The COVID-19 pandemic provides a rare opportunity to reveal the impact of reduced human activity on wildlife. I compared traffic volume and wildlife roadkill data along 18 km of highway before, during and after a 3-month period of COVID-19 restrictions with baseline data from the previous four years.
Pigeon Post: Ian Neville writes from the UK
As I write the UK is enduring its third national coronavirus lockdown in 11 months. It is over a year since the first COVID-19 death was reported here and approaching a year since the first national lockdown began. I doubt back then any of us could have envisaged the severity […]
Could marine mammals catch COVID-19?
It is widely accepted that COVID-19 virus spread from wildlife to humans, and studies are now being done on the risks to land-based animals through cross-infection from humans, (The Veterinarian, October 2020). The results of a study published recently in Science of the Total Environment have found marine mammals may […]
Vet ethics: Pointing the finger at pandemic-causing behaviour
A recent article in Neuroepidemiology, called “What the COVID-19 crisis is telling humanity,” argues that the way we treat animals puts us at risk of further disasters similar to the current pandemic. The authors, David Wiebers and Valery Feigin, are neuroscientists. Their call for a change in our treatment of […]
COVID-19 also a risk for wildlife
An international study has warned a wide range of mammals, including threatened species, are at risk of human-animal transmission of COVID-19, and have urged people to take sanitary precautions when in direct or indirect contact with wild or feral mammal species. Domestic cats, American mink, Egyptian fruit bats and North […]