My favorite chapter so far has been Thirteen Gorillas. Learning about the history of Ebola is super interesting to me because I was a freshman in high school when Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Whitbol returned to the US to be treated for the disease. I remember seeing news headlines talking about it and everyone freaking out because there was no known cure. It was kind of terrifying because Atlanta is only two hours away from my home, and I have family that lives there. I think it was the first time that I really heard of an infectious disease outbreak. I had definitely heard of infectious diseases before then, but I guess I never really considered something like that impacting this country. We do not always realize how fortunate we are in America that we do not have to face many of these diseases that other countries fight on a daily basis.
I think the idea that we have talked about that stuck out to me the most is that most modern disease epidemics are the result of human encroachment on the natural ecological boundaries of the animal kingdom. We cause most of our disease outbreaks. The animals are not coming into our territory; we are going into theirs. By entering their natural habitat, we are putting ourselves in places where these pathogens already exist. I feel like a big issue we have is that we want to experience nature, but we do not know how to experience it while still respecting it. We try to humanize nature. We take a forest and build a park or neighborhood in it. And what we do not realize is that this often scares a large percentage of the wildlife away, depleting the biodiversity and increasing the chance of disease. This chapter has made me realize that we need to be more mindful of where we go and how we interact with the world around us, especially our interactions with animals.
James M. Hassell, Michael Begon, Melissa J. Ward, Eric M. Fèvre, “Urbanization and Disease Emergence: Dynamics at the Wildlife–Livestock–Human Interface.” Trends in Ecology & Evolution, Volume 32, Issue 1, 2017. Pages 55-67, ISSN 0169-5347, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2016.09.012. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169534716301847)
Lindahl, Johanna F, and Delia Grace. “The consequences of human actions on risks for infectious diseases: a review.” Infection ecology & epidemiology vol. 5 30048. 27 Nov. 2015, doi:10.3402/iee.v5.30048