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Most sources label the zombie creating agent as a virus specific to humans, and many also agree that the zombies don’t give a damn about most animals. Can we use this? And what if it isn’t true?  
Scenario 1: Broad-range virus.
Like the Bird Flu that set the world in a near panic some years ago, the Zed-Vir can infect more species. But would they all attack humans?
 
Now, humans are social, living creatures, in other words they run a program along the lines of: “Meet people, eat“. In becoming a zombie, some of the details are lost, most notably the word “meet“. Human zeds therefore attack humans. This article is not about the “normal” zeds though.
 
Dog zeds likely would attack humans too, on account of the two races being pretty close. Dogs, being mammals living in close proximity to humans, would likely be one of the species most heavily exposed, beyond humans themselves of course. Even if the zeds don’t attack dogs directly, some dog owner somewhere will give Fido a big sloppy goodbye-kiss before croaking. If susceptible, Fido now becomes Cujo. Where most depictions of zombies depict the human zombies as being very dull in terms of plain old hide and seek, dogs have much of their brain hardwired into their nasal nerves, they will probably find you. Time to climb a tree.
 
Advanced simians such as chimpanzees and gorillas are close to us in genetics, and have a fairly large amount of brain capacity to take from. Presumably most of the population of earth aren’t too close to large populations of these, but is your stronghold safe from climbers of a non-human nature? It just takes one. In terms of target recognition, the simian species are able to recognize humans as being somewhat akin to them, gorilla males often make a lot of noise when female zookeepers touch/interact with male zookeepers in their vicinity. And if it’s a zombie-gorilla getting aggressive in your base, you might not be well protected by simple anti-human barricades.
 
As for birds, gulls will attack anything if they get sufficiently riled up. Zombie-gulls? Meet Hitchcock. Most birds don’t interact much with humans, but should they choose to attack, they can force you to do a lot of extra work stuffing pillows in the ventilation ducts. Your base has armored glass at the ground level? Too bad you didn’t have the thousand dollars extra to install safety glass on the second floor while you were at it. One good thing: Birds don’t salivate a lot, even if you are bitten, it might not be the right time to put on your Al-Queda vintage vest and go hug a zed.
 
Reptiles and snakes are by nature somewhat ignorant of humans. They might bite, and it might be dangerous. Most aren’t too good at pursuit, and zeds don’t often lay ambushes. Crocodiles and a few of the related large predators could be a problem.
 
Rodents… Genetically close to us, and oh so many. Many will bite humans under the right circumstances. If all the rats of New York turned, I dare say the city could not be saved. You’d need a fortification with no entrance point larger than a half inch square, maybe smaller, or alternately a metric ton of shotgun shells, a shotgun, and something to stuff your ears. Or a fuel-guzzling ring of fire. Rats, squirrels, mice, all adept at probing around for goodies, all decent climbers, and most all available in every human settlement across the world in at least one form. One good thing: Most of these creatures have instincts telling them that they are made to be food more often than feeder, the virus may fail to make killers of most of the rodent species.
 
Fish… Far from us in genetics, and even if you plan involves using large water bodies to your advantage, you probably don’t have a ten-mile swim planned. If you do, I suggest you re-evaluate that part of the plan. If you can put a pool full of piranhas between you and an approaching zed, good for you. However, I don’t think I have any friends with piranha pools, not anymore anyway. Sharks might eat zed-pieces, but there are no diseases capable of infecting sharks today, and I doubt this virus will be it. Whether a shark is a zombie or not might not matter much anyway, if you see the fin break the surface, you should react like you are threatened. Fish in general seem a rather underwhelming foe.
 
Whales are mammals, but most don’t interact much with humans, zed-vir would likely not change that. Since the largest ones don’t have teeth, it’s mostly in terms of capsizing boats they post a danger.
 
 Now here’s the task: Describe anything obvious that was missed here, and how you would face off against a multi-species zed-attack.

The above article was submitted by one of our faithful readers.  If you have an article you would like posted for debate, please let us know.