Beijing - 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 1600 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 favoured 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 programmes regularly show people farming animals,
including rats, for commercial sale and their own consumption.
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
organisation 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."