The illegal wildlife trade and infectious disease: The deadly risk to humans

Although climate change is often in the headlines, the potential for consequential shifts in infectious diseases that could result receives scant attention. As plants, animals and microbes continuously adjust to ecological stresses, there is a corresponding increased risk for the emergence of novel infectious diseases that should rightfully be among our primary concerns. Certainly, the exact extent of man’s influence on the extent or rate of climate change may remain controversial. However, there is an alternate form of direct human intervention on a planetary scale that is unequivocal and equally significant. This is the rapidly growing illegal trade in exotic wildlife as either pets, consumption as food, imagined medicinal purposes, ivory for ornaments or skins for decoration. Much of this illicit commerce intentionally concentrates on endangered or nearly extinct species. Want to own a baby tiger? It can be shipped with ease. In fact, according to the World Wildlife Fund, there are...