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.

Philosopher Peter Singer has been awarded $1 million as the winner of the 2021 Berggruen Prize for Philosophy and Culture. As is fitting of both the ‘father of effective altruism’ and the author of the extremely influential book Animal Liberation, Singer plans to donate a third of the money to the most effective organisations working to end factory farming.

Several stories in recent weeks have emerged about wild boar. Together they paint a vivid picture of contradictions in everything from environmentalism to zoonotic diseases, as Claire Hamlett explains.