Bini Dahal

The COVID-19 pandemic has kept panicking the entire humanity since its emergence. Despite fears and uncertainties, we have mostly adapted to a new normal. The vaccination drive launched in several countries across the world has created a lot of rays of hope among people globally. Yet, it seems we have forgotten about the other species present in the environment and the nature as a whole.
While COVID-19 can be transmitted from an infected person to a healthy one through close contacts and respiratory droplets, similar kind of transmission can take place between humans and animals. Studies have found some of the species like ferrets, cats, civets, minks, dogs and lions to be highly susceptible to this deadly virus.
Some fresh news reports have it that the number of animal species infected with COVID-19 has been increasing. The newest entry into the susceptible animal list is that of the gorilla. Several gorillas at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park of the United States (US) have tested positive for the virus. These are believed to be the first known cases among the great apes.
After two of the eight gorillas who lived together in a troop were found coughing, the park employees suspected them of catching the virus disease. This was confirmed by the US Department Agriculture National Veterinary Services Laboratories when the faeces of all the eight were taken for testing. The infection is believed to have spread to those animals due to their interactions with humans. One of the members of the park’s wildlife care team, who had tested positive for the virus but was asymptomatic and wore a mask at all times, used to be around the gorillas.
The easy transmission of the coronavirus in domesticated animals like cats and dogs has given us a lesson that we should maintain a safer distance from our pets. And it is evident from the case of gorilla that the same knowledge should be made applicable in national parks and conservation areas as well.
The captivated gorillas are sure to recover from the disease with continued monitoring and a proper diet containing vitamins and fluids necessary for them. But this is not the case of gorillas living in the wild. Any kind of contact between the wild apes and the humans living nearby forests may cause bigger problems. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has classified them as a critically endangered species in recent years. Increasing habitat loss, disease and poaching have been some of the major factors leading to gorillas’ gradual disappearance.
Gorillas are roughly 98 per cent identical to humans on the genetic level. They are an important species that help maintain the ecosystem. An intelligent social creature, they also perform services such as dispersing seeds of the fruits they eat as they roam across large areas of forest, thus ensuring diversity is maintained in the nature.
At a time when humans themselves are going through an existential crisis, nature conservation becomes a tougher task. While scientists are mostly sure of animals being able to adapt to the situation, we must not take it for granted. We must focus on separating humans from coming in contact with the different faunal species for protecting them from any prevalent bad happening.