Animal cafes and exotic pet trade bring wildlife disease risks into public spaces

Detailed summary

Mumbai-based veterinarian Rina Dev was hospitalized for four days recently with a lung infection. “I hope it’s not something from the parrots I was treating,” she told Mongabay…

Mumbai-based veterinarian Rina Dev was hospitalized for four days recently with a lung infection. “I hope it’s not something from the parrots I was treating,” she told Mongabay India after being discharged from the hospital. Dev is an avian and exotic animal veterinarian who works closely with the forest department to treat animals that officials have seized from the illegal wildlife trade.

Her concerns were valid. Psittacosis, caused by a bacterium, commonly infects people who handle birds, earning its nickname as “the bird handler’s disease.”

A 2024 case describes a man who developed a high fever, chills, shortness of breath, cough, joint pain, and other symptoms — and broad-spectrum antibiotics didn’t help. He’d caught psittacosis from a parrot. With appropriate treatment, he recovered.

There are many documented cases linking wildlife trade to human infections. In one instance, 15 customs officers in Belgium contracted psittacosis after being exposed to infected parakeets.

A comprehensive review of the disease by the ICAR–Indian Veterinary Research Institute in 2021 noted it had “critical zoonotic potential.” But it’s just one of many pathogens that can cross the species barrier, sometimes adapting to new hosts in the process. For decades, scientists have tried to inform the public that wildlife trade brings different species into unnatural proximity, creating opportunities for diseases to spread to animals that have no immunity to them.

A 2026 report by Humane World for Animals warns that, in India, the exotic pet trade creates conditions that are extremely conducive to disease transmission. Preventing future outbreaks requires careful monitoring of potential risks to human, animal, and ecosystem health.

The recent report also flags India’s lack of a cohesive post-importation disease surveillance system, which is a problem in countries across the globe.

“Zoonotic disease” became a common phrase in the global lexicon when the COVID-19 pandemic showed what can happen…

App…

Opening of the article, excerpted from Mongabay. To read the rest, open the article on the publisher's site.