News

News

(September 17, 2020) To reduce risk of future novel disease spillover with potential for devastating pandemics, we must address the commercial wildlife trade for human consumption. As WCS's Sarah Olson tells the Asia Society, our research has found an increased prevalence of coronaviruses in rodents along the wildlife trade in Vietnam, from trappers to markets to urban restaurants. Watch the video here:

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(September 01, 2020) WCS Health Program's Dr Chris Walzer, spoke with the New York Times as part of this must watch short doc: How to Stop the Next Pandemic.   "The destruction happening at the edge of forests is one area we're concerned about," he tells the paper, "creating contact with wildlife that didn't exist before." 

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(August 28, 2020) From the recovery of the Bronx Zoo's Big Cats from COVID-19, to the links between ecological degradation and emerging infectious diseases, to the creation of a wildlife mortality monitoring network with hunters in the Congo to help prevent Ebola outbreaks, to our work with Indigenous communities in the Andes to improve the health and management of wild camelids.  Read our Summer newsletter:  WCS One World - One Health: Big Cats and COVID (and More)You can view our previous newslet...

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(August 24, 2020) An article in El Pais this week highlights the recently published important findings of WCS scientists that prevalence of coronaviruses in rodents traded for food increased along the wildlife trade chain in Vietnam, from trappers to markets, to restaurants. These findings demonstrate the risk for amplification of zoonotic pathogens along the commercial trade chain for wild animals traded for human consumption.  A study warns of the high transmission capacity of pathogens in live animal...

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(August 11, 2020) Joe Walston, senior vice-president at the WCS, spoke with the Financial Times, highlighting the risk that trade in wildlife for products such as exotic food, fur and alternative medicines poses for emerging diseases:“We have had zoonotic diseases in the past, but they’ve been rare with large periods of time between the outbreaks,” he said. “Now, the regularity . . . is increasing. And it will continue to increase until we decide to reassess our relationship with trading a...

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