Why India is also susceptible to coronavirus-like diseases

Indians reading about the Chinese origin of the coronavirus may feel slightly smug. We tell ourselves that this is what comes of this cruel practice of eating wild animals, which facilitates zoonotic transmission of virus from animals to humans. We don’t have wild animal markets like the one in Wuhan, the epicentre of this outbreak. And the latest news that the pangolin might be one of the species that carried the virus will reinforce this feeling.

There have been many stories recently about how these scaly-skinned mammals are being poached to feed the voracious Far Eastern demand for their flesh and scales which are used in traditional medicine. It would never happen in India, we tell ourselves.

Wildlife researcher Vikram Aditya might disagree. His PhD work at the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment focuses on the impact of habitat change on mammals in the Eastern Ghats, and pangolins are a particular interest. He says flatly that, while poaching for export happens, there is also definitely Indian consumption: “Their flesh is eaten and scales are used to make objects like rings. The belief is that they can protect you from bad things just as the scales protect the pangolins.”


Since the pangolins’ scales, far from protecting them, are driving them to near extinction, this belief might seem very dubious, but this is the murky world of jadu-tona, or Indian black magic. Owls are captured and kept for Diwali since they are Lakshmi’s vahanam, and stealing her steed keeps the goddess of luck at home. The sexual organs of monitor lizards which have a forked shape are sold as Hatha Jodi, two hands linked in love or prayer.

Much of the value of wild animal parts comes from their jungle origin, a source of power in Indian traditions. This is why the often-made suggestion to farm these animals doesn’t work — wild ones are always seen as more powerful, and given legitimacy by legal trade.

The Chinese have tried this approach, allowing tiger farms and permitting pangolin parts to be used in traditional medicine. Far from enabling control, it fuelled demand and led to semi-illegal markets as in Wuhan. It is often said that China’s wild animal trade is driven by the country’s increasing prosperity. As people become wealthier they want to try the wild foods once seen as meant for the super-rich. And as wealth becomes more visible, people become more frantic to attain and keep it, turning to superstition and magic when regular means fail.

The same is happening in India, though there is less of a tradition of eating unusual animals. Traditions of eating bushmeat, as such animal flesh is called, exist in areas like the Northeast. But where it could have been harvested sustainably, through lower-impact methods like bows and arrows, the availability of guns is making poaching deadlier.

While it has been argued that such meat represented vital protein sources in the past, it’s hard to maintain that a modern food system, for all its deficiencies, can’t supply alternative protein.

There is an unfortunate romance associated with shikar, which leads someone like Salman Khan to be convicted of hunting blackbucks in Rajasthan. Sometimes reverence for wild animals can coexist with using them in dubious ways.

In 1988 Dr G Marimuthu, a lecturer in animal behaviour at Madurai Kamaraj University, wrote for Bat Conservation International about Puliangulam village near Madurai where a large colony of flying foxes lived in a banyan tree believed to house Muni, a local deity. The bats were also treated as sacred for that reason, but his report also noted that “freshly dead bats on the ground are taken for food, but only after prayers are offered to Muni”.

We know today that bats harbour viruses without being affected themselves and can transmit them to other animals where they can mutate into dangerous forms. Both the SARS and MERS epidemics, which had palm civets and camels, respectively, as the hosts from which they reached humans, appear to have begun with bats.

Even the pangolin hypothesis, which is based on their having a virus which is a 99% match with the coronavirus (the results have yet to be fully validated), could involve contact with a bat virus. This means consuming a bat, especially a freshly dead one, should really be avoided.

Consumption of flying foxes, or just killing them to prevent them from eating fruit crops, has been reported across India, but both could cause situations where infection occurs. This is partly why wildlife researchers fear an over-reaction to virus fears could result in animals being killed – it would both be disastrous for conservation and might even lead to infection situations.

Aditya, for one, is worried about the possibility of pangolins being identified as a virus source: “We are already in a critical situation, and people will then start trying to kill them all.”

Human and wild animal interactions are increasing as Indian settlements press up against our remaining wild spaces. The conflicts this can cause are usually terrible for the animals, but as all these cases of zoonotic viruses show it can also be disastrous for humans. What is needed is not denial of the problem nor knee-jerk reactions, but a balanced and humane approach to managing interactions in ways that work for both wild animals and humans.