573
ket, “Over 100 different animals are sold here, including wolf pups, civet cats,
poultry and snakes.” And she continued, “These animals are kept in cramped, dirty
conditions, with direct contact with humans. These markets are referred to as ‘wet
markets’ – so-called because animals are often slaughtered directly in front of
customers.”
7
The live-customer aspect is no surprise in the United States, where buyers and
sellers of “livestock” (live being the operative sales pitch on both sides of the eventual fork and knife) have been meeting for hundreds of years to transact their merciless exchanges. Which is why, for example, a study of increased potential for
transmission of “swine-origin IAVs” (Influenza A viruses) at open live-animal markets was conducted in just one of those symptomatic open-market transactional
states: Minnesota, by researchers in 2015.
8
From the mid-Western United States to nearly every other continent, there is
plentiful data (though severely under-documented or tallied) to make clear that
“unregulated and usually filthy markets are found all over Asia and Africa,” for
example.
9
During the first two weeks of February 2020, Chinese police raided homes across
China and arrested over 700 people “for breaking the temporary ban on catching,
selling or eating wild animals”—among the “40,000 animals” taken during the
crackdown, were “squirrels, weasels and boars.” But this did not begin to account
for the multitudes of snakes in jars, or those merchants who were legally able to sell
“donkey, dog, deer, crocodile and other meat.” And, as a retired zoologist from the
Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wang Song, declared, “In many people’s eyes, animals are living for man, not sharing the earth with man.”
10
But whether thousands of years of Chinese cultural traditions will be irrevocably
altered by one outbreak appears unlikely. Although on February 24, 2020, the 16th
Meeting of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People’s Congress put into
effect an edict “Comprehensively Prohibiting the Illegal Trade of Wild Animals,
Eliminating the Bad Habits of Wild Animal Consumption, and Protecting the Health
7 “Eating Animals Will Be the Death of Us,” by Juliet Gellatley, February 4, 2020, The Ecologist,
Common Dreams, https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/02/04/eating-animals-will-bedeath-us, Accessed April 1, 2020.
8 “Live Animal Markets in Minnesota: A Potential Source for Emergence of Novel Influenza A
Viruses and Interspecies Transmission,” by Mary J. Choi, Montserrat Torremorell, Jeff B. Bender,
Kirk Smith, David Boxrud, et.al., Clinical Infectious Diseases, Volume 61, Issue 9, 1 November
2015, pp. 1355–1362, https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/civ618, https://academic.oup.com/cid/
article/61/9/1355/432409
9 See “Inside the horrific, inhumane animal markets behind pandemics like coronavirus,” by Paula
Froelich, The New York Post, MarketWatch, January 25, 2020, https://www.marketwatch.com/
story/inside-the-horrific-inhumane-animal-markets-behind-pandemics-like-coronavirus-202001-25.
10 “‘Animals life for man’: China’s appetite for wildlife likely to survive virus,” by Farah Master
and Sophie Yu, Reuters, World News, February 16, 2020, https://www.reuters.com/article/
us-china-health-wildlife-idUSKBN20A0RK.
60.2 Wet Markets
ket, “Over 100 different animals are sold here, including wolf pups, civet cats,
poultry and snakes.” And she continued, “These animals are kept in cramped, dirty
conditions, with direct contact with humans. These markets are referred to as ‘wet
markets’ – so-called because animals are often slaughtered directly in front of
customers.”
7
The live-customer aspect is no surprise in the United States, where buyers and
sellers of “livestock” (live being the operative sales pitch on both sides of the eventual fork and knife) have been meeting for hundreds of years to transact their merciless exchanges. Which is why, for example, a study of increased potential for
transmission of “swine-origin IAVs” (Influenza A viruses) at open live-animal markets was conducted in just one of those symptomatic open-market transactional
states: Minnesota, by researchers in 2015.
8
From the mid-Western United States to nearly every other continent, there is
plentiful data (though severely under-documented or tallied) to make clear that
“unregulated and usually filthy markets are found all over Asia and Africa,” for
example.
9
During the first two weeks of February 2020, Chinese police raided homes across
China and arrested over 700 people “for breaking the temporary ban on catching,
selling or eating wild animals”—among the “40,000 animals” taken during the
crackdown, were “squirrels, weasels and boars.” But this did not begin to account
for the multitudes of snakes in jars, or those merchants who were legally able to sell
“donkey, dog, deer, crocodile and other meat.” And, as a retired zoologist from the
Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wang Song, declared, “In many people’s eyes, animals are living for man, not sharing the earth with man.”
10
But whether thousands of years of Chinese cultural traditions will be irrevocably
altered by one outbreak appears unlikely. Although on February 24, 2020, the 16th
Meeting of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People’s Congress put into
effect an edict “Comprehensively Prohibiting the Illegal Trade of Wild Animals,
Eliminating the Bad Habits of Wild Animal Consumption, and Protecting the Health
7 “Eating Animals Will Be the Death of Us,” by Juliet Gellatley, February 4, 2020, The Ecologist,
Common Dreams, https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/02/04/eating-animals-will-bedeath-us, Accessed April 1, 2020.
8 “Live Animal Markets in Minnesota: A Potential Source for Emergence of Novel Influenza A
Viruses and Interspecies Transmission,” by Mary J. Choi, Montserrat Torremorell, Jeff B. Bender,
Kirk Smith, David Boxrud, et.al., Clinical Infectious Diseases, Volume 61, Issue 9, 1 November
2015, pp. 1355–1362, https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/civ618, https://academic.oup.com/cid/
article/61/9/1355/432409
9 See “Inside the horrific, inhumane animal markets behind pandemics like coronavirus,” by Paula
Froelich, The New York Post, MarketWatch, January 25, 2020, https://www.marketwatch.com/
story/inside-the-horrific-inhumane-animal-markets-behind-pandemics-like-coronavirus-202001-25.
10 “‘Animals life for man’: China’s appetite for wildlife likely to survive virus,” by Farah Master
and Sophie Yu, Reuters, World News, February 16, 2020, https://www.reuters.com/article/
us-china-health-wildlife-idUSKBN20A0RK.
60.2 Wet Markets