The elephant in the room : how to stop making ourselves and other animals sick / Liz Kalaugher.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kalaugher, Liz, Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Human-animal relationships.

Animals as carriers of disease.

Medicine, Preventive.

Preventive Medicine.

Medical Subjects:

Preventive Medicine.

Genre:

Informational works.

Physical Description:

xv, 334 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (chiefly color), color maps ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Chicago, IL : The University of Chicago Press, 2025.

Summary:

"Origin stories for today's viruses often start with animals; HIV in humans begins with a chimpanzee, or our COVID-19 pandemic with possible transmission from bats. But it often works the other way around-humans have caused diseases in other animals countless times throughout history. In this eye-opening and timely book, science journalist Liz Kalaugher explores the invisible crosscurrents between humans, other animals, and disease. Offering readers a front-row seat to today's research on wildlife diseases, each chapter focuses on a single example and incorporates interviews with scientists and other experts. As the book unfolds, we see how humans have spread diseases directly to other animals, and indirectly by altering ecosystems, transporting life around the globe, and changing the planet's climate. In one chapter, Kalaugher examines the role of high-density poultry farms in creating virulent new forms of bird flu that spilled back into the wild and have spread around the world, potentially putting humans at risk of another pandemic. In another chapter, we learn an infectious cancer-canine transmissible venereal tumor-may have wiped out North America's very first dogs, after Europeans' domesticated canid companions introduced the disease. Later, Kalaugher offers evidence that rising global temperatures will further spread diseases like West Nile, which already affects not only crows and humans, but also horses, gray wolves, skunks, squirrels, little brown bats, and alligators. West Nile has trouble spreading at the cooler temperatures (for now) where seventy percent of the US population lives. But as global temperatures increase, so does risk. All these stories make clear that a better understanding of wildlife diseases-and humans' roles in spreading them-is essential for a better and healthier future for all animals, including people"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Wild horse chase : Grevy's zebra, extinctions and wildlife diseases

A mammoth problem : early travel, disappearing Neanderthals and vanishing megafauna

The canary in the Hawaiian chain : honeycreepers, colonial ships, accidental imports, avian pox and avian malaria

Measly migration : close contact, war, and rinderpest's dealy jump from cattle to African wildlife

Tasmanian troubles : sheep farming, extinct tigers, and "distemper"

Black feet and Black Death : long-distance trade, plague, prairie dog days and ferret futures

Seals go to the dogs : unusual contact and morbilliviruses out at sea

A devil of a problem : farming and Tasmanians devilled by cancer

Fungus and frogs : lab animals, pets, food, and trading amphibian disease internationally

City catches : foxes, mange and high-density living

Warming and westerning : climate change, American crows and West Nile virus

Monkey mix-up : muriquis, vanishing forests and yellow fever

Bats for bushmeat : plantations, eco-tourism, apes and Ebola

Big farma : industrial farming and bird flu

Changing our stripes : protecting ourselves and other wildlife.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 249-328) and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Kalaugher, Liz. Elephant in the room.

ISBN:

9780226840901

0226840905

OCLC:

1456587125