Letter
Misrepresentation by citation in Pooley et al. Pooley et al. (2015) cite an opinion piece I wrote for CNN.com (Osofsky 2014) next to an article by Williams (2014) twice. Thus, readers would logically assume that Williams and Osofsky agree on the issues surrounding bushmeat trade and consumption and possibly that the public health, conservation, and animal rights communities are all of like mind on these issues. To the contrary, there is a diversity of opinions on these matters, and those of us working in conservation through the lens of the human dimension very much recognize the complex socioecological issues at play. Much of Pooley et al.’s (2015) article inaccurately implies a disconnect between their views and those of a ‘‘prominent conservation-oriented response’’ (symbolized by my CNN.com piece). I wish that reviewers and editors of Conservation Biology had read my piece more carefully; they would have realized that the citation to the CNN.com editorial does not actually support Pooley et al.’s thesis. Instead, my work at the Wildlife Conservation Society was unfortunately used as a straw man. There is little Pooley et al. and I actually disagree on in terms of the substantive issues of concern. For example, I (Osofsky 2014) said, Food security is a basic human right. Many people around the world simply need to hunt to feed themselves and their families. For those people, we then need to identify species that should be avoided if at all possible . . . . For those consumers of high-risk bushmeat who simply have no other dietary options, we need to redouble our development efforts, replacing dependence on wildlife with safe and nutritious alternatives suitable to the local context. Wildlife and the pathogens they carry have been around since the dawn of time. Many recent emerging disease outbreaks correlate directly with the fact that our growing numbers continue to demand more and more from wild nature in unprecedented and increasingly risky ways . . . . We can try to find and unravel the life history of every virus of potential risk. But we need to alleviate poverty, improve food security, and tap into the capacity for human culture to adapt in order to mitigate some very clear and present threats to our very survival.
I urge readers of Conservation Biology to read my CNN.com editorial in its entirety and to evaluate the
suggestions I have provided for ways we might think about the linkages between how we interact with the natural world and public health outcomes (both good and bad). Far from advocating a blanket ban on bushmeat consumption in Africa or elsewhere, several years ago I started a science-based consortium focused on trying to unravel what is recognized as a very complex set of issues and relationships, including those related to bushmeat consumption and human health (e.g., see Golden et al. 2011). The program is called Health & Ecosystems: Analysis of Linkages (www.wcs-heal.org), and this work has been mentioned recently in an editorial in this journal (Redford et al. 2014) within which we commented What is needed now is a body of evidence that addresses the health implications of changes in the state of natural systems that distinguishes the vulnerabilities of different categories of society. Understanding such relationships could help direct the substantial global effort to improve the health of poor populations while simultaneously catalyzing the management of natural systems for goods and services, and for conservation.
My colleagues and I proposed a new field focused on the human health implications of anthropogenic alterations to the structure and function of Earth’s natural systems (Myers et al. 2013). I am disappointed that Pooley et al. did not cite that paper in support of their point that “[i]nterdisciplinary research focused on mapping and investigating infection hotspots could provide a way forward, but it will require ecologists to engage with the human dimensions of the problem [and] social science and health workers to consider the ecological and biological dimensions of the crises (Brown & Kelly 2014) . . . .” This kind of work is already underway. I realize that peer review is not perfect. But I feel I have been subjected to guilt by citation association. Those of us at the Wildlife Conservation Society do not espouse the silver-lining viewpoint that Pooley et al. are objecting to. Pooley et al. have done my program’s work, and me, a disservice.
1037 Conservation Biology, Volume 29, No. 4, 1037–1038 C 2015 Society for Conservation Biology DOI: 10.1111/cobi.12518
1038
Steven A. Osofsky Wildlife Conservation Society, Wildlife Health & Health Policy Program, 2300 Southern Boulevard, Bronx, NY 10460, U.S.A., email sosofsky @wcs.org
Literature Cited Golden CD, Fernald LCH, Brashares JS, Rasolofoniaina BJR, Kremen C. 2011. Benefits of wildlife consumption to child nutrition in a biodiversity hotspot. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 108:19653–19656. Myers SS, Gaffikin L, Golden CD, Ostfeld RS, Redford KH, Ricketts TH, Turner WR, Osofsky SA. 2013. Human health impacts of ecosystem
Conservation Biology Volume 29, No. 4, 2015
Letter
alteration. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 110:18753–18760. Osofsky S. 2014. How to keep viruses in the wild from finding humans. CNN.com. Available from http://edition.cnn. com/2014/10/09/opinion/osofsky-ebola-wildlife/ (accessed February 2015). Pooley S, Fa JE, Nasi R. 2015. No conservation silver lining to Ebola. Conservation Biology DOI:10.1111/cobi.12454. Redford KH, Myers SS, Ricketts TH, Osofsky SA. 2014. Human health as a judicious conservation opportunity. Conservation Biology 28:627– 629. Williams T. 2014. Ebola’s silver lining: we can clamp down on bushmeat. New Scientist 2985 (8 September).
Misrepresentation by citation in Pooley et al. Pooley et al. (2015) cite an opinion piece I wrote for CNN.com (Osofsky 2014) next to an article by Williams (2014) twice. Thus, readers would logically assume that Williams and Osofsky agree on the issues surrounding bushmeat trade and consumption and possibly that the public health, conservation, and animal rights communities are all of like mind on these issues. To the contrary, there is a diversity of opinions on these matters, and those of us working in conservation through the lens of the human dimension very much recognize the complex socioecological issues at play. Much of Pooley et al.’s (2015) article inaccurately implies a disconnect between their views and those of a ‘‘prominent conservation-oriented response’’ (symbolized by my CNN.com piece). I wish that reviewers and editors of Conservation Biology had read my piece more carefully; they would have realized that the citation to the CNN.com editorial does not actually support Pooley et al.’s thesis. Instead, my work at the Wildlife Conservation Society was unfortunately used as a straw man. There is little Pooley et al. and I actually disagree on in terms of the substantive issues of concern. For example, I (Osofsky 2014) said, Food security is a basic human right. Many people around the world simply need to hunt to feed themselves and their families. For those people, we then need to identify species that should be avoided if at all possible . . . . For those consumers of high-risk bushmeat who simply have no other dietary options, we need to redouble our development efforts, replacing dependence on wildlife with safe and nutritious alternatives suitable to the local context. Wildlife and the pathogens they carry have been around since the dawn of time. Many recent emerging disease outbreaks correlate directly with the fact that our growing numbers continue to demand more and more from wild nature in unprecedented and increasingly risky ways . . . . We can try to find and unravel the life history of every virus of potential risk. But we need to alleviate poverty, improve food security, and tap into the capacity for human culture to adapt in order to mitigate some very clear and present threats to our very survival.
I urge readers of Conservation Biology to read my CNN.com editorial in its entirety and to evaluate the
suggestions I have provided for ways we might think about the linkages between how we interact with the natural world and public health outcomes (both good and bad). Far from advocating a blanket ban on bushmeat consumption in Africa or elsewhere, several years ago I started a science-based consortium focused on trying to unravel what is recognized as a very complex set of issues and relationships, including those related to bushmeat consumption and human health (e.g., see Golden et al. 2011). The program is called Health & Ecosystems: Analysis of Linkages (www.wcs-heal.org), and this work has been mentioned recently in an editorial in this journal (Redford et al. 2014) within which we commented What is needed now is a body of evidence that addresses the health implications of changes in the state of natural systems that distinguishes the vulnerabilities of different categories of society. Understanding such relationships could help direct the substantial global effort to improve the health of poor populations while simultaneously catalyzing the management of natural systems for goods and services, and for conservation.
My colleagues and I proposed a new field focused on the human health implications of anthropogenic alterations to the structure and function of Earth’s natural systems (Myers et al. 2013). I am disappointed that Pooley et al. did not cite that paper in support of their point that “[i]nterdisciplinary research focused on mapping and investigating infection hotspots could provide a way forward, but it will require ecologists to engage with the human dimensions of the problem [and] social science and health workers to consider the ecological and biological dimensions of the crises (Brown & Kelly 2014) . . . .” This kind of work is already underway. I realize that peer review is not perfect. But I feel I have been subjected to guilt by citation association. Those of us at the Wildlife Conservation Society do not espouse the silver-lining viewpoint that Pooley et al. are objecting to. Pooley et al. have done my program’s work, and me, a disservice.
1037 Conservation Biology, Volume 29, No. 4, 1037–1038 C 2015 Society for Conservation Biology DOI: 10.1111/cobi.12518
1038
Steven A. Osofsky Wildlife Conservation Society, Wildlife Health & Health Policy Program, 2300 Southern Boulevard, Bronx, NY 10460, U.S.A., email sosofsky @wcs.org
Literature Cited Golden CD, Fernald LCH, Brashares JS, Rasolofoniaina BJR, Kremen C. 2011. Benefits of wildlife consumption to child nutrition in a biodiversity hotspot. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 108:19653–19656. Myers SS, Gaffikin L, Golden CD, Ostfeld RS, Redford KH, Ricketts TH, Turner WR, Osofsky SA. 2013. Human health impacts of ecosystem
Conservation Biology Volume 29, No. 4, 2015
Letter
alteration. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 110:18753–18760. Osofsky S. 2014. How to keep viruses in the wild from finding humans. CNN.com. Available from http://edition.cnn. com/2014/10/09/opinion/osofsky-ebola-wildlife/ (accessed February 2015). Pooley S, Fa JE, Nasi R. 2015. No conservation silver lining to Ebola. Conservation Biology DOI:10.1111/cobi.12454. Redford KH, Myers SS, Ricketts TH, Osofsky SA. 2014. Human health as a judicious conservation opportunity. Conservation Biology 28:627– 629. Williams T. 2014. Ebola’s silver lining: we can clamp down on bushmeat. New Scientist 2985 (8 September).
