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Ferret badgers and rabbits among the prime suspects in the hunt for how Covid-19 spread to humans

XMonkey

XMonkey

Member
Oct 26, 2017
6,827
Last I read on this topic from solid sources (admittedly a long time ago now) is that there was considerable doubt it even came from the wet market in the first place. This article is paywalled for me so I can't read it unfortunately.
 
Br3wnor

Br3wnor

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
4,982
One thing COVID taught me was that Scandinavia still has huge mink farms which is very sad, just buy faux fur you animals
 

Deleted member 59109

User requested account closure
Banned
Aug 8, 2019
7,877
User banned (2 weeks): xenophobic drive-by
This just rubs me the wrong way. Like, "prime suspects" for what? Being trapped in horrible wet markets and fur farms against their will? It's unbelievable to me these places are even allowed to exist
 
nelsonroyale

nelsonroyale

Member
Oct 28, 2017
12,128
I mean sure, it is important to reconstruct the pathway of how covid got into humans. But obviously the most factors isn't really which particular species passed it to humans, it is what particular human behaviours and infrastructures made this into a pandemic. As far as revealed, that would be habitat destruction, global connectivity and interlinked lack of self sufficiency.

In general, I am very much against managing populations of say wild mammals or birds (i.e. culling) for human health reasons. In many cases it is industries or human behviour which needs to shift.
 

SRG01

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,016
nelsonroyale said:
I mean sure, it is important to reconstruct the pathway of how covid got into humans. But obviously the most factors isn't really which particular species passed it to humans, it is what particular human behaviours and infrastructures made this into a pandemic. As far as revealed, that would be habitat destruction, global connectivity and interlinked lack of self sufficiency.

In general, I am very much against managing populations of say wild mammals or birds (i.e. culling) for human health reasons. In many cases it is industries or human behviour which needs to shift.
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Managing human behaviour is one of the reasons why selling wild game is illegal in many parts of the world. The transmissibility of diseases from wild animals is incredibly high. That's also why livestock is so regulated in terms of how they're raised.
 
painey

painey

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,617
Elmer-Fudd-Looking-Angry-ngo9021.gif

It's wabbit season, ma' fuckers.
 
nelsonroyale

nelsonroyale

Member
Oct 28, 2017
12,128
SRG01 said:
Managing human behaviour is one of the reasons why selling wild game is illegal in many parts of the world. The transmissibility of diseases from wild animals is incredibly high. That's also why livestock is so regulated in terms of how they're raised.
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What are the causes of this then? There is evidence to suggest that more disease might enter the human reservoir because of a breakdown of factors limiting spread in ecosystems, such as a loss of genetic diversity in other species, etc. Added to the fact that people are also consuming a lot of wild species through bush meat and Chinese 'traditional' medicines, etc. As for livestock, that is mostly as a result of industrial production which enginees unfitness and incredible densities, almost like a fast breeder reactor for disease, and transports them across the globe.

Mentok15: That is one part of the solution, well vegetarianism at least, and there is defiintely the case for eating meat or fish in certain countries, particularly some of the Northern countries which are less productive in terms of arable land and also countries with huge amounts of grassland, such as Mongolia and the Steppes. What you need there though, is giving much over much larger contiguous areas to promote wild population, and harvest a small offtake. People eat much smalller quantities of meat in genera. You also mostly need livestock to produce the dung that is used in growing veg. Even stuff lick permiculture uses chicken shit or horse manure. But the bigger culprit is industrial production. Plant based monocultures are also shit. We need diversified cropping and and an agri-ecological approach.
 
gblues

gblues

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,482
Tigard, OR
Eating meat may be related to how COVID 19 spread to humans, but it has zero to do with why it became a global pandemic.

Eating meat isn't why people known to be exposed weren't properly isolated upon returning to the US.

Eating meat didn't make Donald Trump throw away the government playbook for dealing with an infectious disease.

Eating meat isn't why millions think COVID is a hoax and refuse to follow basic safety protocols.

Eating meat is irrelevant to the clusterfuck of vaccine distribution.

So maybe mentok15 you can shut the entire hell up.
 
SilentPanda

SilentPanda

Member
Nov 6, 2017
13,700
Earth
Stardragon said:
This just rubs me the wrong way. Like, "prime suspects" for what? Being trapped in horrible wet markets and fur farms against their will? It's unbelievable to me these places are even allowed to exist
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Wet markets' likely launched the coronavirus. Here's what you need to know.

Somewhat akin to farmer's markets and found around the world, wet markets are typically large collections of open-air stalls selling fresh seafood, meat, fruits, and vegetables. Some wet markets sell and slaughter live animals on site, including chickens, fish, and shellfish. In China, they're a staple of daily life for many.
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More rarely, wet markets also sell wild animals and their meat. The Huanan market, for example, had a wild animal section where live and slaughtered species were for sale: snakes, beavers, porcupines, and baby crocodiles, among other animals.

Why "wet" markets? One explanation has to do with the liquid in these places: live fish splashing in tubs of water, melting ice keeping meat cold, the blood and innards of slaughtered animals. Another is simply that they deal in perishable goods (thus wet) instead of dry, durable goods.
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www.nationalgeographic.com

'Wet markets' launched the coronavirus. Here's what you need to know.

Most of the earliest COVID-19 cases trace back to one of these sites, but what are they and what do they sell?
www.nationalgeographic.com www.nationalgeographic.com
 
mentok15

mentok15

Member
Dec 20, 2017
7,302
Australia
gblues said:
Eating meat may be related to how COVID 19 spread to humans, but it has zero to do with why it became a global pandemic.

Eating meat isn't why people known to be exposed weren't properly isolated upon returning to the US.

Eating meat didn't make Donald Trump throw away the government playbook for dealing with an infectious disease.

Eating meat isn't why millions think COVID is a hoax and refuse to follow basic safety protocols.

Eating meat is irrelevant to the clusterfuck of vaccine distribution.
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If it never spread to humans we would not have had a pandemic, so it really does have something to do with it. And that's really US centric, it's a global pandemic, 4 times as many people died outside the US than within. Even New Zealand that dealt with it well still had 25 deaths. 25 people that died because some are so shortsighted and selfish they can't stop eating animals.

So maybe mentok15 you can shut the entire hell up.
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No.
 
KDR_11k

KDR_11k

Banned
Nov 10, 2017
5,235
User Banned (2 Weeks): Dismissing Concerns of Xenophobia
I was hoping the blame on pangolins would curb the demand for pangolin meat and scales in east Asia and end that particular extinction threat.

mentok15 said:
If it never spread to humans we would not have had a pandemic, so it really does have something to do with it. And that's really US centric, it's a global pandemic, 4 times as many people died outside the US than within. Even New Zealand that dealt with it well still had 25 deaths. 25 people that died because some are so shortsighted and selfish they can't stop eating animals.
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Scientists also worry about humans encroaching more and more on the habitats of other species and forcing them to live near humans, it's not just eating animals that's the problem but also expanding agricultural land and cities. The closer humans live to other animals the easier the transmission and all of that is pushing them closer together with more and more species.

Stardragon said:
This just rubs me the wrong way. Like, "prime suspects" for what? Being trapped in horrible wet markets and fur farms against their will? It's unbelievable to me these places are even allowed to exist
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But remember not to complain about wet markets because technically that term means any open air market in Asia despite only hitting mainstream usage here for markets that sell life animals in terrible conditions so you'd be asking for a ban on selling vegetables!
Fucking hell, that talking point makes me angry. It's absolutely clear that when regular people talk about banning "wet markets" they mean the type being shown in the media where all kinds of random animals are caged in small spaces or sold as meat, not shutting down a farm produce stand.
 
aznpxdd

aznpxdd

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,670
Wet markets are basically farmers markets in US, funny how western peeps on here love putting it down just because its a different term lol. Obviously this particular market in wuhan sold wild animals which is rare as the poster couple posts up above said.
 
XMonkey

XMonkey

Member
Oct 26, 2017
6,827
mentok15 said:
If everyone was vegan we wouldn't be going through this.

Go vegan! Unless you think eating meat is worth the 2.4+ million deaths caused by this zoonotic caused pandemic.
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It's not clear that a human eating another animal is what caused this pandemic. We can pick up diseases in many ways.
 
bye

bye

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
8,422
Phoenix, AZ
XMonkey said:
It's not clear that a human eating another animal is what caused this pandemic. We can pick up diseases in many ways.
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This is true, but it's all connected.

We tear down forests for example to make room for cows that we eat. We push wildlife out through urbanization. The massive amount of CO2 we produce that is warming the planet (up to 20% of it is from just cows) is also killing wildlife. Species displacement (see: bats, rodents) and lack of genetic diversity/predators to kill pests are all direct results of this. Maybe it isn't all due to diet, but our disregard for other life is leading us to where we are today.
 
mentok15

mentok15

Member
Dec 20, 2017
7,302
Australia
Thorrgal said:
Or maybe just don't sell bats in wet markets
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XMonkey said:
It's not clear that a human eating another animal is what caused this pandemic. We can pick up diseases in many ways.
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Most evidence does point to it being liked to these wet markets, though west it's not 100% clear and most likely won't be. And we have had swine and bird flue before, also the Spanish Flu was most likely a swine influenza strain.

Humans being in contact with animals is a risk of diseases jumping species.
 
panda-zebra

panda-zebra

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 28, 2017
5,737
gblues said:
So maybe mentok15 you can shut the entire hell up.
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That Trump had a hand in half a million deaths so far is not up for debate, neither is it the subject of this thread. Murica & STFU doesn't make for a great post about the origins of a pandemic.

Thorrgal said:
Or maybe just don't sell bats in wet markets
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XMonkey said:
It's not clear that a human eating another animal is what caused this pandemic. We can pick up diseases in many ways.
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This is some guns don't kill people shit. We fuck the planet. We encroach on the living spaces of wild animals to feed and insaciable lust for the taste of dead animal flesh. We destroy more and more natural habitats, unsettling and destroying ecosystems, to create land for grazing and innefficient production of crops to feed "food". Around 80 BILLION animals are brought into existence and slaughtered every year because people enjoy eating them and like the look of themselves draped in their dead skins. Covid jumped to humans from some undetermined wild animal. HIV jumped to humans when chimps were hunted for meat. Avian flu killed 50 million a century ago. Swine flu came from domesticatined pig meat production. Fuck with nature and it fucks you back.

LookAtMeGo said:
Yeah I'm pretty sure we are the prime suspect and it's our complete disregard for life on this planet that got us here.
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That's the only logical take on this.
 
Thorrgal

Thorrgal

Member
Oct 26, 2017
12,319
panda-zebra said:
That Trump had a hand in half a million deaths so far is not up for debate, neither is it the subject of this thread. Murica & STFU doesn't make for a great post about the origins of a pandemic.



This is some guns don't kill people shit. We fuck the planet. We encroach on the living spaces of wild animals to feed and insaciable lust for the taste of dead animal flesh. We destroy more and more natural habitats, unsettling and destroying ecosystems, to create land for grazing and innefficient production of crops to feed "food". Around 80 BILLION animals are brought into existence and slaughtered every year because people enjoy eating them and like the look of themselves draped in their dead skins. Covid jumped to humans from some undetermined wild animal. HIV jumped to humans when chimps were hunted for meat. Avian flu killed 50 million a century ago. Swine flu came from domesticatined pig meat production. Fuck with nature and it fucks you back.


That's the only logical take on this.
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Animal husbandry has nothing to do with COVID or HIV though, so I'm not sure why you mix it with all the other horrible things it has something to do with.

Those are 2 different issues, and I know it's horrible in its own right, but mixing them only does it a disservice.

mentok15 said:
Most evidence does point to it being liked to these wet markets, though west it's not 100% clear and most likely won't be. And we have had swine and bird flue before, also the Spanish Flu was most likely a swine influenza strain.

Humans being in contact with animals is a risk of diseases jumping species.
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But humans have always been in contact with animals, specially after they became farmers and started taming animals, both for eating or utility work (horses, mules, oxes), and through that we also developed defenses to those diseases.

So we could argue that the earth was indeed healthier when were were just bands of hunter gatherers, and for many reasons, but how do we move forward?

We can't all go vegan, and although I did try for a while I knew that wouldn't solve the problem on a global scale. We can't all become hunters either, and I'm not sure there's enough free-range to feed all the free-range cattle that we would need

It's a sad state of affairs and I wish I knew the answer, although maybe someone can educate me further on the matter.
 
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