The search for animal host origins of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) coronavirus has so far remained focused on wildlife markets, restaurants and farms within China. A significant proportion of this wildlife enters China through an expanding regional network of illegal, international wildlife trade. We present the case for extending the search for ancestral coronaviruses and their hosts across international borders into countries such as Vietnam and Lao People's Democratic Republic, where the same guilds of species are found on sale in similar wildlife markets or food outlets. The three species that have so far been implicated, a viverrid, a mustelid and a canid, are part of a large suite of small carnivores distributed across this region currently overexploited by this international wildlife trade. A major lesson from SARS is that the underlying roots of newly emergent zoonotic diseases may lie in the parallel biodiversity crisis of massive species loss as a result of overexploitation of wild animal populations and the destruction of their natural habitats by increasing human populations. To address these dual threats to the long-term future of biodiversity, including man, requires a less anthropocentric and more interdisciplinary approach to problems that require the combined research expertise of ecologists, conservation biologists, veterinarians, epidemiologists, virologists, as well as human health professionals.
Pangolins are among the most valuable and widely traded taxa in the Southeast Asian illegal wildlife trade, yet little is known of their ecology and they are rarely reported in biodiversity surveys. Firstly, this study collated field and museum reports to produce the first distribution maps for the pangolins Manis pentadactyla and M. javanica in Vietnam. We also demonstrated that current biodiversity monitoring methods are rarely successful in recording pangolin presence and that most of the information about their distribution derives from the knowledge of local hunters. Secondly, semi-structured interviews with hunters revealed that the methods used to catch pangolins differed depending on species and site and suggest that the more terrestrial populations of M . pentadactyla are at greater risk from hunting than the more arboreal M. javanica. We highlight the value of applying local hunters' knowledge to developing ecological study methods and conservation programmes for pangolin species in Southeast Asia.
The Asian countries chronically infected with avian influenza A H5N1 are 'global hotspots' for biodiversity conservation in terms of species diversity, endemism and levels of threat. Since 2003, avian influenza A H5N1 viruses have naturally infected and killed a range of wild bird species, four felid species and a mustelid. Here, we report fatal disseminated H5N1 infection in a globally threatened viverrid, the Owston's civet, in Vietnam, highlighting the risk that avian influenza H5N1 poses to mammalian and avian biodiversity across its expanding geographic range.
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