As Australia braces for the 2024–25 bushfire season, the vivid memories of past disasters, like the 2019–20 Black Summer, remain etched in the hearts of wildlife lovers and carers. The effects of bushfires on wildlife are devastating, leaving countless animals injured, displaced, or dead, and their habitats in ruins. ...
The 2020 pandemic outbreak of COVID-19 turned the world’s attention to the growing global threat of new viral diseases. On December 31, 2019, The World Health Organization (WHO) was alerted by Chinese authorities to an outbreak of a novel strain of coronavirus causing severe pneumonia,1 subsequently named SARS-CoV-2, a zoonotic disease (transmissible between animals and people).
During the initial outbreak, most human cases were traced back to a wildlife market in the city of Wuhan, Hubei province, China. SARS-CoV-2 is thought to have originated in bats and may have passed through an intermediate animal host animal before acquiring the ability to infect people.
The way we interact with both wild and domestic animals has profound implications for public health world-wide. While it is difficult to predict the next zoonotic pandemic, there are many known risk factors.
