For the past two weeks China’s police have been raiding houses,
restaurants and makeshift markets across the country, arresting nearly
700 people for breaking the temporary ban on catching, selling or eating
wild animals.
The scale of the crackdown, which has netted almost 40,000 animals
including squirrels, weasels and boars, suggests that China’s taste for
eating wildlife and using animal parts for medicinal purposes is not
likely to disappear overnight, despite potential links to the new
coronavirus.
Traders legally selling donkey, dog, deer, crocodile and other meat
told Reuters they plan to get back to business as soon as the markets
reopen.
“I’d like to sell once the ban is lifted,” said Gong Jian, who runs a
wildlife store online and operates shops in China’s autonomous Inner
Mongolia region. “People like buying wildlife. They buy for themselves
to eat or give as presents because it is very presentable and gives you
face.”
Gong said he was storing crocodile and deer meat in large freezers
but would have to kill all the quails he had been breeding as
supermarkets were no longer buying his eggs and they cannot be eaten
after freezing.
Scientists suspect, but have not proven, that the new coronavirus
passed to humans from bats via pangolins, a small ant-eating mammal
whose scales are highly prized in traditional Chinese medicine.
Some of the earliest infections were found in people who had exposure
to Wuhan’s seafood market, where bats, snakes, civets and other
wildlife were sold. China temporarily shut down all such markets in
January, warning that eating wild animals posed a threat to public
health and safety.
That may not be enough to change tastes or attitudes that are deeply rooted in the country’s culture and history.
“In many people’s eyes, animals are living for man, not sharing the
earth with man,” said Wang Song, a retired researcher of Zoology at the
Chinese Academy of Sciences.
ONLINE DEBATE
The outbreak of the new coronavirus, which has killed more than 1,600
people in China, revived a debate in the country about the use of
wildlife for food and medicine. It previously came to prominence in 2003
during the spread of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), which
scientists believe was passed to humans from bats, via civets.
Many academics, environmentalists and residents in China have joined
international conservation groups in calling for a permanent ban on
trade in wildlife and closure of the markets where wild animals are
sold.
Online debate within China, likely swayed by younger people, has heavily favored a permanent ban.
“One bad habit is that we dare to eat anything,” said one commenter
called Sun on a news discussion forum on Chinese website Sina. “We must
stop eating wildlife and those who do should be sentenced to jail.”
Nevertheless, a minority of Chinese still like to eat wild animals in
the belief it is healthy, providing the demand that sustains wildlife
markets like that in Wuhan and a thriving online sales business, much of
which is illegal.
One online commenter calling themselves Onlooker Pharaoh said on
Chinese news platform Hupu that the risk was worth it: “Giving up
wildlife to eat as food is like giving up eating because you might
choke.”
GOVERNMENT SUPPORT
The breeding and trading of wild animals in China is supported by the government and is a source of profit for many people.
After the SARS outbreak, the National Forestry and Grassland
Administration (NFGA) strengthened oversight of the wildlife business,
licensing the legal farming and sale of 54 wild animals including
civets, turtles and crocodiles, and approved breeding of endangered
species including bears, tigers and pangolins for environmental or
conservation purposes.
These officially sanctioned wildlife farming operations produce about
$20 billion in annual revenue, according to a 2016 government-backed
report.
“The state forestry bureau has long been the main force supporting
wildlife use,” said Peter Li, a China Policy Specialist for the Humane
Society International. “It insists on China’s right to use wildlife
resources for development purposes.”
Much of the farming and sale of wildlife takes place in rural or
poorer regions under the blessing of local authorities who see trading
as a boost for the local economy. State-backed television programs
regularly show people farming animals, including rats, for commercial
sale and their own consumption.
FILE PHOTO: Chinese customs officials inspect scales of pangolins
they seized on a ship in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, China November
29, 2017. REUTERS/Stringer
However, activists pushing for a ban describe the licensed farms as a
cover for illegal wildlife trafficking, where animals are specifically
bred to be consumed as food or medicine rather than released into the
wild.
“They just use this premise to do illegal trading,” Zhou Jinfeng,
head of China’s Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development
Foundation, told Reuters. “There are no real pangolin farms in China,
they just use the permits to do illegal things.”
The NFGA did not respond to requests for comment.
BLURRED LINES
Animal products, from bear bile to pangolin scales, are still used in
some traditional Chinese medicine, an industry China wants to expand as
part of its Belt and Road Initiative.
But the distinction between legal and illegal is blurred. The United
Nations estimates the global illegal wildlife trade is worth about $23
billion a year. China is by far the largest market, environmental groups
say.
The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), an independent
organization based in London which campaigns against what it sees as
environmental abuses, said in a report this week the coronavirus
outbreak has in fact boosted some illegal wildlife trafficking as
traders in China and Laos are selling rhinoceros horn medicines as a
treatment to reduce fever.
China’s top legislature will toughen laws on wildlife trafficking this year, the official Xinhua news agency reported this week.
“We are in a sun-setting business,” said Xiang Chengchuan, a
wholesale wildlife store owner in the landlocked eastern Anhui province.
“Few people eat dogs now, but it was popular 20 years ago.”
Xiang, who sells gift boxes of deer antlers and dog, donkey and
peacock meat to wealthy bank clients and others, said he had frozen his
meat as he waits to see if the ban will continue.
“I will resume selling once the policy allows us, but now I have no idea how long it (the ban) will last.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-wildlife/animals-live-for-man-chinas-appetite-for-wildlife-likely-to-survive-virus-idUSKBN20A0RK
