The Chinese city of Wuhan has banned the eating of wild animals, a practice believed to have caused the coronavirus pandemic.
The new policy went into effect on May 13 and will stay in place for five years, according to a notice released by the Wuhan government today.
Experts in China said in January that the virus had likely jumped onto humans from wild animals sold as food at a wet market in the city of 11million.
The government of China’s Wuhan city has banned the eating of wild animal species, including those bred and raised by people, for five years. The file photo taken on January 17 shows the Huanan Seafood Whole Market, which is believed to be the origin of the coronavirus outbreak
The law forbids the consumption of all wild animals on land as well as endangered and protected wild aquatic species. In the file photo taken on January 5, 2004, workers collect civets in Xinyuan wildlife market to prevent a possible spread of SARS in Guangzhou
The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, the market believed to have spawned the global outbreak, was shut on January 1 in the wake of the health crisis.
Apart from seafood, the market’s offerings included live wild animals, such as foxes, crocodiles, wolf puppies, giant salamanders, snakes, rats, peacocks, porcupines, koalas and game meats, according to the South China Morning Post.
In China alone, the virus has claimed 4,634 lives and infected more than 82,965 people, according to official figures.
Globally, at least 323,000 people have died and more than 4.8million have contracted the killer infection.
The Chinese province of Hubei, of which Wuhan is the capital city, in March passed a law to ban the eating of wild animals completely, including those bred or raised by people.
In February, China‘s central government blocked all trade and consumption of wildlife with a temporarily law, but it did not specify if farm-raised ones would be covered.
China’s overall wildlife trade is worth around 520billion yuan (£57billion), according to a government report from 2017.
No organisations or individuals are allowed to produce, process, use or conduct commercial operations with wildlife or wildlife products which are banned by the document, officials say
The new directive in Wuhan largely echoes the legislation launched by its provincial government.
It comes after provinces across China have promised buyout schemes or other financial aid to help wildlife breeders turn to other trades.
The regulation covers wildlife and wildlife products and forbids the consumption of all wild animals on land as well as endangered and protected wild aquatic species.
It prohibits the hunting of wild animals across Wuhan, which covers an area of 8,494 square kilometres (3,280 square miles) or roughly five times of Greater London.
Staff at scientific and medical organisations must obtain special hunting licences for research purposes.
Artificial breeding of land-based wild animals and nationally protected wild aquatic species for human consumption is not allowed, the document says.
The pandemic was first detected in Wuhan in December. In China alone, the crisis has claimed 4,634 lives and infected more than 82,965 people, according to official figures. Pictured, a woman wearing a mask walks past stalls near a partially closed off market in Wuhan on April 3
Experts in China said in January that the virus had likely jumped onto humans from wild animals sold as food at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale market in the city of 11million. Pictured, vendors wearing face masks wait for customers at a wet market in Wuhan on May 18
The decree also cracks down on the wildlife trade.
No organisations or individuals are allowed to produce, process, use or conduct commercial operations with wildlife or wildlife products which are banned by the document, officials say.
Any related breeding, transporting, trading, carrying or mailing is illegal.
Citizens are forbidden from encouraging or persuading others to eat or conduct illegal trading of wild animals. Such activities include releasing advertisements, installing relevant signboards and publishing recipes.
Scientific and medical teams must undergo strict applications and quarantine inspections should they need to use wild animals for non-food-related work purposes.
Wuhan officials say they will use the national social credit system to punish any violators of the rules. Pictured, commuters wear face masks wait to cross an intersection in Beijing on May 18
In a new, city-specific move, officials say they will use the national social credit system to punish any violators of the rules.
Offending individuals and companies will see their behaviour recorded into the country-wide surveillance scheme and receive penalties accordingly.
Authorities will also increase their inspections into markets, hotels, restaurants, e-commerce platforms and food-processing businesses to prevent the trading of exotic species.
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China’s top legislative committee passed new legislation to ban all trade and consumption of wild animals on February 24 after the country was rocked by the deadly disease.
Beijing is yet to revise its wild animal protection law, but the temporarily ban was ‘essential’ and ‘urgent’ in helping the country win its war against the epidemic, wrote state newspaper People’s Daily.
The exact source of the new coronavirus remains unconfirmed. Experts speculate that it originated in bats, snakes, pangolins, or some other animal.
Chinese workers wear protective masks and suits before entering the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan to carry out thorough disinfection works on March 4
Hazmat-clad cleaners are tasked to sanitise stalls and safely dispose of the remaining stock
Scientists from the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention linked the Huanan market to the virus in January. They claimed that humans had caught the virus from animals there, reported Xinhua News Agency.
Civets, a cat-like creature thought to have caused the SARS outbreak in 2003, were among dozens of species listed as for sale by one of the merchants at the Wuhan market according to a price list that circulated on China’s internet.
Other items included rats, snakes, giant salamanders and live wolf pups.
Wuhan and the majority parts of Hubei were on lockdown for more than two months to stop the spread of the disease.
China will buy out farms breeding exotic animals for their meat
Provinces across China are offering cash to farmers who breed wild animals for their meat in the hope of stopping the exotic meat trade.
Officials in at least four provinces have promised buyout schemes or other financial aid to help residents whose income relies on the breeding of unconventional species, such as porcupines, cobras and muntjacs.
The southern province of Hunan, which borders coronavirus ground zero Hubei, says it will subsidise all farms that have an official licence to breed and raise wild animals.
Officials in at least four Chinese provinces have promised buyout schemes or other financial aid to help residents whose income relies on the breeding of exotic animals. Pictured, a vendor sells three peacocks at a wildlife animals market in Guangzhou on January 10, 2004
The provincial government will pay 630 yuan (£72) for one porcupine, 378 yuan (£69) for a swan goose and 2,457 yuan (£282) per Chinese muntjac, according to an official notice published on May 15.
A civet cat — the animal blamed for the SARS outbreak nearly two decades ago — is worth 600 yuan (£69). Hugely popular bamboo rats, a possible coronavirus carrier, can be traded in for 75 yuan (£8.6) per kilogram.
In the province of Jiangxi, which also borders Hubei, officials of the city of Ganzhou are forking out a series of cash bonuses to encourage wild animal farmers to turn to other trades, such as growing tea forest and oranges.
The city will also support any companies that hire those farmers by paying towards their salaries, a directive says.
Chinese farmers were rearing about 25million bamboo rats when the government launched a temporary ban on the trading and consumption of wild animals in February in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak. The picture shows a farmer in Guizhou holding two bamboo rats in 2012
Jiangxi province has more than 2,300 licensed breeders, mostly rearing wild animals for food. Their animals are worth about 1.6billion yuan (£180million), according to the latest government statistics.
Elsewhere, the province of Guangxi has put aside extra money to turn its snake-breeding industry into a ‘traditional medicine and beauty’ industry, reported state-media China News.
Farmers in Guangxi were raising nearly 20million wild snakes, or 70 per cent of the national total, before the pandemic hit. The industry involved more than 14,000 families and employed almost 37,000 people, the report said.
In the county of Dongyuan in Guangdong province, officials had raised two million yuan (£230,000) by April to help 107 families who bred wild animals, said Heyuan Net.
Those farmers will start rearing chickens, catfish, sheep and cows, among others.