Pros And Cons Of Slaughtering
Once a spillover already occurs, mass murdering animals will not likely stop the spread from person to person directly. It could possibly cut down on animal to human, but if many people are already infected from zoonosis, killing animals after the fact will not do much. That is like taking vitamins to boost your immune system after getting sick. In order to effectively prevent as much spillover as possible, the reservoir and most populous hosts must be identified and killed before they are able to pass it over to humans. That, or once there are only a few known cases. The government can murder thousands of animals known to have or carry a disease, but as long as they are not the only animals that are carriers, mass culling a species or two
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This way, the outbreak can be nipped in the bud, which is great. If it always worked like that. Unfortunately, mass culling is more trouble than it is worth, and is not a guaranteed solution, and it is the slaughtering hundreds or more of innocent and potentially harmless animals, which is certainly not ethical.
In the case of SARS, the exotic animal palm civets were linked to the transmission of Coronavirus, aka SARS, to humans that consumed them. After this revelation, the Chinese government put a ban on civets. In Spillover, David Quammen reveals, “The ban inevitably caused economic losses, generating such foofaraw from animal farmers and traders…” (191). Farmers were not happy at their lost revenue and declining businesses. Farmers specific to raising this animal were basically told they could not work, is that ethical to take someone’s job and livelihood …show more content…
Not to mention the fact that killing masses of wild animals could majorly throw off and disrupt food webs and ecosystems, mass slaughter like this does not mean what is killed is the actual reservoir or only host. Quammen says, “…infection of civets didn’t necessarily mean that civets were the reservoir host of the virus…” (191). They were merely an amplifier host that allowed for easier access of the virus from animals to human, so killing all captive or wild civets will not stop the transmission (Quammen 195). All that time, money, work, and brutality spent, and for what? It did not take out the reservoir, just a helpful
This way, the outbreak can be nipped in the bud, which is great. If it always worked like that. Unfortunately, mass culling is more trouble than it is worth, and is not a guaranteed solution, and it is the slaughtering hundreds or more of innocent and potentially harmless animals, which is certainly not ethical.
In the case of SARS, the exotic animal palm civets were linked to the transmission of Coronavirus, aka SARS, to humans that consumed them. After this revelation, the Chinese government put a ban on civets. In Spillover, David Quammen reveals, “The ban inevitably caused economic losses, generating such foofaraw from animal farmers and traders…” (191). Farmers were not happy at their lost revenue and declining businesses. Farmers specific to raising this animal were basically told they could not work, is that ethical to take someone’s job and livelihood …show more content…
Not to mention the fact that killing masses of wild animals could majorly throw off and disrupt food webs and ecosystems, mass slaughter like this does not mean what is killed is the actual reservoir or only host. Quammen says, “…infection of civets didn’t necessarily mean that civets were the reservoir host of the virus…” (191). They were merely an amplifier host that allowed for easier access of the virus from animals to human, so killing all captive or wild civets will not stop the transmission (Quammen 195). All that time, money, work, and brutality spent, and for what? It did not take out the reservoir, just a helpful