The Elephant in the Room : How to Stop Making Ourselves and Other Animals Sick.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kalaugher, Liz.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Animals as carriers of disease.

Human-animal relationships.

Medicine, Preventive.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (377 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2025.

Summary:

A healthier future starts with seeing the human causes of wildlife diseases. When new diseases spread, news reports often focus on wildlife culprits—rodents, monkeys and mpox; bats and COVID-19; waterfowl and avian flu; or mosquitoes and Zika. But, in this urgent and engaging book, we see it often works the other way around—humans have caused diseases in other animals countless times, through travel and transport, the changes we impose on our environment, and global warming. With science journalist Liz Kalaugher as our guide, we meet the wildlife we have harmed and the experts now studying the crosscurrents between humans, other animals, and health. Herds of buffalo in Kenya, cloned ferrets in Colorado, and frogs shipped worldwide as living pregnancy tests for humans, all help Kalaugher dive into the murky backstories behind wildlife epidemics past and present. We learn that military conflict likely contributed to the spread of rinderpest, or cattle plague, throughout Africa, devastating pastoral communities. That crowded poultry farms may create virulent new forms of bird flu that spill back into the wild. And that West Nile virus—which affects not only birds and humans, but other animals, including horses, skunks, and squirrels—is spreading as global temperatures rise. Expanding today’s discussions of environmental protection to include illness and its impact, Kalaugher both sounds the alarm and explores ways to stop the emergence and spread of wildlife diseases. These solutions start with a simple lesson: when we protect other animals, we protect ourselves.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Preface

1 Wild Horse Chase: Grevy's Zebra, Extinctions and Wildlife Diseases

2 A Mammoth Problem:Early Travel, Disappearing Neanderthals and Vanishing Megafauna

3 The Canary in the Hawaiian Chain: Honeycreepers, Colonial Ships, Accidental Imports, Avian Pox and Avian Malaria

4 Measly Migration: Close Contact, War, and Rinderpest's Deadly Jump from Cattle to African Wildlife

5 Tasmanian Troubles: Sheep Farming, Extinct Tigers and 'Distemper'

6 Black Feet and Black Death: Long-distance Trade, Plague, Prairie Dog Days and Ferret Futures

7 Seals Go to the Dogs: Unusual Contact and Morbilliviruses out at Sea

8 A Devil of a Problem: Farming and Tasmanians Devilled by Cancer

9 Fungus and Frogs: Lab Animals, Pets, Food, and Trading Amphibian Disease Internationally

10 City Catches: Foxes, Mange and High-Density Living

11 Warming and Wes terning: Climate Change, American Crows and West Nile Virus

12 Monkey Mix-up: Muriquis, Vanishing Forests and Yellow Fever

13 Bats for Bushmeat: Plantations, Eco-tourism, Apes and Ebola

14 Big Farma: Industrial Farming and Bird Flu

15 Changing Our Stripes: Protecting Ourselves and Other Wildlife

Endnotes

Acknowledgements

Index

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9780226840918

0226840913

OCLC:

1513534442