Bat in Flight

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To read some fascinating facts about bats, see THIS page

Connections between bats, COVID-19, and loss of bat habitat

● Bats are thought to have initially passed COVID to humans.This type of disease, one that has been passed from animals to humans, is known as zoonotic. The initial transfer of pathogens is suspected to have happened through the hunting and selling of bats for consumption in China.

● Humans interacting with ecosystems that contain creatures like bats ultimately caused the zoonotic transfer of coronavirus from bats, or an intermediary species, to humans

● The destruction of habitats and exploitation of wildlife increase the risk that new pathogens will jump into the human population.

● Deforestation and the displacement of bat habitats originally led to an outbreak of the Nipah virus in Malaysia.

● Food supplies and economies took a financial burden with the COVID-19 pandemic but bats also play an important role in restoring our ecosystems and also benefiting the world food supply and economy.

● Bats have a strong tolerance for viruses and other diseases, therefore they are important in the process of creating a vaccine.

● The Chinese government put out a ban for selling/trafficking several creatures such as bats in order to help stop the spread of coronavirus. The ban mainly impacted hunters throughout rural areas of China where these ecosystems are and the wet markets where the traffickers would sell these creatures. Many of the markets were located in areas that have larger populations.

● The large population of China, combined with extensive infrastructure and transportation allowed for the rapid spread of the coronavirus, likely originating from the wet markets in rural China.

● Conservation of bat habitats around the world could be an important step in preventing the next disease outbreak.

References

Bats & COVID-19 Updates. (2020, December 13). Retrieved January 26, 2021, from https://www.batcon.org/bats-covid-19-updates/

Jabr, Ferris. “How Humanity Unleashed a Flood of New Diseases.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 17 June 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/06/17/magazine/animal-disease-covid.html.