Deforestation pushes animals in Uganda forest to eat virus-laden bat poo

Animals in a Ugandan forest have been eating bat poo laden with viruses after tobacco farming wiped out their usual food source, a study has found.

A virus linked to Covid-19 was among the 27 identified in the poo eaten by chimpanzees, antelopes and monkeys.

Researchers say this finding sheds light on how new viruses might spread from wildlife to humans.

The animals were monitored in a study by the University of Stirling and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The six-year project was prompted when Dr Pawel Fedurek from the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Scotland’s University of Stirling observed wild chimpanzees in Budongo forest eating accumulated bat excrement, known as guano, from the hollow of a tree.