Concerns about Covid-19 spreading through animal populations and moving back into humans are growing. On Tuesday Hong Kong announced a cull of more than 1,000 pet hamsters and quarantining of their owners, in response to fears that coronavirus had been transmitted from the pets to people.
At the same time reports of Covid in zoos are growing — the most recent is a study of infected lions and pumas in Johannesburg. In November, Lincoln Children’s Zoo in Nebraska lost three rare snow leopards to the disease.
Though the Sars-Cov-2 virus causes few or no symptoms in most non-human animals, some scientists fear that wildlife might become a reservoir of infection — and possibly a source of viral mutation — that could be transmitted back to people.