Editorial | The key is to enforce the law against wildlife trade
- The trading and consumption of exotic animals in China is a multibillion-dollar industry; simply introducing legislation to ban it will not work
The health risks of eating exotic animals were summed up in a photo showing crocodiles being slaughtered in an unhygienic Guangzhou wet market published on the Post’s website this week.
The disturbing scene, hopefully, should become a thing of the past following a sweeping ban on eating wildlife triggered by the coronavirus epidemic, which experts believe is linked to China’s appetite for exotic animals.
With the eating habit culturally embedded and the industry chain so lucrative, resistance is to be expected. Strict enforcement is therefore essential lest new diseases emerge.
Long overdue as it is, the law, swiftly passed by the National People’s Congress Standing Committee against the trading and eating of wild animals, is an important overhaul to help stamp out the spread of infections.
To what extent the consumption of wild bats is related to the transmission of the deadly coronavirus that originated in Wuhan will be a matter for further examination by medical experts. But the connection with a wet market notorious for exotic animal trading has given China a bad name.
According to the World Health Organisation, 70 per cent of global disease-causing pathogens discovered in the past 50 years came from animals.
