the local conservation efforts, you’re going to change—it’s the way you do whatever!

The other one is that, from now on, and this is a kind of a heavy task, but it’s something that we have to come to terms with—from now on, the only thing that is not acceptable is to continue living your life without any changes in it!

Everybody can make changes in their life! From reducing the amount of water that you use in your garden on your shower to changing the way you eat—to engaging in how wildlife is managed in your country or how meat reaches the local supermarket, etc.

The only thing that we need to be aware of is that we need to start changing our lives now!

Wonderful! Thank you!

And I guess my final thought would be just to thank you all for being here and to our viewers who have been, you know, following our animal coverage over the past few months and, you know, past few years.

I think I've seen an increased sort of engagement between, you know, our readers connecting our animal’s coverage with our culture coverage with our science coverage.

I think this pandemic has really illustrated that everything is connected! I know at the beginning of the quarantine I wondered, “Okay, well, you know, what are the animals’ stories that are really gonna emerge from this?”

And at the time, I couldn’t predict them. But I think it’s been, you know, what has come out has been, I think, really illuminating.

I’ve been really surprised how deeply people care about wildlife and about nature and how I think people are connected to making that connection and telling their friends and family about that connection, and sort of just commit to making the world a better place for animals, humans, and nature all together!

So thank you to everyone who is continuing to read our work and to support our explorers. We really appreciate it and we’re going to keep telling these stories and keep sharing ways that we can sort of all continue to learn about what’s going on and take these lessons forward.

So I think that that was kind of the goal of our panel today: What we've learned and what we can take forward.

And all three of you have put forth some fantastic food for thought as we all sort of head into the weekends.

So I’d like to thank Suzanne, Chris, Rodrigo! Really appreciate being here today. Thank you everyone for watching, and I really hope everyone got something great out of this session! Thank you for having us.

Thanks so much again!

Hi everyone!