Non-Human Animal Trauma During the Pandemic
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Non-Human Animal Trauma During the Pandemic Victoria O’Sullivan 1 # Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Keywords Covid-19 . Non-human animals . Virus . Pandemic . Meat industry . Animal
experimentation . Veganism
Introduction This piece of writing is an activist gesture intended to counter the invisibility of animal trauma in the context of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which has been traced to a type of ‘wet market’ where live animals, including pangolins, wolf pups, hare, snakes, racoon dogs, porcupines, pigs, chickens and peacocks, are slaughtered on order (Dalton 2020a). For years, animal welfare organisations have worked tirelessly to increase societal knowledge of the cruelty of these markets and the threats to human health that they pose (such is our anthropocentrism that animal advocacy organisations must also often foreground human concerns). Their calls have gone unheeded—animal trauma largely invisible. Hence, when a pandemic emerges, it may not register as incongruous when a popular New Zealand psychologist writes a Facebook post that is shared thousands of times (and made into a newspaper article) suggesting ‘sharing funny videos of cats pushing stuff off shelves, and dogs falling asleep in chairs in human-like poses’ as a way to alleviate Covid-19-related anxiety (Latta 2020). Why do we use the companionability of animals when we want to, yet turn a blind eye to their torment? Why do we find the footage of sheep playing on a carousel in a deserted playground so joyful, yet line up to eat them the very second a lockdown level is lifted? Similar markets, such as Chatuchak Market in Bangkok, which was ‘raided’ after a documentary produced for 60 Minutes Australia suggested that it was a ‘ticking timebomb’ for another zoonotic disease, have been touted as tourist attractions (Harvey, Hannaford, and Clancy 2020). Chatuchak Market ranks number three on TripAdvisor’s list of top tourist attractions in the city, and travel writers promote the market and its fighting Siamese fish and chickens (Stephens n.d.). Whilst reports concerning the raid say that ‘the animals were seized and their safety assured’, it is difficult to track down
* Victoria O’Sullivan [email protected]
1
The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
Postdigital Science and Education
any further information (Taylor 2020). Similarly, as noted by Wang et al. (2020), after China’s legislature banned the eating of ‘wildlife’ after the virus emerged, there has been a lack of information concerning the fate of the hundreds of animals intensively bred on the farms that are said to service the wet market industry. A history of animal trauma is not only present at the site where the virus emerged, but the consequences (or ‘spillover’ effects) of the pandemic on non-human animals are myriad. I experience them as overwhelming and difficult to keep track of. A couple of times, after taking a 24-hour break from tracking this damage, I have sat down at my computer only to discover a new event or matrix of events. A story about a dog that die
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