National Geographic: Revisiting the tangled legacy of Theodore Roosevelt National Park

National Geographic: Revisiting the tangled legacy of Theodore Roosevelt National Park

By Robert Earle Howells

    President Theodore Roosevelt was known as the "conservation president." Originally, he was a hunter, traveling to many places and the North Dakota area that he later became the namesake of. Entranced by the natural beauty, he returned many times throughout his life and once stated "Leave it as it is. You cannot improve on it […] What you can do is to keep it for your children, your children’s children, and for all who come after you." He instated many national monuments, among them the Grand Canyon, which was later designated a national park with the creation of the National Park Service. But what happened to the people who were on this land?

    President Roosevelt's conservationism apparently stopped at American Indians. Although he preserved many natural places, he drove many of its former inhabitants off their ancestral lands. There is also evidence of racism toward African Americans. During his presidency, he was the first to invite a Black person to the White House, but after taking criticism from Southerners, he stopped.

    So does Roosevelt's racism wipe out his legacy of conservationist and progressive policies? No, but both sides of his story should be told - both the protected land and racist policies.

The New Yorker: Did Pangolin Trafficking Cause the Coronavirus Pandemic?

The New Yorker: Did Pangolin Trafficking Cause the Coronavirus Pandemic?

By David Quammen

    Pangolins are the scaly, anteater-like creatures shown in the image. They aren't actually related to anteaters and are frequently consumed by people in rural areas where meat is scarce. More recently, they have become an expensive delicacy in the mainstream market and used for Chinese medicines. Because of their steadily declining numbers, the species has been put on the endangered species list. But new evidence suggests that they might not be as innocent as they seem.

    When the COVID-19 pandemic first broke out in Wuhan, researchers believed that it originated in a wet market where live animals were sold and that the disease transferred over from bats. But after at least a few people were found to have had no contact with the wet market and the bat virus not a close enough exact match to the human one, a study made a few months ago about pangolins came up. Pangolins being transferred in captivity were reportedly crying and having respiratory problems. When samples from these animals were tested, they were a 99% positive match to the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

    In the context of the frequent consumption of pangolins, this makes a lot of sense. Many researchers have hypothesized that the HIV virus transferred to humans when chimpanzee blood containing the chimp variation of the disease got into an open wound on a human hunter, where the monkey virus evolved into the human version. Since many people in Asia and Africa kill pangolins for meat and skins, the pangolin virus could easily have traveled to a human and made its way to the Wuhan wet market. Scientists still don't know if this new theory is right, but one thing is for sure: There are many animal viruses out there just waiting to infect us. We need to be ready.