An immediate way to lower pandemic risk: (not) seizing the low-hanging fruit (bat).

What is the least that humanity can do to mitigate the risks of future pandemics, to prevent worldwide surges in human deaths, illness, and suffering-and more waves of multitrillion US dollar impacts on the global economy? The issues around our consumption and trading of wildlife are diverse and complex, with many rural communities being dependent on wild meat for their nutritional needs. But bats might be one taxonomic group that can be successfully eliminated from the human diet and other uses, with minimal costs or inconvenience to the vast majority of the 8 billion people on Earth. The order Chiroptera merits genuine respect given all that these species contribute to human food supplies through pollination services provided by the frugivores and to disease risk mitigation delivered by insectivorous species.

Exposure of Wild Sumatran Tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae) to Canine Distemper Virus.

Canine distemper virus (CDV) is recognized as a conservation threat to Amur tigers (Panthera tigris altaica) in Russia, but the risk to other subspecies remains unknown. We detected CDV neutralizing antibodies in nine of 21 wild-caught Sumatran tigers (42.9%), including one sampled on the day of capture, confirming exposure in the wild.

Distemper, extinction, and vaccination of the Amur tiger.

Canine distemper virus (CDV) has recently emerged as an extinction threat for the endangered Amur tiger (). CDV is vaccine-preventable, and control strategies could require vaccination of domestic dogs and/or wildlife populations. However, vaccination of endangered wildlife remains controversial, which has led to a focus on interventions in domestic dogs, often assumed to be the source of infection.

THE GLOBAL BURDEN OF (HOW WE MANAGE) ANIMAL DISEASE: LEARNING LESSONS FROM SOUTHERN AFRICA.

It is long past the time when we should be recognizing that the potential impacts of animal health interventions focused on livestock may in fact be far from environmentally benign. "First, do no harm" must apply to animal health policy-making as much as these wise words apply to clinical practice. An effort to assess the Global Burden of Animal Diseases, analogous to a long-standing and highly regarded endeavor in the public health realm, has only just been recently announced.

A case for Planetary Health/GeoHealth.

Concern has been spreading across scientific disciplines that the pervasive human transformation of Earth's natural systems is an urgent threat to human health. The simultaneous emergence of "GeoHealth" and "Planetary Health" signals recognition that developing a new relationship between humanity and our natural systems is becoming an urgent global health priority-if we are to prevent a backsliding from the past century's great public health gains. Achieving meaningful progress will require collaboration across a broad swath of scientific disciplines as well as with policy makers, natural resource managers, members of faith communities, and movement builders around the world in order to build a rigorous evidence base of scientific understanding as the foundation for more robust policy and resource management decisions that incorporate both environmental and human health outcomes.

Human health impacts of ecosystem alteration.

Human activity is rapidly transforming most of Earth's natural systems. How this transformation is impacting human health, whose health is at greatest risk, and the magnitude of the associated disease burden are relatively new subjects within the field of environmental health. We discuss what is known about the human health implications of changes in the structure and function of natural systems and propose that these changes are affecting human health in a variety of important ways.

Comparisons among selected neonatal biomedical parameters of four species of semi-free ranging Hippotragini: Addax (Addax nasomaculatus), scimitar-horned oryx (Oryx dammah), Arabian oryx (Oryx leucoryx), and sable antelope (Hippotragus niger).

Basic biomedical data from 164 neonates of four species of the tribe Hippotragini, addax (Addax nasomaculatus), scimitar-horned oryx (Oryx dammah), Arabian oryx (Oryx leucoryx), and sable antelope (Hippotragus niger), were compared at one zoological institution over a 9-year period. Measured biomedical parameters included body weight, temperature, pulse and respiratory rates, packed cell volume (PCV), total plasma protein, glucose, IgG assessment via zinc sulfate turbidity, and white blood cell count with differential. All species were maintained in a semi-free ranging setting with the same diet, available shelter, and opportunity for social interaction.