VOICES: Andy Parkinson tells us why he, along with fellow award-winning photographers Neil Aldridge and Matt Maran, set out with their new book FOX: Neighbour Villain Icon to shed light on the truth about one of Britain’s best-known predators and dispel the myths that malign society’s attitudes towards these enigmatic animals.

NOT IF BUT WHEN: Animal farming threatens public health by spreading infectious diseases that can jump between species. But getting people to quit meat is just too hard, so let’s just try to slightly reduce this risk by intensifying animal farming, right? Wrong, writes Claire Hamlett.

VOICES: There’s a new type of Avian Influenza (AI) in Canada and it’s killing wild birds. A new type of H5N1 to be exact, one that is part of a group of AIs called “Clade 2.3.4.4b” that are killing wild birds en masse all over the world.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to that elusive decline in total meat consumption, but only in countries reaching a certain level of economic growth, according to a new study out this week.

BLOG: The news today has been awash with headlines about the 1,000 pet hamsters in Hong Kong due to be culled in a knee-jerk reaction to the discovery that some have been infected with coronavirus. This is tragic enough, but they aren’t the first non-humans to suffer as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. What lessons should we be learning?

A rare case of avian influenza infecting a human living in England was reported this week. Bird-to-human transmission is rare and human-to-human rarer still, but with UK outbreaks now double last year’s and predictions of Europe’s worst bird flu epidemic ever - coupled with the high mutation rate of influenza and cases of H5N1 detected in foxes, seals and other mammals - a human bird flu pandemic feels closer than ever.

Recent reports of avian influenza outbreaks have sparked fresh fears about the spread of new strains among humans, but we often forget about the impact of ‘bird flu lockdowns’ on the work of rescue groups and sanctuaries, writes Claire Hamlett.

The use on UK pig farms of a class of antibiotics - said to be “critically important” for human health by the World Health Organisation - has more than doubled, according to industry data obtained by the Guardian.

A new collaborative project led by scientists in the US and Canada has identified at least 887 viruses present in wildlife that carry a risk of spreading to humans. Of those listed in the ‘SpillOver’ watchlist, only 38 are known zoonotic diseases such as Covid-19, Ebola and rabies, and the list doesn’t even include influenza or any viruses associated with insect carriers and domesticated animals.

We know that a plant-based diet is associated with many personal health benefits when it comes to chronic illnesses such as type 2 diabetes, certain forms of cancer and heart disease, but a new study suggests that vegans may also have a defence against Covid-19 when compared to meat-eaters.

People who love eating animals frequently say things like ‘but bacon is delicious’ when confronted with evidence of the cruelty of intensive animal farming or of the intelligence of animals, to make them morally uncomfortable. A new study has found that they may engage in similar “motivated skepticism [sic]” to willfully ignore the pandemic risks of factory farming and meat consumption.

This is NOT a joke. Tyson Foods, giant of animal-based food production and the largest exporter of deceased cows’ flesh out of the US, is apparently letting chickens choose their welfare measures as part of a two-year study out of their so-called Broiler Welfare Research Farm, in collaboration with payrolled researchers at the University of Arkansas.