After SARS: A New Virus in Saudi Arabia Underscores the Need to Police Disease in Animals

By: Bryan Walsh

In 2003, there was a coronavirus spreading that began in Hong Kong. This virus was very dangerous as it spread rapidly and had no cure. This virus spread rapidly as people took trips on airplanes, taxis, and rode trains. It was passed from human to human easily, but where did it really come from? It was later proven that this SARS disease was from a bat. This is very important because some animals expose many humans to diseases that could kill them. Right now in Saudi Arabia, there is a new pathogen that is very similar to the SARS virus. At least 15 people have been infected and more than have of those people died. Some methods I would choose to fix these problems is to quarantine the patients when there is a new strand of disease until more about the disease is found and until there is a known cure. This could only fail if the person dies before it can be found but it also keeps others from being exposed to this disease. I think that this is very scary because I think about the number of people I interact with and the number of things I touch daily and how many diseases are being passed along. 

http://science.time.com/2013/03/19/after-sars-a-new-virus-in-saudi-arabia-underscores-the-need-to-police-disease-in-animals/

Traffic: Why It's Time to Get Serious About the Bloody Illegal Wildlife Trade

Traffic: Why It’s Time to Get Serious About the Bloody Illegal Wildlife Trade
by: Bryan Walsh

Hunted animals are used as various resources throughout the world. Some use body parts to create medicines and others simply cook and eat the animals. Poaching is hunting animals illegally and beginning to become a huge issue. There are animals being hunted to extinction because humans believe that they “need” these resources. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) is working very hard to save these endangered species. They work very hard to protect different species of animals. They encourage various lawmakers to change how much can be hunted to lower the amount of animals being hunted. Between 1973 and 2012, the CITES affected the population of the white rhino in Africa from 2,000 to 19,000. Some things that can change poaching as a whole is lawmakers creating stricter laws and investigating these laws also. I think that it is very sad to see animals almost wiped out as a whole because of humans’ greediness. Sometimes we don’t realize that just because they can’t protect themselves from us doesn’t mean we can just kill them and take what they had.

http://science.time.com/2013/03/05/traffic-why-its-time-to-get-serious-about-the-bloody-illegal-wildlife-trade/ 

Tipsy Fish: When Anti- Anxiety Meds Get Into Rivers

Tipsy Fish: When Anti-Anxiety Meds Get Into RiversBy: Veronique GreenwoodIn the United States, the majority of our population takes multiple types of medications. Yes, we may be the ones taking them but sometimes they affect our animals. Sometimes the medicines we take can kill animals, cripple them, or prevent reproducing. So Swedish scientists ran an experiment the test what some of the medications we take do to some animals. They used the drug oxazepam, which was discovered in the water before. They tested the drug on three different groups of perch. On the first group of perch they used no drugs, the second group of perch they used 6 times more concentration of the drug, and the last group had 500 times more concentration. They trapped the fish into boxes and opened a small door and when releasing the fish observed how long it took the fish to venture into it. The fish with more concentration moved rapidly while the one’s with less concentration moved slowly. This shows that our medicines effect animals just as it does us. It’s very dangerous for these fishes to swim in these so one way we could fix this problem is by using filtering systems. Filtering the water will keep these things away from the fishes and will keep them safe. Some barriers for this solution could be paying for the filtering systems or the filtering systems not working effectively. I think that everything that can be done to keep these animals safe and alive needs to be done, no matter how much money it costs.  

http://science.time.com/2013/02/15/tipsy-fish-when-anti-anxiety-meds-get-into-rivers/