A wildlife team covers a young buck's head with a cloth to help calm it before testing the deer for the coronavirus in Grand Portage, Minn. (AP photo)
GRAND PORTAGE, Minn. – Wildlife experts are searching for the virus that causes COVID-19 in deer, bears, moose, and wolves in Minnesota’s north woods near Grand Portage.
They are among researchers around the world trying to figure out how and where wildlife is spreading the coronavirus at a time when international health agencies are calling for greater tracking of infected animals. Scientists are concerned that the virus could evolve within animal populations – potentially spawning dangerous viral mutants that could jump back to people, spread among people, and re-ignite what for now seems to some people like a waning crisis.
The virus has been confirmed in wildlife in at least 24 U.S. states, including Minnesota. Recently, an early Canadian study showed someone in nearby Ontario likely contracted a highly mutated strain from a deer.
Experts say the coronavirus pandemic has served as a stark and tragic example of how closely animal health and human health are linked. While the origins of the virus have not been proven, many scientists say it likely jumped from bats to humans, either directly or through another species that was being sold live in Wuhan, China.
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