Monday, May 18, 2020

The New Yorker

 Some Zoos, and Some of Their Animals, May Not Survive the Pandemic

By Robin Wright

In late March, an elegant four-year-old tiger named Nadia, at the Bronx Zoo, developed a dry cough and lost her appetite. The zoo had been closed for eleven days because of the coronavirus pandemic, and no employee had symptoms of the new coronavirus sweeping across New York. Out of an abundance of caution, the veterinary staff tested Nadia in April, as her problems persisted. It was not a simple swab. The zoo had to anesthetize the two-hundred-pound cat and take samples from her nose, throat, and respiratory tract, then ship them off to veterinary labs at Cornell University and the University of Illinois. Nadia is also no ordinary tiger. Malayan tigers are among the world’s most endangered animals; with fewer than two hundred and fifty left in the wild, they are threatened with extinction because of human poaching and loss of habitat. Nadia was born at the Bronx Zoo, as part of its Malayan-tiger breeding program. Her covid-19 test came back positive. By the end of April, seven other big cats—four more tigers, in addition to three lions who live in a separate exhibit—also tested positive, through samples of their feces. The zoo concluded that they had all been exposed to a human, probably a zoo employee, who was asymptomatic. The news about Nadia stunned staff at more than two hundred accredited U.S. zoos (not including animal “exhibitors,” like Joe Exotic, of “Tiger King” fame) and more than ten thousand zoos around the world. Within twenty-four hours, many introduced stricter handling protocols, more protective gear, and social distancing between humans and zoo animals—not just tigers but also other animals now believed to be vulnerable to covid-19, from great apes to ferrets and even skunks.

But Nadia’s test result six weeks ago was only the beginning of an unprecedented series of crises—some existential—faced by zoological parks dedicated to the study and survival of thousands of the Earth’s other animal species. Unlike entertainment centers, movie theatres, or sports stadiums, zoos can’t simply shut their doors or tell staff to work from home. Zoos still have to feed and care for animals—nearly a million, from six thousand species (a thousand of them endangered or threatened) in the United States alone—at a time in which revenues have plummeted to nothing. Read on....

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/some-zoos-and-some-of-their-animals-may-not-survive-the-pandemic


Friday, May 8, 2020

The New Yorker

Can the Middle East Recover from the Coronavirus and Collapsing Oil Prices?

By Robin Wright

A year ago, Iran marked its National Army Day with a flashy display of its military might. As new tensions flared with the Trump Administration, tanks and long-range missiles loaded on flatbed trucks rolled through the streets of Tehran. Neat formations of troops showcased the Army’s diversity—ethnic Turkmen wore fuzzy white-fur hats and maroon robes, and tribal Arabs were in brown capes with black-and-white checkered headdresses. Special-forces soldiers in khaki fatigues and crisp berets goose-stepped past President Hassan Rouhani and the Islamic Republic’s top military brass. This year, it was a very different show—and a different message. With more than a hundred thousand confirmed cases of covid-19 in Iran, the Army Day parade featured troops goose-stepping in hazmat suits and face masks, columns of ambulances, flatbed trucks converted into mobile clinics, and military vehicles spewing huge clouds of disinfectant into the air. Members of the Army band performed—six feet apart. The Iranian President skipped the show. “The enemy now is hidden and doctors and nurses are at the frontlines of the battlefield,” he said, in a message to the nation’s military. “Our army is not a symbol of militarism but a manifestation of supporting the nation and upholding its national interests.”

The Middle East, the world’s most volatile region for more than seven decades, has been ravaged over the past two months by twin disasters—the coronavirus pandemic and the historic collapse of global oil prices. Iran was the region’s original epicenter of the coronavirus. But, by Wednesday, seventeen Arab countries, Iran, and Israel reported a total of more than two hundred and twenty thousand cases, with more than nine thousand dead. Read on....

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/can-the-middle-east-recover-from-the-coronavirus-and-collapsing-oil-prices

Saturday, May 2, 2020

The New Yorker

Is America’s “One Nation, Indivisible” Being Killed Off by the Coronavirus?


By Robin Wright

Shortly after noon on Thursday, Dayna Polehanki, a Michigan state senator, was confronted by armed protesters marauding through the capitol, in Lansing, and demanding an end to the coronavirus lockdown. “Directly above me, men with rifles yelling at us,” Polehanki tweeted frantically from the Senate floor. The accompanying picture, shot from her desk, showed men in fatigues, with assault rifles, in the gallery above. “I was a high-school teacher for almost twenty years and I was aware someone could come in and shoot things up. I consider myself a tough gal, but this seemed all too real,” she told me the following day. “When anger is stoked like that, and people have guns, things can go wrong.” She said her hands shook as she took the picture.

The protest erupted as the Michigan legislature debated whether to extend the state of emergency issued by Governor Gretchen Whitmer, which was about to expire. Under Michigan law, all political signs are banned from the capitol, so protesters at the “American Patriot Rally” had to leave their banners and placards at the door, but not their loaded weapons, which are legal to carry in public, even in the legislature. “I’m afraid that is the way it is in Michigan right now,” Polehanki said. Read on....

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/is-americas-one-nation-indivisible-being-killed-off-by-the-coronavirus