Question: Why do you look for diseases in wild animals instead of humans

Cassandra Raby answered on 17 Nov 2013:

That’s a really awesome question! Thanks for asking this!
You have a really good point – If we are worried about climate change affecting disease in humans… why not just look at humans?

There are a few reasons why I’m studying baboons instead of humans, so I’ll mention what these are below…

1) Firstly, did you know that 70% of new diseases in humans come from animals? That’s why we really need to understand how animals, the environment and humans all interact! Think of bird flu, and swine flu… we have to understand how these diseases work in the animals too, and whether the climate will make it more or less likely that diseases will get spread to humans. The baboons I study have some of the same parasites that humans can get.

2) Baboons are easier to study than humans. Humans can travel by car, take medicines, and have complicated social lives… this is pretty hard to take into account when looking at my data. Imagine, I can follow a troop of baboons all day long, and I know they have no medicine, I know who they have been friends with, and it’s really easy to see how they interact with the climate! So the information I get is much easier to link to ecology!
And humans might find it odd if I start following them all day and collect their poop 😉

3) Lastly, what about the wild animals?! There are so many animals now facing extinction, and primates are no exception! Baboons themselves are doing just fine in population size, but what about Gorillas? Disease from humans ended up killing a lot of Gorillas… and so it’s important for the survival of these animals to understand disease! It is easier to give medicine to humans than wild animals, so it’s pretty important we look into the future and see how climate change will affect the disease, so that we can make a plan of action!!

I hope that helps answer your question 🙂