by: Sara Filips

Posted: Jul 9, 2023 / 08:51 PM EDT

Updated: Jul 9, 2023 / 08:51 PM EDT

https://www.wfla.com/news/florida/2-florida-men-caught-with-illegal-wildlife-deputies-say/

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Two men were separately caught with illegal wildlife this weekend in South Florida, according to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office.

Jorge Isael Frontela Diaz, a 37-year-old angler in Miami, was given a citation to appear in court on Friday for possessing illegal fish. He was caught by an Upper Keys deputy who found four undersized schoolmaster snappers and four undersized mangrove snappers.

Defense attorney breaks down case surrounding missing Largo attorney Steven Cozzi

Sergio Alejandro Mena Rivera, a 24-year-old Fort Lauderdale man was arrested Saturday afternoon for possessing illegal lobster. Mena Rivero had a resource check conducted by a Middle Keys deputy who found five wrung lobster tails, three of which were undersized. He was also cited for possession of lobster out of season and having no measuring device.

For information on wildlife regulations, visit www.myfwc.com.

JULY 8, 2023 BY MERRITT CLIFTON 2 COMMENTS

Who to blame for animal diseases killing humans? Report says it’s U.S.

(Beth Clifton collage)

Harvard Law School and NYU Center for Environmental & Animal Protection deliver a shocker for most Americans (but not for you!)

“For many Americans,  concepts such as ‘bushmeat’ or ‘wildlife farming’ seem foreign,”  opens Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States,  “but they refer to practices that are common within the United States as well,  differentiated only by the language we use to describe them.”

Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States,  newly co-published by the Harvard Law School and the Center for Environmental & Animal Protection at New York University,  offers little,  including that insight,  which will surprise longtime readers of ANIMALS 24-7.

From left: ProMED deputy editor Marjorie Pollak,  who was first to warn the world about COVID-19,  epidemiologist Rodrigo Bauru Angerami, and ProMED founder Jack Woodall in 2014.
(See Jack Woodall, 81, the James Bond of animal/human disease prevention.)

You read it here first,  but now it’s official

Informed chiefly by multiple daily bulletins from ProMED,  the Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases,  in which ANIMALS 24-7 has participated since within days of ProMED’s debut in 1994,  we have extensively covered almost every topic raised by Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States,  many times,  while wondering if anyone beyond ProMED and our own readership is paying attention.

But Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States succinctly puts the whole mosaic of deadly zoonotic disease threats resulting from American treatment of animals together between one set of covers,  with prestigious names and a thick alphabet soup of advanced degrees to lend emphasis to the discussion.

Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States points out that despite all the wagging fingers pointed at China recently over outbreaks of SARS,  the H5N1 avian flu,  and COVID-19 ,  “More emerging infectious diseases originated in the United States than in any other country in the world during the second half of the 20th century,”  including the 1918 “Spanish” influenza pandemic.

(Beth Clifton collage)

“Spanish” influenza & 2009 swine flu pandemic both started here

Contrary to common belief,  the 1918 influenza pandemic—which “infected roughly 500 million people,  one-third of the world’s total population,  killing 12 times as many in absolute terms as has COVID-19 to date, ”  did not start in Spain,  nor in China.

Rather,  the “Spanish” influenza “appears to have been born of humble origins deep in the American Heartland,”  spreading from here to the rest of the world,  remind the six co-authors and five reviewers of Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the U.S.

As recently as 2009,  Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the U.S. recalls,  “the influenza strain H1N1,  known as ‘swine flu,’  swept through the U.S.,  infecting more than 100 million Americans and hospitalizing over 900,000.”

(See COVID-19 & “The Next Big One”: Spillover revisited.)

(Beth Clifton collage)

“A poorly interlocking system”

Then came COVID-19,  originating in China,  but killing 1.2 million Americans,  nearly twice as many as anywhere else.

This occurred chiefly because “There is no single,  unified federal or state authority responsible for the prevention,  detection,  and regulation of zoonotic disease.  Rather,  regulatory authority is divided among different government agencies,  each tasked with overseeing particular types of animals or activities,”   Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the U.S. observes,  from the collective perspectives of multiple lawyers and environmental health scientists.

“The result,”  they continue,  “is a poorly interlocking system whereby animals are divided into artificial categories and governed along similarly arbitrary divisions of administrative authority.”

(Beth Clifton collage)

Administrative bungling

In absence of any one federal agency with complete jurisdiction over zoonotic disease,  administrative bungling from then-U.S. president Donald Trump on down left the U.S. with a more inept and ineffective response than any other developed nation––and as many deaths as Brazil and India combined,  which have between them more than four times as many people.

“Trouble spots and gaps arise,”  Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the U.S. explains, “when animals are governed by regulatory categories such as ‘wildlife’ or ‘livestock,’  but do not fit neatly into either category.

“While disease can jump freely from wildlife to livestock to humans and back,  the U.S. regulatory system struggles to exercise this same kind of flexibility.  And because zoonotic disease touches on many different policy areas—including human health,  environmental health,  and animal health—it often falls on the fault lines between agencies,  resulting in a lack of unified and comprehensive government action.”

COVID & salmonella on the job.
(Beth Clifton collage)

Not even China has comparable culpability

Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States exemplifies this underlying problem by looking first in depth at wildlife trafficking,  an issue in which no other nation,  not even China,  has comparable culpability.

The U.S. is “the largest importer of wildlife in the world,  bringing in more than 220 million live wild animals and their diseases each year.”

Yet,  “An overwhelming majority of live wild animals are never physically inspected upon entering the country,  nor are they quarantined,”  because the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service “has no legal authority to check wildlife imports for disease unless mandated to do so by another agency,” such as the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention or the Department of Agriculture.

“If you try to bring a dog or cat home from abroad with you,  your “companion animal may be required to go through veterinary checks and a 30-day quarantine period,”  notes Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States,  “while a commercial wholesaler importing hundreds of sugar gliders or other wild animals would not be subject to either process.  Similarly, an individual cannot bring meat from abroad back to the United States,  but one can import live wild animals from those same countries with very little scrutiny.”

(Beth Clifton collage)

High-risk species in American homes

Reminds Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States,  citing several examples,  “The exotic pet trade is problematic from a public health standpoint because it brings high-risk species into American homes,”  and not just occasionally.

Indeed,  “studies have shown that at least 50%–90% of snakes, turtles, and lizards are carriers of salmonella,”  Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States summarizes,  yet “these animals are handled and held by individuals,  often children,  with few sanitary precautions.

“Other diseases are rare but can be quite deadly,”  especially those carried by non-human primates,  such as “yellow fever,  Ebola,  dengue,  viral hepatitis,  and disease caused by poxviruses,”  as well as herpes B,  carried by 80%–90% of macaques,  transmitted through bites.

“Monkeys have also been shown to transmit bacterial zoonotic diseases to humans including tuberculosis and others,”  Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States mentions in passing.

(Beth Clifton collage)

Invisible threat

However,  “While the exotic pet trade is vast in scale,”  Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States warns,  “it is also largely invisible. Exotic pet auctions and swap meets typically do not allow cameras.  Sales frequently take place without adequate record-keeping.  The exotic pet industry has proven highly resistant to regulation.

“Yet,  the catalog of species and associated diseases involved in the trade is seemingly endless,”  with neither the Endangered Species Act nor the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna & Flora including any provisions to intercept zoonoses.

“The Animal Welfare Act requires breeders,  wholesalers,  dealers,  transporters,  and sellers of exotic and wild animals to be licensed,”  Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States,  allows,  “but only provides limited oversight.

“Moreover,  Animal Welfare Act provisions have little direct impact on disease risk,  and the Act exempts broad categories of animals—including reptiles,  amphibians,  birds,”  and most rodents.

(Beth Clifton collage)

Zoonotic disease linked to hunting kills more people than hunting accidents

Hunting likewise presents substantial zoonotic disease risk,  with little awareness of the risk factors among either the participants or the regulators.

“Wild aquatic birds,  the natural reservoirs for avian influenza,”  Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States mentions,  “have transmitted low pathogenic strains of virus to hunters.  If more deadly high pathogenic strains of the virus were introduced in North America,”  which could occur with fall migration in any year after waterfowl from around the world spend the summer mixing and mingling inside the Arctic Circle,  “the risk for human exposure to the virus through hunting could be substantial.”

Such exposure can be indirect.  For instance,  droppings from infected migratory waterfowl are believed to have caused “documented H5N1 outbreaks at 16 game bird farms in the last year alone,”  the authors of Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States note.

(Beth Clifton collage)

Mixing species who would never meet in nature

Captive hunting operations,  like the exotic pet trade,  “allow for the mixing of a wide range of species from different continents that would never encounter one another in nature,”  Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States explains.  “This interspecies contact may offer pathogens additional opportunities to spread among species and provide them new pathways to reach humans.

“Other conditions of captive hunting facilities also lend themselves to zoonotic transmission. For example,  animals are artificially concentrated in large numbers,  with both native and non-native species confined in fenced areas sharing the same feeding stations and water sources.”

(See Add to COVID-19 toll expanded hunting on U.S. Wildlife Refuges.)

(Beth Clifton photo)

Tuberculosis,  brucellosis,  & COVID-19

Zoonotic disease transmission associated with hunting ranches has not been completely ignored.

“Tuberculosis and brucellosis are two significant zoonoses found in farm-raised bison,  deer,  and elk,”  Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States recalls.  “But,  due in part to a 2015 federal eradication program in cattle and captive deer,  these diseases are fairly uncommon in the United States.

“More recently farmed deer have been found to carry SARS-CoV-2 [better known as COVID-19].  Researchers found that 30% of captive and wild deer tested in Iowa in 2020 carried SARS-CoV-2,  with one herd having infection rates over 80%.

“USDA research in early 2020 showed that although deer did not show symptoms,  they can transmit the disease.  At the time of this writing,  deer,”  including wild deer,  “appear to be spreading the disease back to humans.”

(See Shoving tule elk & bison aside, National Park Service favors cattle ranchers.)

(Beth Clifton collage)

Chronic wasting disease

So-called “fence-line transmission” of chronic wasting disease,  CWD for short,  starting with ranched elk infecting wild elk at hunting ranches in the Rocky Mountains,  “has been reported in 29 states and is considered endemic in some,  including Colorado,  Wyoming,  and Nebraska,”  Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States recounts.

“In certain areas, roughly 10% of free-roaming deer carry the disease,”  Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States adds,  but “the CDC reports that,  on some big game ranches,  79% of deer tested positive for CWD.”

(See Hunting, controlled burns & brain rot.)

(Beth Clifton collage)

“Brucellosis at 13 times normal levels”

CWD,  a prionic disease related to “mad cow disease” and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans,  is not known to have had human victims––yet––but hunters in CWD-endemic areas are commonly advised against eating their kills.

However,  Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States observes,  “state departments of fish and game are reliant on the sale of hunting licenses,  and by proxy,  the sale of wildlife.  These incentives may allow disease risk to be overlooked in favor of revenue,  for example,  in the case of state-run feeding grounds for elk.

“To keep population numbers high and protect hunting revenue,  Wyoming has created artificial environments of 800 or more animals per acre,  in which diseases like brucellosis are found at thirteen times normal levels.”

(See Winter policy favors feeding elk but starving bison.)

(Beth Clifton collage)

Factory farming

Serious as the threats associated with wildlife trafficking and hunting are,  Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States emphasizes that,  “Eight of the 10 species who share the highest number of viruses with humans are domestic species, including pigs,  cattle,  sheep,  and goats.

“Ninety-eight percent of livestock in the United States live on large-scale facilities known as CAFOs (‘concentrated animal feeding operations’),  colloquially called ‘factory farms.’

“CAFOs are officially defined by the USDA  as operations that house more than 2,500 swine, 1,000 head of beef cattle (raised for meat),  700 dairy cows (raised for milk),  125,000 broiler chickens (raised for meat),  or 82,000 laying hens or pullets (raised for eggs).

“Wild aquatic birds are the natural reservoirs of avian influenzas and transmit the viruses to domestic poultry,”  Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States again explains,  “who can then turn low-pathogenic strains to highly pathogenic strains,  potentially spreading them to other species.

(Beth Clifton collage)

Chickens & pigs

“Both chicken and hog facilities are particularly susceptible to viral influenza,  with hogs acting as a potential bridge species capable of passing avian influenza to humans and spawning new forms of disease.

“While recent prior outbreaks of avian influenza in humans have been rare and mostly limited to poultry workers, mortality was severe,  ranging from 30%–60%.  Estimates project an influenza A pandemic could infect 30% of the world’s population in a matter of months.”

Scared yet?

“Apart from direct transmission of pathogens,”  Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States continues,  “overuse of antibiotics by CAFOs presents serious risks to public health.  Antibiotic drugs are fed to animals to prevent and treat illness, often caused by poor living conditions, as well as to stimulate  their growth.”

This “encourages the development of antibiotic-resistant pathogens,”  Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States summarizes,  “such that the livestock industry not only creates zoonotic disease exposure,  but also undermines the human health system’s ability to treat some of those same diseases.”

(See Farmed animal product certifications “lack integrity,” investigators find.)

(Beth Clifton collage)

“Oversight of factory farms is limited”

Despite the magnitude of the associated risks,  “Oversight of factory farms is limited,”  Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States continues.  “Regulators may lack basic information  about how many operations exist and where.  Surveying aerial photographs in 2017,  Iowa’s Department of Natural Resources found 4,200 previously unknown facilities in Iowa alone.

“Prior attempts by the Environmental Protection Agency to inventory and locate factory farms were abandoned following a string of lawsuits from the livestock industry.”

Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States concedes that,  “Many industrial animal agricultural operations “have higher levels of biosecurity than other industries.  Access to these facilities is tightly controlled,”  but “Intense biosecurity goes hand-in-hand with a lack of transparency at these facilities that are closed to the public,  journalists, and regulators,  such that much of what is known of conditions in CAFOs comes through private undercover investigations or whistleblowers.

(Beth Clifton collage)

Strict biosecurity is not enough

“Ongoing H5N1 influenza outbreaks demonstrate that even with strict biosecurity protections in place,  and advanced warning about impending disease,  many producers are still unable to prevent infection.

“Over the last 60 years,”  Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States  continues,  “production of both pigs and poultry has become increasingly clustered,  concentrating in regions of the Midwest and Southeast and overlapping in areas like Iowa and North Carolina.

“In these places,  each form of production makes the other more dangerous.

“Though both USDA and CDC are well versed in the risks,”  Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States  charges,  “neither imposes any regulation to separate pig and poultry operations in order to prevent the creation of new influenza viruses.

(Beth Clifton collage)

From pigs to mink

“The interplay between different animal industries can amplify risk in other ways as well,”  Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States adds.  “For example,  pathogens can spread as animals produced in one industry are used to feed animals in another.  In an outbreak of influenza outbreak among 15,000 mink held on a Midwestern fur farm,  researchers determined that the animals likely became infected when they were fed raw or partially-cooked turkey meat from birds who were carrying the virus.

“However,  laboratory analysis suggested that the strain the mink were infected with originated in swine—likely moving from a pig facility to infect nearby turkeys before the birds were slaughtered and fed to captive mink.”

(Beth Clifton collage)

Hiding the evidence

Speaking of mink,  “Eighteen mink farms across four states experienced outbreaks of COVID-19,”  Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States recalls.

“The CDC waited several months after confirming that mink may have spread COVID-19 to farm workers in Michigan before releasing this information.”

(See Diseased pigs & mink gave the world COVID-19, scientists suspect.)

Meanwhile,  “Public records requests reveal that,  in the wake of COVID-19 outbreaks on Utah mink farms,  the state department of public health was denied access to the infected fur farms while attempting to carry out testing in an effort to contain the spread.

“Fur Commission USA,  the industry’s largest trade group,  issued warnings to its members not to allow reporters or researchers near their mink sheds.”

(Beth Clifton collage)

Raw milk

Almost as an aside,  tucked within a discussion of zoonotic disease risk associated with camel farming,  of which there is very little in the U.S.,  Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States,  mentions that “31 states allow for the sale of raw milk [primarily from cows and goats],  which in particular carries a greater risk of brucellosis than pasteurized milk.  Studies have shown that states that legalize raw milk sales experienced greater numbers of disease outbreaks related to milk consumption.”

(See Raw milk,  pit bulls,  exotics & chicken poop.)

(Beth Clifton collage)

Auctions,  fairs,  petting zoos

Several industries ancillary to animal agriculture are comparatively small,  but also contribute outsized zoonotic disease risk,  including livestock auctions,  fairs,  petting zoos,  and especially live markets.

Like exotic animal auctions,  livestock auctions,  fairs,  petting zoos,  and live markets bring together a variety of species under conditions which not only allow pathogens to spread,  but are conducive to reassortment of viruses and bacteria to create mutated new pathogens.

“There is often a lack of sanitation and transparency,”  at such sites,   Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States observes.  “Journalists and photographers are sometimes not allowed to document certain portions—sometimes any portions” of the events and locations.

“Additionally,  lack of record-keeping means that it may be very difficult to trace and control a disease outbreak sourced from” any of these points.

(Beth Clifton collage)

U.S. leads world in swine-origin influenza outbreaks

“Roadside petting zoos have been linked to numerous zoonotic outbreaks,  including bacterial,  viral,  and fungal infections,”  Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States reminds.

“Fairs are almost never limited to one species of animal,  which presents additional opportunities for the spread of viruses. Perhaps the most dangerous of these combinations is poultry and swine,  as pigs are susceptible to many forms of avian influenza and provide an ideal mixing vessel for the creation of novel strains of influenza virus.

“Over the last decade,  following the 2009 H1N1 swine flu epidemic,”  Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States says,  “the U.S. has recorded the highest number of swine-origin influenza infections of any country in the world.

“The vast majority of these infections occurred in youth swine exhibitors at state and county fairs.  Roughly 18% of swine at county fairs test positive for influenza A.9.”

Storefront live markets were in almost every neighborhood circa 1920.  They still exist,  but not as obviously.

Live markets

Live markets,  to be found in every major U.S. city and many small towns,  “are typically retail food markets,”  selling poultry,  mammals (predominantly rabbits,  pigs,  calves,  sheep,  and goats),  fish,  and other aquatic animals (predominantly frogs,  turtles,  and crustaceans).”

Though little noticed by most of the public,  “Hundreds of such markets operate across the United States,”  Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States details.  “The USDA estimates that more than 25 million birds of different species pass through 130 known live bird markets in the Northeast alone each year.

“The dominant disease risk from live poultry markets is influenza. Live bird markets are particularly high-risk in this respect because they often combine waterfowl—the natural reservoirs of influenza—with chickens and other poultry who can become infected and potentially spread the  virus to other animals and humans.”

(Beth Clifton collage)

Ritual slaughter

Many live markets serve ethnic minorities,  including supplying animals for sacrificial rituals.  After reviewing the zoonotic disease threats associated with Islamic ritual slaughter and the Caribbean practice of Santeria,  Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States assesses that,  “While many forms of sacrificial slaughter pose heightened  zoonotic disease risk due to a lack of biosecurity and oversight,  perhaps the most significant risk comes from the [Hassidic] Jewish practice of Kapparos (Kapparot).

“Each year in New York City alone, Kaporos practitioners sacrifice an estimated 60,000 chickens in public streets over the course of a few days before the onset of Yom Kippur.

“Practitioners are expected to directly handle the birds before and during slaughter.

“The quantity of those interactions,  as well as the resultant biofluids such as blood and excrement that can contaminate public streets,  make this form of sacrificial slaughter particularly high-risk for public health.”

(See Kaporos chicken rescue brings New York City a smile on 9-11-2021

(Beth Clifton collage)

Backyard bird keepers

Backyard bird keepers,  chiefly raising hens and secondarily raising gamefowl for cockfighting,  produce about 18.7 million birds per year,  according to USDA estimates.

“Unlike industrial poultry producers, backyard bird operations impose few if any biosecurity measures,”  Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States reports.

“Half or more of the birds have contact with wildlife—including waterfowl, the natural reservoirs for avian influenza.

“In addition,  many owners raise multiple species of birds or other animals.  Sixteen percent of operators also raise pigs,  a species that can serve as a mixing vessel for influenza viruses and may transmit them to humans.

“Backyard poultry have also been affected by the current avian influenza outbreak, which, at the time of this writing,  has reached 507 backyard flocks along with 325 commercial suppliers, leaving a total of over 58.7 million poultry dead.”

(Beth Clifton collage)

Cockfighting

“Though animal fighting is a relatively small market,”  Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States warns,  “it may convey significant zoonotic risk to those individuals involved in the practice because they are directly exposed to blood and other fluids.  Participants regularly handle injured animals or animal carcasses and,  without proper sanitation,  could easily become infected with any pathogens that the animal carried.

“Cockfighting operations in particular may allow for the transmission of avian influenza and other highly contagious diseases.  These concerns are augmented by a distinct lack of veterinary care and transparency.”

Steve Hindi, Karen Davis, & Eric Mills have warned the world for decades.
(Beth Clifton collage)

Mills, Davis,  & Hindi warned them

Yet,  Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States continues,  “It was not until the 2002-2003 outbreak of Newcastle disease that the cockfighting industry and its movements came to be better understood by regulators.

“At the time, the industry was estimated to be worth $50 million in California alone and used a sophisticated system to transport birds illegally despite the state and federal quarantines in place.”

Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States does not mention that three of the most frequent ANIMALS 24-7 contributors––Eric Mills of Action for Animals,  Karen Davis of United Poultry Concerns,  and Steve Hindi of Showing Animals Respect & Kindness––have been struggling for thirty-odd years each to get indifferent public officials to enforce animal welfare laws already on the books that could prevent the disease risks associated,  respectively,  with live markets,  Kaporos,  and cockfighting.

(Beth Clifton collage)

Imports for lab use

What about animal use in biomedical research?

“Perhaps in part due to the fact that animals are often kept in isolation, and in part due to self-imposed protocols,”   Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States says,  “instances of zoonotic disease outbreaks appear quite rare in research facilities.”

But imports of monkeys from abroad for laboratory use,  in particular,  has brought new diseases into the U.S.

“For example,”  Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States recites,  in 1989 “100 monkeys who were imported by the Hazelton Research Products facility in Reston, Virginia carried a new strain of Ebola virus,”  which infected one worker at the Kennedy Animalport in New York City and several laboratory employees.

(See Kathi Travers, 69, vehemently non-“animal rights” animal advocate.)

William Karesh [left],  whose alleged “gain of function” research in China has become a favorite target of COVID conspiracy theorists,  and ANIMALS 24-7 editor Merritt Clifton [right].
(Beth Clifton photo)

“Gain of function”

“Several biosecurity labs in the United States carry out research focused on infectious disease wherein animals are deliberately infected or exposed to dangerous pathogens,”  Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States continues.  “Some of these studies have led to exposure among laboratory workers who then risk spreading these diseases to the general public.

“Perhaps the most controversial type of research study,”  Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States notes,  “is ‘gain of function research,’”  the subject of innumerable ill-founded conspiracy theories associated with COVID-19,  “which seeks to better understand how pathogens, often animal pathogens,  could be altered and made to adapt and acquire new capacities such as becoming more virulent,  more transmissible,  or better able to infect new hosts,  often for the purposes of defending against them.”

While the conspiracy theorists typically impute that “gain of function research” is something sinister done only in Wuhan,  China,  reality is that most “gain of function research” on record has been done,  and is being done,  right here in the U.S.

Bat Conservation International founder Merlin Tuttle.  (Beth Clifton collage)

“Holy cow,  Batman!”

And then there is out-and-out batshit craziness.

“Many bacterial, fungal, and viral pathogens have been identified in bat guano,”  Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States understates.  “Bats are believed to be a reservoir for many viruses,  including SARS-related coronaviruses,”  among them COVID-19,  Nipah virus,  Ebola virus,  rabies,  the MERS coronavirus (MERS-CoV),  as well as others,  “and carry the fungus that causes histoplasmosis in humans.

“There has been at least one reported instance in China of bat-human disease transmission during the process of guano harvesting,”  Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States says,  “in which six men fell ill with a severe respiratory disease.”

(Beth Clifton collage)

Batshit in Texas

But this is hardly just a Chinese problem.

“Bracken Cave near San Antonio, Texas supports more than 15 million Mexican free-tailed bats and is the largest bat maternal nesting colony in the world,”  Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States says.  “Purveyors harvest up to 50 tons of guano annually from Bracken cave alone.

“Similar caves are found around the United States,  including in Oklahoma,  California, Tennessee,  and Maryland.

“There are state and local guidelines as well as CDC guidelines for handling bats, but there are no known regulations in the United States governing bat guano farming.”

(Beth Clifton collage)

$773 billion for defense,  but only $468 million for pandemic preparedness

The bottom line,  for Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States,  is that “More people died in one day in 2020 from COVID-19 complications than from the attacks of September 11,  2001. Yet the fiscal year 2023 defense budget released by President Joe Biden appropriated only $468 million for pandemic preparedness,  compared to $773 billion allocated for defense.”

The entire 170-page report may be downloaded from https://s18798.pcdn.co/ceap/wp-content/uploads/sites/11111/2023/07/Animal-Markets-and-Zoonotic-Disease-in-the-United-States.pdf

Beth & Merritt Clifton.

Animal Markets & Zoonotic Disease in the United States was researched and written by Ann Linder, Valerie Wilson McCarthy,  Chris Green,  Bonnie Nadzam,  Dale Jamieson,  and Kristen Stilt. It was independently reviewed by Kelsey Eberly,  Doug Kysar,  Carney Anne Nassar,  Jonathan Pekar, and Delcianna Winders.

Please donate to support our work: 

www.animals24-7.org/donate

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Laurelle Stelle

https://news.yahoo.com/scientists-sounding-alarm-dangerous-problem-123000792.html

Sat, July 8, 2023 at 5:30 AM PDT·2 min read

As the world has gotten hotter, more people are exposed to dangerously high temperatures each year. Recent findings published in Nature Sustainability show that without policy changes, the world will heat up enough by the end of the century that more than 2 billion people will live in life-threatening hot climates, as Science Hub reported.

What’s happening?

So far, the world’s average temperature has risen by just under 1.2 degrees Celsius (about 2 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial level due to human activity, according to Science Hub. The Paris Agreement — an international treaty to limit heat-trapping gases produced by each country and stop the world from getting hotter — proposed to cap the increase at 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit.

However, the new study found that with the current laws, population growth, and environmental conditions, the world will likely reach about 4.8 degrees Fahrenheit above the preindustrial benchmark, per Science Hub.

The researchers then looked at which areas would be most affected if the temperature increased to that level. They defined “unprecedented heat” zones as areas where the average temperature throughout the year, counting all seasons, is 84.2 degrees Fahrenheit or higher.

Science Hub reported that 40 years ago, only 12 million people worldwide lived in regions with temperatures surpassing that heat. Today, thanks to the warming we’ve already experienced, about 60 million people are affected.

The study found that by 2100, 2 billion out of the world’s projected population of 9.5 billion will live in areas with an average temperature higher than 84.2 degrees Fahrenheit. The most affected areas will be countries around the equator, noted Science Hub: India, Nigeria, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Pakistan.

Why is this heating worrisome?

The hotter the world gets, the more heat waves, droughts, and wildfires we experience. As Science Hub reported, studies have also linked the rising heat to everything from more contagious diseases to lower labor efficiency and more conflict between people.​

“That’s a profound reshaping of the habitability of the surface of the planet, and could lead potentially to the large-scale reorganization of where people live,” study author Tim Lenton, director of the Global Systems Institute at the University of Exeter, told ScienceAlert.

What’s being done?

Science Hub reported that if the global community reaches the goal set by the Paris Agreement, the affected population would be limited to half a billion people instead of 2 billion.

In the meantime, individuals can protect themselves from heat waves with these tips for cooling off.

Join our free newsletter for cool news and cool tips that make it easy to help yourself while helping the planet.

By Rob Hotakainen | 07/07/2023 01:18 PM EDT

NOAA’s plan to slow boats ignites whale of a fight

A North Atlantic right whale mother and calf are seen Jan. 19, 2021, in waters near Wassaw Island, Ga. Georgia Department of Natural Resource/AP Photo

Capt. Fred Gamboa has led fishing trips off the New Jersey coast for the last 17 years, but he fears he will soon lose many customers if required to slow down his boats to meet new federal requirements to protect one of the most endangered whales in the ocean.

Gamboa, a charter boat operator from Point Pleasant, N.J., charges $4,800 to take people on an 18-hour tuna fishing trip 100 miles from shore. Under a new rule proposed by NOAA Fisheries, he’d have to travel at a top speed of roughly 11 ½ mph for part of the year, as opposed to his normal cruising speed of 30 to 40 mph.

“It would take nine to 10 hours to get out there — no customer would ever pay for that trip,” he said.

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Gamboa, 56, and thousands of other boaters along the Atlantic coast are lobbying Congress to block NOAA’s plan. But NOAA officials say that forcing boats to slow down during certain times of the year is a matter of survival for the North Atlantic right whale, which are particularly vulnerable to collisions.

Boaters and the recreational fishing industry have flexed their political muscle by winning key allies from a growing chorus of NOAA critics on Capitol Hill, but they’re opposed by a united front of green groups that want the agency to act quickly before any more whales — there are only an estimated 340 whales now remaining — are killed by vessel strikes.

“We need seasonal slowdowns to protect right whales in danger zones, just like we have lower speed limits to protect children near schools,” said Jane Davenport, senior attorney with Defenders of Wildlife.

Gamboa said the plan makes no sense for one simple reason: With the whales rapidly disappearing, they’ve become so rare that he has never even encountered one.

“I’ve yet to see one, and I have thousands of trips under my belt,” he said.

Gamboa said he expects Congress to stop NOAA because the plan “would just devastate the coastal economy.” Like many other boaters, he believes the odds of him ever hitting a right whale are incredibly remote.

Gib Brogan, campaign manager for the conservation advocacy group Oceana, said boaters are downplaying the overall risk to the whales.

“That may be the case for any individual boat, but if you multiply that by the number of boats that are out there, it adds up pretty quickly to an unacceptable risk,” he said.

NOAA’s proposed rule would expand on existing requirements by reducing the maximum speed limit for commercial and recreational boats of 35 feet or larger to 10 knots — or roughly 11 ½ mph — in designated zones along the Atlantic coast from Massachusetts to Florida.

The restrictions, which currently apply to boats larger than 65 feet, would be in effect for up to seven months per year in some places. But Brogan noted that nearly all of the slow zones would have no impact between Memorial Day and Labor Day, the most popular time for boating, when most of the whales are in Canada.

Those assurances have provided little solace to recreational fishermen and boaters, who fear that NOAA could impose other speed zones in the Gulf of Mexico and along the West Coast if the agency’s current plan succeeds. NOAA already is taking comments on a petition seeking a year-round 10-knot speed limit in waters along the Florida coast, in a zone stretching roughly from Pensacola to Tampa, to protect endangered Rice’s whales.

Frank Hugelmeyer, CEO of the National Marine Manufacturers Association, which represents the recreational boating industry, said the proposed rule for the Atlantic coast marked “the greatest restriction of public access to our nation’s cherished waterways in our time,” adding that it would force boaters to travel at “the speed of a bicycle.”

In defending the plan, NOAA Fisheries chief Janet Coit said there had been 14 lethal strikes since 2008, including at least five that involved boats of less than 65 feet.

Coit said the new speed limits are needed to preserve the dwindling population. The agency declared an “unusual mortality event” in 2017 after more than 20 percent of the population died, either from getting sick, injured or killed. Researchers now say the whales are dying faster than they reproduce, with fewer than 70 reproductively active females left in the population of just 340 whales.

“Vessel strikes and entanglements are driving the population’s decline — urgent action is needed to address these threats and to prevent extinction,” Coit told a House panel last month.

NOAA plans to finalize its new rule by December after reviewing more than 90,000 public comments, but environmental groups said the agency is dragging its feet.

Brogan said the speed limits need to take effect before this fall to protect the whales as they begin their annual seasonal migration. Each year, the whales move from their feeding grounds off Canada and New England, destined for the warmer waters of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida to give birth and take care of their calves before heading back north.

“The whales need protection,” he said. “And they need the protection in place before the fall, particularly to protect the mothers as they’re heading south.”

Earlier this year, Brogan said there was “blood on NOAA’s hands” after the agency rejected an emergency request to protect the whales from speeding vessels and a 20-year-old adult male whale was found dead off Virginia Beach. A necropsy later determined that the animal had died from a traumatic blunt force injury consistent with a vessel strike.

But Brogan said he believes the agency won’t let that happen again. He said NOAA’s proposed rule is based on sound science and that slowdown zones would closely follow the migratory pattern of the right whales, allowing most boaters to go faster during summer months.

“NOAA has a strong basis for action,” he said. “They’ve done their homework.”

‘High hopes for improving technology’

Many opponents in Congress hope to put the rule on hold until NOAA finds a way to use improved technology to detect whales and avoid collisions — technology the agency says isn’t yet available.

Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.) said NOAA relied on people who are not boaters and who “don’t understand this issue” to draft the rule.

At a hearing before the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife and Fisheries in early June, he told his colleagues that he had recently gone fishing 80 miles offshore but that he wouldn’t have made the trip under the new rule.

“It would take me about seven hours to get out to this spot going at 10 knots. … What’s going to happen is that most boaters aren’t going to go,” Graves told his colleagues. “I tell you: I wouldn’t have gone out.”

Instead of slowing down all boats, Graves said NOAA should use technology that would allow “real-time monitoring” of the whales.

Coit said the agency plans to spend $82 million from funds it received under last year’s Inflation Reduction Act to expand its monitoring programs, but she said the agency currently has no such technology to do the job.

“We have high hopes for improving technology, but right this moment we don’t have existing technology that can track and monitor and detect and avoid vessel strikes sufficient to prevent the fatalities,” she said.

Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.) called NOAA’s plan “an unprecedented attack on outdoor recreation” and said the Biden administration could better protect right whales by ending its support for wind energy.

“The construction and operation of the multiple wind energy projects in the Atlantic Ocean and their obsession with global warming will ultimately make it impossible to protect the right whales and other species because they refuse to acknowledge that their cure is not only wrongheaded but so environmentally destructive,” she said.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) said the rule could affect up to 63,000 registered boaters and threaten 340,000 jobs.

“I think that it’s kind of an elitist perspective to propose a rule that’s going to actually hurt people,” she said, adding that “a human being is obviously more important than an animal.”

And Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.), chair of the full House Natural Resources Committee, called the rule an example of “what happens when you get a bureaucratic administrative state that’s out of control.”

“If there’s a job lost over this rule, it should be the jobs of the people at NOAA that are proposing the rule,” he said.

A day after the hearing, the plan encountered even more resistance in the Senate, when the co-chairs of the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus — Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and John Boozman (R-Ark.) — teamed up on a bill that would prevent NOAA from acting until “technological solutions” are used to better track whales.

Manchin, who’s also the chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, called the plan “yet another example of dangerous federal overreach that would place unnecessary burdens on our seasonal fishermen, boat manufacturers and the coastal economies that rely on them.”

On June 23, Georgia Republican Rep. Buddy Carter introduced a similar bill that would not allow NOAA to spend any money to implement its rule until technology was developed and deployed to track the whales.

Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), ranking member of the Water, Wildlife and Fisheries Subcommittee, said current federal law requires NOAA to protect the whales and that the agency doesn’t have an option to grant requests to “give us a few more years to try to figure out alternatives.”

He said NOAA could always revisit its rule if “technology ripened” in coming years.

Huffman also said he was confused “by what seems like a bit of a split personality disorder” among Republicans who want to see offshore wind development halted because of unproven concerns about seismic surveying for the industry hurting whales, but otherwise oppose efforts that could save other whales from dying.

But he said there was one important point that everyone agreed with: “No one disputes that the right whale is on the brink of extinction.”

‘They don’t have enough science’

Gamboa, the owner of Andreas’ Toy Charters, said that speed can also be important in saving human lives.

While his two boats — a 44-footer and a smaller 31-footer — travel at the normal cruising speed of 30 to 40 mph, Gamboa said he can hit a top speed of more than 70 mph if necessary. And he said that needs to happen when bad weather strikes and it’s crucial to get back to shore quickly.

Gamboa, who’s also a licensed U.S. Coast Guard mariner, said NOAA’s speed limits would make it impossible for his business to operate for at least a third of the year. He estimated that he’d have to cancel at least 70 trips, costing him roughly $140,000 per year, which would force him to sell his boats.

Gamboa offers customers a range of fishing options: While the 18-hour trip tops the list at $4,800, people can also take shorter trips to fish for striped bass, sea bass or fluke, paying $1,000.

He said boats drive the economy in Point Pleasant, bringing customers to restaurants and bars and always fueling the demand for more fish. And he said it’s a place where people enjoy “really fast boats,” as evidenced by the popular powerboat races and the running of the Offshore Grand Prix in June.

“Our town is basically built on the water and tourism,” Gamboa said.

With so much at stake for coastal communities and opposition growing, he figures NOAA ultimately will be forced to abandon its proposal.

“I just think they don’t have enough science and have not done enough research to make such a drastic ruling,” he said.

NOAA encountered similar arguments last month when a federal appellate court sided with Maine lobstermen who challenged a rule that would have required them to use new fishing gear to prevent entanglements with right whales. Lobstermen said NOAA had overestimated their industry’s risk to the whales by “cherry-picking the science and using unsupported assumptions” to change its rule.

Gamboa said that while there’s no question that saving whales is important, the federal government needs to take a broader view of the economic damage.

“I am committed to protecting whales,” Gamboa said. “But I am also for my business.”