Animal Sightings and Citings under COVID Capitalism: Beyond Liberal Sentimentalism

Abstract

CONVERSATIONS, NEWS, AND SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS about COVID are saturated with stories about animals: accounts of "wild" animals emerging and seen in cities around the world, an increase in the number of bird watchers, an astronomical rise in webcam views of wildlife, videos of zoo animals walking through their exhibition halls or through art museums and galleries. Animals are also getting adopted and fostered at an unprecedented rate, and pets appear on virtual meetings as never before. Since the World Health Organization's (who) official announcement of the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020, news reports related to meat are differently but equally prevalent: the disappearance of chicken and other meat from grocery shelves;the rapid spread of the virus and death among workers in meat-packing industries;the closure of slaughterhouses leading to hogs, cows, and other animals raised for food being "euthanized";and claims about covid emerging from the meat of exotic animals sold in Asian "wet" markets. Coverage of "wild" animals in urban areas and temporary reduction in carbon emissions lead to speculations on whether these are signs of hope for a healthier planet (among the sickness of covid) and for a potential reversal of the environmental damage of global warming and climate change.1 More time with pets and connections with nonhuman kin enabled by greater leisure time or forced isolation are seen as possibilities that we can suture the sense of alienation (with each other and the natural world) that modernity engenders.2 Stories about animals in slaughterhouses and in farms, fields, and factories raised as part of the industrial production of food do not occupy the same representational space in news or popular accounts;even less do citings about the scarcity of meat in stores and work and death in meat processing plants occur alongside narratives of animal sightings. Numerous reports warn us about the rising incidence of zoonotic diseases, seen for instance in sars and Ebola, and our growing vulnerability in the face of animal-to-human virus transmissions.7 Global demand for meat has increased 260 percent in the last fifty years, and illegal wildlife trade has increased exponentially.8 Unfettered capitalism has led to covid, and the links between the two are steadfast and explicit.