Bird Flu - Wild Tastes - The Diigo Meta page

• 29 May 07
  

  James Linzel
  • Animals sold live guarantee freshness in the minds of consumers, but in all their “freshness,” the animals cough and defecate over one another, spewing potential pathogens throughout the market wet with blood and urine.862 These viral swap meets are blamed for the transformation of a class of viruses, previously known for causing the common cold, into a killer.863
  • Growing populations and increasing demands for wildlife meat exceed local supplies of these animals.859 This has resulted in an enormous (and largely illegal) transboundary trade of wildlife and the setting up of intensive captive production farms in which wild animals are raised under poor sanitation in unnatural stocking densities. These animals are then packed together into markets for sale. All of these factors favor the spread and emergence of mutant strains of pathogens capable of infecting hunters, farmers, and shoppers.860
  • “All considered,” wrote two chief wildlife veterinarians in the Council on Foreign Relations journal Foreign Affairs, “at least a billion direct and indirect contacts among wildlife, humans, and domestic animals result from the handling of wildlife and the wildlife trade annually.”842

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