Typical, commercial wildlife TV programmes relentlessly tell us about “Deadly Killers of the Amazon” or “shark fury, ruthless predators” (Nat Geo, etc). Yes, they may be born to hunt and feed. But in the meantime in a wildlife “sea market” in Wuhan, China, wild creatures, for so long reviled and mispresented are getting their “revenge”. From that place, with its dead, tortured and desperate inmates comes a tiny microscopic “something” that brings the (important to us) world, as we think it, to its knees. Travel, health, finance, politics and ordinary people are completely devastated. And whose fault is it? Don’t blame it on a virus, that “deadly killer” or “ruthless predator”. It turns out to be more successful on its own terms, than we will ever be.
Richard Brock
