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Coronavirus and wildlife trade (1 Viewer)

dalat

dalat

...
Switzerland
Like Ebola and SARS, the current Coronavirus epidemic seems to have its origin in people eating wildlife. In China, authorities have started to clamp down on wildlife markets, trading and farming.

Will the Coronavirus epidemic have a positive side effect on wildlife conservation by putting people in Asia off eating wildlife and using them in medicine? Will the authorities take lasting actions?
Or will it all revert back soon to "normal" once the current excitment has calmed?
 
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Unless it is scientifically proved and traced to a species - No! Bushmeat in Africa, Songbirds in Cyprus, Reptiles in Australia by some indigenous and finally Possums and Turtles in North America. All wild animals from across the globe and entrenched in various cultures let alone need for food. I recall a wacky theory that the AIDS virus was caused by mans' association with domestic animals.

Sadly, I dont think attitudes will change in China.
 
PYRTLE said:
Unless it is scientifically proved and traced to a species - No! Bushmeat in Africa, Songbirds in Cyprus, Reptiles in Australia by some indigenous and finally Possums and Turtles in North America. All wild animals from across the globe and entrenched in various cultures let alone need for food. I recall a wacky theory that the AIDS virus was caused by mans' association with domestic animals.

Sadly, I dont think attitudes will change in China.
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I thought it had been linked to Bats?

It amazes me how a country which is so technically advanced, can be so retarded in other regards. I once went for a 'look see' in a Chinese traditional pharmacy in Macau, it was shocking, they caght me filming and I was escorted from the premises. Everything was there from Sand Dollars to Seahorses, Sea Cucumbers, Starfish, Pangolin scales and bits of other things I couldn't identify.
 
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I'm sure I've read that the bat story is a myth - there is a photo of a woman eating a bat with chopsticks taken elsewhere in Oceania (?) a few years previously which has been doing the rounds.
 
PYRTLE said:
I recall a wacky theory that the AIDS virus was caused by mans' association with domestic animals.
Click to expand...
AIDS came from people butchering Chimpanzees, and/or eating undercooked Chimpanzee meat - Chimps are resistant to it, as the virus has circulated among them for a very long time. Worth noting that old cultures in Africa had a longstanding taboo on eating Chimps, but this was broken down by Western missionaries and modern wealthy urban meat demand.
andyadcock said:
I thought it had been linked to Bats?
Click to expand...
Bats, by way of pangolins. The current coronavirus has a 95% match to a bat coronavirus, and a 99% match to one found in pangolins that they think originally reached pangolins from bats.
 
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Nutcracker said:
Bats, by way of pangolins. The current coronavirus has a 95% match to a bat coronavirus, and a 99% match to one found in pangolins that they think originally reached pangolins from bats.
Click to expand...

Those were "preliminary conclusions" that were dismissed/disproved 3 days ago, and it seems they resulted from a communication mistake.That was put forward in a paper just published in Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00548-w

In CNN, about 1 month ago, I heard the usual panel's doctor explaining how the first suspected case in China goes back to the first days of December and this was a guy who hadn't been in the famous market, making this even more puzzling.

EDIT: the text I first posted was a mess! I hope it's fixed now. Sorry.
 
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PYRTLE said:
andyadcock said:
I thought it had been linked to Bats?
[/QUOTE
I knew it had been traced back to an animal and seafood market. Wouldn't be at all surprised that live bats were being traded as food.
Click to expand...

There's an article in the Sunday Times 01 March about fruit bats being sold in Indonesian markets, as a commonplace item, the butchery being carried out using the same knives as for all other meat on the stalls....
MJB
Click to expand...
 
andyadcock said:
I thought it had been linked to Bats?

It amazes me how a country which is so technically advanced, can be so retarded
in other regards.
Click to expand...
Come to a much smaller country like Spain, visit a modern city and one of the remote rural areas and you won't believe it's actually the same country nor the same century even :)

Everything was there from Sand Dollars to Seahorses, Sea Cucumbers, Starfish, Pangolin scales and bits of other things I couldn't identify.
Click to expand...
I guess the worst problems are wild mammals because, well, we are also mammals. In places with a rich seafood eating tradition lots of marine inverts are routinely consumed like bivalves, gasteropods, crustaceans obviously, even cnidarians (anemones in Southern Spain, called "ortiguillas"), echinoderms (urchins and sea cucumbers, I haven't heard about eating starfish but who knows) and, to my amazement, tunicates in Chile (they call them "piure").

The main risk with some filter feeding invertebrates are cyanobacteria toxins or fecal bacteria that don't affect the molluscs themselves. Otherwise invertebrates are too different from us.

But wild mammals... Just remember that diseases such as smallpox are believed to be originated from cattle.
 
Advisory - graphic images to follow

MJB said:
PYRTLE said:
There's an article in the Sunday Times 01 March about fruit bats being sold in Indonesian markets, as a commonplace item, the butchery being carried out using the same knives as for all other meat on the stalls....
MJB
Click to expand...

This is a heads up to those of a delicate disposition. My next post will contain graphic images from a market in Sulawesi, Indonesia.
Click to expand...
 
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Graphic images

The 'traditional' market at Tomohon in N Sulawesi.
 

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The difference here between former measures is that the current Coronavirus outbreak is having fairly severe economic and health consequences for the country. The Chinese government doesn't really specifically care about endangered species, other than public image consequences. So enforcement of existing laws on the wildlife trade are not a priority. China DOES care about being an economic powerhouse, and shutdowns of trade or manufacturing slow downs due to illness, and being an authoritarian state they can snuff this out with the right motivation.
 
Time to put international pressure on China to permanently ban and enforce the ban on wildlife trade. Unless the world wants to be paralyzed every few years with another SARS or COVID-19 like virus.

SARS was definitely traced to civets. Even if it is unclear whether pangolins or bats are the origin in the current epidemics, it is clear some wild species. There are thousands of wild animal viruses which could potentially jump to humans.

There are naturally other factors, for example China's combination of habit of eating wild animals, relative wealth which means that it is a disposable luxury not a necessity, Chinese ability to enforce such bans, and high human population density, which spreads viruses.
 
Bubbs said:
Good post Andy.
Click to expand...

I was very concious of not being around in the event that they actually killed any dogs on site whilst I was there but they didn't, not that I saw anyway.

The animals are brutally, battered to death, they say a fear hormone is realeased by killing this way which flavours the meat. Same in S Korea where dogs are hung by the neck and beaten to death, 21st century my arse.

It also happens in the villages away from tourists in Bali.
 
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