In nature, wildlife generally avoids human contact. Although some species migrate long distances it’s the capture, shipment and use of wildlife by humans that has spread deadly diseases.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/14/science/wildlife-trade-disease-spillover.html
Global Wildlife Trade Fuels Spread of Disease From Animals to People
Live animal markets and the illegal sale of wildlife pose particular dangers, but any sale of wild animals or animal products poses spillover risks, a new study suggests.
By Emily Anthes, The New York Times, April 14, 2026
The global wildlife trade is driving the spread of disease from animals to people, according to a new study of thousands of wild mammal species and 40 years of international trade records.
Species that have been sold on the international wildlife market, which includes both live animals and animal products, were 50 percent more likely than species that were not traded to share pathogens with humans, scientists found. And the longer that a species had been part of the global wildlife trade, the more pathogens it shared…
The global wildlife trade is an enormous industry, encompassing the sale of meat, fur, exotic pets, lab animals and more. It also provide opportunities for a variety of animal pathogens — including Ebola, mpox, salmonella and more — to jump into humans, a process known as spillover.
Numerous human outbreaks have been linked to the wildlife trade, and evidence suggests that the virus that causes Covid-19 may have first jumped into humans at a live animal market in Wuhan, China…[end quote]
Other zoonotic plagues that have killed millions include HIV/ AIDS (which spread from simians to humans in Africa) and bubonic plague (which spread from fleas on marmots to humans in central Asia).
It’s interesting that the Torah prohibits eating and handling the corpses of all but a few “clean” species of mammal. A few of the many listed specific “unclean” species include pigs (which can carry trichinosis), rabbits (which can carry tularemia) and camels (which can carry brucellosis). A person who touches the carcass of an “unclean” animal (which would include a mouse, rat, dog, marmot, etc.) is required to wash their clothes as well as themselves. Washing clothes would remove fleas that had jumped from the dead animal onto the clothing – a preventive measure against plague. Of course, there was no knowledge of microbiology at the time but it’s a fact that restricting one’s diet to only “clean” mammals (with a cloven hoof plus chewing the cud) and only “clean” sea-living animals (only fishes that have both fins and scales – but prohibiting non-fish sea animals) is a good way to reduce the spread of disease.
Wendy