New research suggests that international wildlife trade is upping the transmission of diseases from animals to humans, with species sold and traded globally 50% more likely to spread disease in this way.
What's happening?
In a study published in the journal Science, researchers demonstrated a link between the global wildlife trade and zoonotic disease. As the New York Times reported, the researchers also concluded that live animal markets may spur even more risk.
"There's no safe trade," Jerome Gippet, one of the study's co-authors, told the Times. "As long as we continue trading species, we will expose ourselves to this problem."
The international wildlife trade includes everything from the commercial exchange of exotic pets and laboratory animals to food products and fur. At each stage, legal and illegal forms of this exchange can introduce new risks, such as spillover: the process by which diseases can jump from animals to humans. Spillover has contributed to the spread of Ebola, mpox, Salmonella, and more.
The researchers reviewed databases to identify which wild mammal species were involved in wildlife trade over the past 40 years. That unearthed 2,000 species, which represent around 25% of the world's mammal species, according to the Times.
When combined with data on which animals are known to be capable of infecting humans, the research overwhelmingly showed that the most traded animals transmitted the most pathogens.
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More open environments, like live animal markets, were also found to create opportunities for pathogens to spread between animals and evolve to infect humans. Researchers found that animals traded in such environments transmitted more diseases than their counterparts.
Why is this concerning?
This study gives greater credence to the idea that many outbreaks stem from the global wildlife trade. It also underscores the likelihood that live animal markets, in particular, could be a major contributor.
"We have a lot of case studies," Colin Carlson, another co-author of the study, told the Times. "But we have a really poor evidence base about what the wildlife trade is actually doing."
The illegal trade can also facilitate the transport of invasive species. Even legal trade is a risk and must be handled with considerable care.
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What's being done about this?
Ann Linder, an associate director at the animal law and policy program at Harvard Law School who was not involved in the study, commended the research team for confirming a suspicion long-held among scientists.
She told the Times that the scale of the wildlife trade is hard to measure, making its impact difficult to gauge. Beyond stopping and preventing illegal smuggling and trade, illuminating the risks that the whole industry exacerbates could be critical to reining it in.
"We need more studies like this, but, perhaps more fundamentally, we need more and better data to even begin to understand our own risk," Linder said.
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