Treating the Symptoms, Not the Disease: Why Funding Bushmeat Research is Vital for Our Own Health

By Kate Thompson, Safina Center Launchpad Fellow

Morondava, Madagascar: I came here for kidney beans, but the air is heavy with the metallic tang of iron and rot. I wave flies away from my face, and push past tiled tables coated with blood, scales, and organ tissues. Some of it is recognizable: hunks of beef with strips of hairy hide still attached, pig limbs that tapper into pink, petit hooves. Other bits I can’t place and have no interest in inspecting further; honeycomb membranes from some hind gut or fore gut, thick lengths of tongue.

This is a live animal food-market in coastal Madagascar. It’s small compared to others I’ve seen, with live animals limited to crowded cages of birds and plastic tubs of half-limp fish. Before this year, I doubt many Americans spent time thinking about these markets, where fluids and feces from encaged animals soak down on other wildlife and splash onto the hands of butchers. But now, in the midst of our first widespread pandemic in over a century, most people have heard on the news about how the global wildlife trade brought a virus from the forests to our doorsteps.

The author, in Madagascar. Photo: Kate Thompson

I research the hunting and consumption of animals like lemurs and bats in remote indigenous communities. In these homes and markets, we see endless opportunities for pathogens to make the leap either into human species, or to mingle with the domestic animals we rely on. These situations are called “spill-over” events. They can happen anytime humans and livestock come in close contact with wild animals. As we expand agriculture deeper into forests, or use animals from them as food or pets, the likelihood of these events occurring increases. For this reason, we need research that acts as a surveillance network and identifying risky situations. Right now there are a number of projects, from dissertation research to full research consortiums, that aim to mutually illuminate and address the needs of both wildlife and human communities. Without sufficient investment, it’s unlikely they’ll be able to work to their full potential and make the sort of contributions that we need to stave off future crises like the nightmare we’re all living in today.

Lemurs and a bird killed in Madagascar. Photo: Kate Thompson

Lemurs killed for their meat in Madagascar. Photo: Kate Thompson

For example, one initiative, called PREDICT worked to identify human behaviors that put both people and wildlife at risk, and address them on a local, culturally salient level. “We generated an illustrated book on how to keep bats out of houses by putting screens on windows or mesh below the roof thatch. That’s the kind of thing Predict paid for” says Dr. Jonathan Epstein of EcoHealth Alliance in an interview with The New York Times. PREDICT was also unique in that it invested in the highly specialized field work needed to collect samples from wild animals, such as gorillas and wild bat species, in remote biodiversity hotspots. Through investment in other countries’ laboratory and diagnostic capacities, and extensive computational modeling, PREDICT helped create surveillance network for emergent diseases. “[PREDICT] identified nearly 1,000 new viruses, including a new strain of Ebola; trained roughly 5,000 people around the world to identify new diseases; and improved or developed 60 research laboratories” according to Global Biodefense.

A bat caught in Madagascar. Photo: Kate Thompson

These are precisely the types of programs we need. They work to not only identify and prevent spillover risks, but to protect wildlife from overexploitation and habitat disturbance. In 2019, the Trump administration did not renew funding for the program. It also did not put a new initiative in its place, in a field where funding has become increasing difficult to come by. I should know; my own work on bushmeat hunting, specifically potential disease vectors such as primates and bats, was rejected by the National Science Foundation for having too many human-health related outcomes beyond the purview of strict academic research.

We’ve known for decades that human health is inextricably linked with that of animal populations, but until we can prioritize and sustain funding for research that explore this interconnectedness, nothing will change. I’ve heard many friends lament the existence of the wildlife trade, of the live animal food-markets that have now become a common conversation topic. Yet, until we are passionate about funding conservation and public health research, these spillover events are a symptom of a larger disease. If we don’t expand these