China is cracking down on its wildlife trade. Is it enough?

For years, scientists and conservationists have urged China’s government to crack down on a thriving trade in wild animals that they say both threatens the nation’s rich biodiversity and increases the risk that a dangerous disease will jump from wildlife to humans. Now, some of those pleas are being answered: On 1 May, officials will begin to enforce a strengthened Wildlife Protection Law that, together with other recent rules, expands China’s list of protected species and criminalizes the sale or consumption of meat from certain animals—including raccoon dogs—known to harbor viruses that can infect humans. Many scientists are welcoming the new law, which was finalized in December 2022. It “clearly prohibits the consumption, hunting, trade, and transport of terrestrial animals that grow and breed naturally in the wild,” says Jiahai Lu, an epidemiologist at Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou. Others say the restrictions could help crimp the wildlife meat trade that touched off the 2002 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak and may have sparked the COVID-19 pandemic. Last month, for example, researchers released an analysis of genetic material collected at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China, that suggests raccoon dogs and other wildlife being sold illegally at the market were carrying SARS-CoV-2. But the rules also have worrying weaknesses, researchers say. They permit, for example, farmers to raise racco...
Source: Science of Aging Knowledge Environment - Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research