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Jane Goodall Calls For Humans To Consider Animals Amid COVID-19 Crisis

Famed primatologist and anthropologist Jane Goodall has taken to YouTube to call for compassion for animals and self reflection in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Having taken a pass on meat for over 50 years now, Goodall implored humans — in the face of their own kind of “nightmare” — to consider the “nightmare” wild animals captured for food endure daily.

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Pangolin consumption has been suggested as a possible cause of the COVID-19 outbreak (2630ben/Shutterstock.com)

A Line In The Sand?

While Goodall did express her sympathies for the people of China — one of the countries hardest hit by the crisis — she also pointed to its practices around food as problematic, while largely omitting disease-spreading habits of Western nations.

While cows, chickens and pigs — the consumption and mass farming of which is known to spread potentially lethal diseases such as salmonella and E. coli — were left out of the video, Goodall challenged the consumption of animals such as bats and pangolins typically associated with Chinese culture.

She warned against capturing wild animals for food “or because some people believe that various animal parts can be used to cure diseases or give people strength or virility.”

The World Over

Goodall did, however, go on to critique humanity as a whole for its infringement on the habitats of wild animals.

A “too close” relationship with animals, she said “has unleashed the terror and misery of new viruses—viruses that exist in animals without harming them but mutate into other forms to infect us with new diseases.”