As the world continues to reel from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, Born Free USA, along with other wildlife conservation organizations, is drawing attention to the impact of wildlife trade and its links to diseases transmitted from animals to humans. We are taking action to prevent future pandemics while at the same time calling on governments to protect global biodiversity from devastating consequences of wildlife trade and wild animal consumption.
Born Free USA joined 31 NGOs in calling on China to urgently strengthen its national measures by prohibiting wildlife trade and consumption in any form and for all purposes. Read more about these efforts here and here.
On February 24, 2020, when the epidemic was just beginning to affect countries outside China, the Standing Committee of the Chinese National People’s Congress issued the “Decisions relating to a total prohibition on illegal wildlife trade, eliminating the bad habit of excessive eating of wildlife, and effectively safeguarding the lives and health of the public.”
The aim of these Decisions was to serve as a directive for more effective enforcement against illegal wildlife trade and to introduce a prohibition on the breeding of and trade in most terrestrial wild animal species for the purposes of consumption as food, with a goal of protecting biodiversity and human health.
While we applaud the Decisions as a strong step in the right direction, the Decisions contain loopholes that still permit trade in wild animal species (including species threatened by trade), as well as commercial breeding, for non-food purposes such as traditional medicine, ornamental items, and fur.
The impact of these loopholes in the Decisions can be seen in the trade in the bile of black bears. Bears are held in tiny cages and their bile is extracted regularly for use in traditional Chinese medicine. Not only is this cruel practice still permitted thanks to the loopholes in the Decisions, it has actually increased as bear bile is promoted as a COVID-19 treatment.
As it is the case with the Decisions, the “National Catalogue of Livestock and Poultry Genetic Resources,” issued in April 2020 by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, also contains loopholes for wild animal species listed as “livestock.” Many of these wildlife species have potential to pass on zoonotic diseases to humans, but the loopholes in the new law allow them to continue to be used for meat, fur, and other parts and products.
Born Free USA will continue to urge the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs and other relevant agencies to issue further notifications and revise relevant laws and regulations to prohibit commercial trade in the parts and derivatives of, at a minimum, all wild animal species that are threatened by trade, including all big cats, elephants, rhinoceroses, pangolins, and bears. We will urge Chinese authorities to include wild-caught as well as captive-bred animals and to restrict the keeping and breeding of these species to programs and scientific institutions that are part of internationally recognized scientific conservation breeding initiatives.
Follow Born Free USA on social media for updates on these efforts and other news related to wildlife trade and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Keep Wildlife in the Wild,
Aurora
