{"id":60065,"date":"2020-01-28T14:08:35","date_gmt":"2020-01-28T06:08:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=60065"},"modified":"2020-04-19T15:27:39","modified_gmt":"2020-04-19T07:27:39","slug":"virus-and-wildlife","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=60065","title":{"rendered":"Virus and wildlife"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Andrew Sebastian<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
By Andrew Sebastian<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

So, all eyes and conversation pieces be it\nat work, social gatherings and whats app groups, are set upon deadly viruses\nthese days \u2013 the flavor of the month being the coronavirus! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you have not read or dialed in.. this epidemic\nhas been traced to a market in the city of Wuhan, China where a range of\nwildlife & bush meat was reportedly sold! The link between wild animals,\nclose wildlife-human interactions and the diseases they inevitably carry that infect\n& kill us humans is no more shocking than fatalities involving car drivers\nthat skip the use of seatbelts when driving ! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A study by the Global Virome Project even\nestimated there to be \u2018nearly 1.7 million undiscovered viruses in the animal\nkingdom\u2019.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So, have we learnt anything from SARS\n(transmitted from bats to civet cats and then US!), Ebola (from bats and a few host\nanimals then to US!), MERS (from bats to camels and to US!) and how about\nHIV\/AIDS – a chimpanzee in Central Africa and passed along to US!. Let\u2019s not\neven talk about the bubonic plague!! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I put it to my fellow mankind.. bush meat,\nthe illicit trade of exotic and wild animals, the exotic pet trade and the\nindiscriminate clearing, annihilation of natural habitats, our disgusting\nhabits of littering in parks and picnic spots and the unabated GHG emissions\nall play a role in bringing plagues and epidemics to our doorstep! It is\nsettled science that as we unlock vast areas of forests and warm our seas we\nrun the inevitable risk of turning ourselves into versions of my favourite\nfictitious hero, Thanos<\/em> (an Avenger \u2018villain\u2019\nfor non movie buffs), who, at a snap of his fingers, brought the human race\ninto balance with planet earth.. by killing off half its population!            <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, what can we do about protecting ourselves? Well, at least from the humble reach of this column, we should keep a respectable distance from wildlife and obviously say no to exotic pets, bush meat and to persuade our governments to protect and keep safe, all our natural habitats & landscapes. There are a million other \u2018markets\u2019 like that one in famous Wuhan and even here in very own our sleepy Malaysian towns\/cities of Jeli, Miri, Sibu, Gerik, Kuala Baram, Kuala Lipis, Kahang – they need to be looked into. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Members of the public must actively play a role.. call the wildlife department  hotline at 1-800-88-5151 or MYCAT at 019-3564194 to report people, wildlife captivity or poaching activities. Do this or a look forward to the upcoming 1,699,999 viruses..<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The views expressed by the writer here are solely his and do not reflect that of NNN or the Malaysian National News Agency (BERNAMA)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Andrew Sebastian So, all eyes and conversation pieces be it at work, social gatherings and whats app groups, are set upon deadly viruses these days \u2013 the flavor of the month being the coronavirus! If you have not read or dialed in.. this epidemic has been traced to a market in the city of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":27529,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[285,289],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60065"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=60065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}