In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the government of China reformed the country’s wildlife trade laws to ban the consumption of wild animals. However, the new law contains an important and concerning loophole that still permits many species of wild animal to be bred for meat consumption and for fur, including mink, fox, raccoon dog, rabbit, and camel. Many wildlife species excluded from the ban have the potential to be implicated in zoonotic illnesses, with certain animals transmitting across non-human species and others suspected to be an intermediary host between animal and human transmission.
In response, Born Free USA sent a letter to the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture, urging it to include all wildlife species in the new ban, including those considered “livestock.”