“We can’t be indifferent anymore!” President Xi Jinping of China
fumed at top officials early last month, referring to the public health risks of eating wildlife. On Feb. 24, the 13th National People’s Congress
issued a decision “Comprehensively Prohibiting the Illegal Trade of Wild Animals, Eliminating the Bad Habits of Wild Animal Consumption and Protecting the Health and Safety of the People.” This and an earlier ban on wildlife markets were direct responses to concerns that the new coronavirus, which is thought to have originated in bats, may have been transmitted to humans via a wild animal for sale
at a wet market in Wuhan, a city in central China.
China has had wildlife trading bans on the books for three decades, but those haven’t prevented pangolins from becoming the most trafficked mammal in the world.
In 2007, the sale of pangolin products
outside of specially certified hospitals and clinics was outlawed.
But none of this has helped pangolins. In January 2019,
nine tons of pangolin scales — thought to have come from some 14,000 animals — were seized in a single shipment in Hong Kong. The next month,
33 tons of pangolin meat were discovered in Malaysia, and in April, 14 tons of scales in Singapore.
One problem is that the regulatory framework in China hasn’t specified what wildlife entails. Enforcement has been lax, and there were exceptions anyway for licensed retailers, like
Chinese medicine shops and
online sellers. The latest ban also has
loopholes that will
allow the trade of wildlife for medicine or research.
