'Animals live for man': China's appetite for wildlife more likely to survive virus

For the past fourteen days China's police have already been raiding houses, restaurants and makeshift markets in the united states, arresting nearly 700 persons for breaking the non permanent ban on catching, selling or eating wild animals.

The scale of the crackdown, which includes 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 brand new coronavirus.

Traders legally selling donkey, dog, deer, crocodile and other meat told Reuters they intend to make contact with business when the markets reopen.

"I'd like to sell after 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 since it is very presentable and provides you face."

Gong said he was storing crocodile and deer meat in large freezers but would need to kill all of the quails he previously been breeding as supermarkets were no more buying his eggs plus they cannot be eaten after freezing.

Scientists suspect, but have not proven, that the brand new coronavirus passed to humans from bats via pangolins, a tiny ant-eating mammal whose scales are highly prized in traditional Chinese medicine.

Graphic on pangolins, the world's most heavily trafficked mammals. 

Some of the earliest infections were within 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 wildlife posed a threat to public health insurance and safety.

That may not be enough to change tastes or attitudes that are deeply rooted in the country's culture and history.

"In lots of people's eyes, animals you live for man, not sharing the planet earth with man,” said Wang Song, a retired researcher of Zoology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The outbreak of the brand new coronavirus, which includes killed a lot more than 1,600 persons in China, revived a debate in the united states about the utilization of wildlife for food and medicine. It previously came to prominence in 2003 through 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 everlasting ban on trade in wildlife and closure of the markets where wildlife are sold.

Online debate within China, likely swayed by younger people, has heavily favoured a permanent ban.

"One bad habit is that people dare to eat anything," said one commenter called Sun on a news discussion forum on Chinese website Sina. "We should stop eating wildlife and the ones who do ought to be sentenced to jail."

Nevertheless, a minority of Chinese still prefer to eat wild animals in the belief it really is healthy, providing the demand that sustains wildlife markets like that in Wuhan and a thriving online sales business, a lot of which is illegal.

One online commenter calling themselves Onlooker Pharaoh said on Chinese news platform Hupu that the chance was worth it: "Quitting wildlife to consume as food is similar to quitting eating because you might choke."

The breeding and trading of wildlife in China is supported by the federal government and is a way to obtain profit for many individuals.

Following the SARS outbreak, the National Forestry and Grassland Administration (NFGA) strengthened oversight of the wildlife business, licensing the legal farming and sale of 54 wildlife 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 businesses produce about US$20 billion in total annual revenue, according to a 2016 government-backed report.

"The state forestry bureau is definitely the key force supporting wildlife use," said Peter Li, a China Policy Specialist for the Humane Society International. "It insists on China's to use wildlife resources for development purposes."

A lot 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 tv set programmes regularly show persons farming animals, including rats, for commercial sale and their own consumption.

However, activists pushing for a ban describe the qualified farms as a cover for against the law wildlife trafficking, where animals are specifically bred to be consumed as food or medicine rather than released into the wild.

"They just utilize this premise to do unlawful 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 utilize the permits to do illegitimate things."

The NFGA didn't react to requests for comment.

Animal products, from bear bile to pangolin scales, remain used in some traditional Chinese medicine, an industry China wants to expand within its Belt and Road Initiative.

But the distinction between legal and illegitimate is blurred. The US estimates the global illegitimate wildlife trade is worth about US$23 billion a year. China is by far the major market, environmental groups say.

The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), an unbiased organisation located 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 against the law wildlife trafficking as traders in China and Laos are selling rhinoceros horn medicines as cure to reduce fever.

China's top legislature will toughen laws on wildlife trafficking this season, the state 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, nonetheless it was popular 20 years ago."

Xiang, who sells surprise boxes of deer antlers and dog, donkey and peacock meat to wealthy bank clients and others, said he previously frozen his meat as he waits to see if the ban will continue.

"I'll resume selling once the policy allows us, however now I have no idea how long it (the ban) will last."