The worldwide coronavirus pandemic gives us cause to reflect deeply on how we live. Even question the meaning of modern civilisation itself. One reason for the pandemic, which experts have flagged, is our relentless violation and exploitation of habitats, which brings man and animal in uncomfortable, sometimes, fatal proximity. How? Because many of the most dangerous viruses and bacteria that infect us are zoonotic. That is they jump from animals, who are more resistant to them, to humans who are not. The coronavirus, too, is believed to have jumped from bats to humans, possibly through an intermediary such as the pangolin, in the wet markets of Wuhan, China.