Scientists discover concerning behavioral changes in chimps: 'Could something so small have prevented the pandemic?'

Scientists have found that chimpanzees are turning to bat feces for nutrients in concentrated areas of deforestation, which could have implications for human epidemics, reports Mongabay.

What's happening?

In the Budongo Forest in Uganda, animals — including chimpanzees, monkeys, and antelope — rely on minerals from decaying palm trees, per the report. However, between 2006 and 2012, these trees were excessively cut down to use as strings for tobacco leaves to dry on.

Because chimpanzees crave sodium, they turn to other means to get it, including chewing on cement bricks. According to a new study published in Communications Biology, some animals have made changes to their diet to include the guano, or animal droppings, of bats.

The study found 839 instances of three species feeding on bat guano from July 2017 to October 2017 and from September 2018 to April 2019. This behavior had reportedly never been documented among forest-dwelling mammals before.

While these droppings do hold the minerals the animals need for their survival, they pose the threat of communicable diseases to humans, like a relative of the SARS coronavirus strands that started the COVID-19 pandemic.

Why is this emerging chimp behavior important?

"Human-induced activities are often the primary drivers of virus emergence among wildlife and humans," Arend de Haas, a conservation ecologist and co-founder of the African Conservation Foundation, told Mongabay. "They create opportunities for viruses to jump species barriers by increasing contact between humans, domestic animals, and wildlife."

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"Bats are known to host a wide variety of viruses and pathogens without showing symptoms of illness themselves," de Haas added. "... These viruses can undergo genetic mutations and recombination, potentially increasing their ability to infect new host species."

Per Mongabay, scientists found that the bat guano in Uganda tested positive for "27 infectious viruses, with an average of 14.5 per sample." According to the Virginia Department of Health, chimps can infect humans through contact and airborne transmission of pathogens.

What's being done about disease transmission?

"I still think about the SARS-CoV-2: If somebody knew in advance, what if all that person needed to do was to put a sign in front of the cave where these bats lived and write, 'Please don't enter because these bats have bad viruses!'?" said Tony Goldberg, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the study's lead scientist, per Mongabay. "Could something so small have prevented the pandemic?"

The study discussed the possibility of locating "breakable links," which can prevent these types of diseases.

"In theory, you could break any link: You could make fences, so that the chimpanzees can't access the guano; you could convince people across the world not to smoke, so that the tobacco demand wouldn't be high," Goldberg explained to Mongabay. "But of all those, we think that providing alternatives to cutting down these trees might have been the easiest."

Alternatives could include 3D-printed wood, with the World Wildlife Fund noting reclaimed wood, recycled paper, and faster-growing plants like bamboo are other options.

Because trees are so vital to preserving air quality, absorbing carbon dioxide, and supporting biodiversity, there are efforts to conserve forests across the world, from Massachusetts to Japan.

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