‘We must avert this threat’: We have to protect great apes from coronavirus

The potentially lethal disease could be the final straw for these amazing species – and may harm their predators, too, writes Jane Dalton

Even vets could be an unwitting potential source of infection (AFP/Getty)

We build roads through their homes and mine in their delicate habitats; we steal them from the wild to eat, sell to zoos or traffic into the pet trade; we carry out medical experiments on them and raze their homes to plant palm trees for oil for our soap and biscuits. When we trek to gawp at them, we leave behind our polluting rubbish and transport fumes. The great apes have every reason to resent us. We share 99 per cent of our DNA with them, yet everywhere they exist, humans attack, encroach on and generally interfere with their peaceful lives.

To protect them from the damage we do, we build sanctuaries to close them in.

And then we create coronaviruses that could kill them.