
China bans consumption and trade of wild animals - r_singh
https://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/sci-tech/china-bans-human-consumption-and-trade-of-wild-animals-1.4824540
======
bilekas
It can be banned, sure, but I don't see the superstitious side of the
consumption being curtailed.

When you have a market for rare 'natural wondercures' being sought out, it
only takes one mutation in a virus to spread on from another mammal to humans,
add to that China's population density. A recipe for disaster.

~~~
drenginian
You really think people in China haven’t been scared out of doing risky things
like eating wild animals?

~~~
ben_w
No more so than expecting westerners to be scared out of all the dangerous
things we do.

Even to the extent that most of us don’t smoke or have lots of unprotected one
night stands with strangers, there’s enough who do that they and their
illnesses are still a major part of our health systems.

~~~
vraivroo
Eating of meat and sugar are responsible for much more. No need to vilify
those whose vices you don't share.

~~~
JakezRock
i have got to ask, i understand the sugar part, but the meat? Are you
referring to the red meat or the fat in meat? Could you elaborate on the meat
part?

~~~
mdemare
It's not just that meat and sugar are unhealthy, but also that presence of
meat and sugar correlate with absence of healthier foods, such as vegetables,
legumes, seeds, fruits and nuts.

~~~
nradov
Referring to particular foods as "healthy" or "unhealthy" is reductionist and
unscientific. All foods have both positive and negative effects. Certain meats
are generally quite good, at least in moderation, particularly for getting
high quality protein. Eating too many Brazil nuts can cause acute selenium
poisoning.

Be more specific. If you want to convince anyone here then please cite high
quality studies which actually meet evidence-based medicine criteria. All of
the studies so far which claim to show meat is unhealthy were badly flawed
observational studies which relied on subject reported data, lacked proper
controls, and only showed very small effects.

------
nate_meurer
Aside from the disease risk, remember that the Chinese appetite for wild
animals as "traditional medicine" is contributing to the disappearance of
entire species. Notable and well-publicized examples include tigers and
rhinos, but there are many others.

Stupid shit like using rhinos horns and tiger genitals as aphrodisiacs are
still widely held beliefs in parts of China. Xi Jinping's administration has
actually been encouraging this nonsense, and in Fall of 2018 they proposed
lifting restrictions on the trade and sale of endangered animal parts.

This tragedy has been extensively reported for my whole life. As a little kid
I remember being brought to tears by accounts of the cruelty of Chinese
traditional medicine, and the appetite of east Asian countries for exotic
animals in general. Documentation is plentiful. Just an example, this Nat Geo
article came in near the top of my search results just now:

[https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2014/04/29/tigers-in-
tra...](https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2014/04/29/tigers-in-traditional-
chinese-medicine-a-universal-apothecary/)

~~~
nikofeyn
and it's not just china. many other asian countries, such as vietnam, consume
illegal animal parts for traditional medicine and enable the trade of such
things in china. couple all of that with socioeconomic struggles in africa
that creates a willingness and incentive to supply, and you have a problem
that won't disappear until the animals disappear.

in half a century, poaching, human encroachment on habitats, and climate
change will see many animals (rhinos, tigers, polar pears, certain orca
populations, etc.) disappear. humans are not organized enough to stop this.

------
someperson
I can't see how this can be successfully enforced without a massive education
campaign and actual enforcement by authorities, including moving the so-called
"wet markets" (which are outdoor butchers that are very important to the food
supply chain in many areas of China) into modern indoor facilities for
improved food safety.

Older people in China (the so-called lost generation) are set in their ways:
remember that in traditional Chinese medicine, the medicinal value of an
animal is directly proportional to its rarity. This of course creates perverse
incentives to kill the last living members of endangered animals already under
threat from poachers.

China has plenty of laws including a constitution that defends practicing free
speech and religion, but in reality laws mean nothing if there's no
enforcement.

~~~
mc32
This very important. Both the PRC and USSR constitutions, on paper, arguably
provide better freer basic law than that of the US but in practice it’s just
words on paper.

However, also in practice the faction in power gets to capriciously enforce
what it wants selectively, usually to solidify standing. So mr Xi and mr
Stalin (née Jughashvili) get to purge all want-to-be usurpers.

~~~
Nitramp
> However, also in practice the faction in power gets to capriciously enforce
> what it wants selectively, usually to solidify standing.

aka as "the rule of law".

From a continental European perspective, the US stance in rule of law seems a
bit dubious as well, with the president pardoning his friends, or the enormous
sentences afflicted to people once, but only once, they end up in bad public
standing, or elected states attorneys incentivize to look hard on crime to
their constituents.

~~~
jack_h
I'm not sure how your examples illustrate your point.

For instance the power to pardon is defined within the constitution with a
singular exception added to it. It doesn't say a president can't pardon their
friends. That might be socially unacceptable but it is a power delegated to
the president nonetheless. If the constitution made no such mention of that
power and the president was pardoning their friends - or indeed anyone at all
- then that would be a good example of capricious use of power outside the
rule of law.

~~~
Nitramp
To give an extreme counter-example, imagine you had a constitution that
legally gives unlimited supreme powers to a single person (which has happened,
e.g. Germany during the Nazi years).

I wouldn't describe that as the rule of law, but rather as despotism. I think
you can have a constitutional system that has powers codified that still
violate the goals and ideals of the rule of law, without being technically
illegal. It's not a black and white thing.

Does that make sense?

------
Vysero
Imho, anything short of:

1) A permanent ban on the sale of live animals at public markets. 2) A strict
nationwide enforcement of food safety regulations. 3) A government backed re-
education campaign against the use of traditional Chinese medicine.

and their efforts will again fail.

------
nobody0
We still don't know where the source is, and who the 0th patient is.

~~~
PhantomGremlin
Yeah, we have no idea where the source is.

But we _do_ know that China is a country 9,596,961 square km in size.

We also know that China's National Biosafety Laboratory, their only Level 4
microbiology lab, is located at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is 278
meters away (as the crow flies) from the Huanan Seafood Market. Said market
has previously been speculated to be the source.

Is it simply coincidence that in a country of nearly 10 million square km the
outbreak may have started less than 300 meters away from this laboratory?

Fortunately the esteemed New York Times has assured me that this is a "Fringe
Theory of Coronavirus Origins".
[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/17/business/media/coronaviru...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/17/business/media/coronavirus-
tom-cotton-china.html)

Here are a few articles that speculate further about this "fringe theory":

[https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8009669/Did-
coronav...](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8009669/Did-coronavirus-
originate-Chinese-government-laboratory.html)

[https://www.marketwatch.com/story/dont-buy-chinas-story-
the-...](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/dont-buy-chinas-story-the-
coronavirus-may-have-leaked-from-a-lab-2020-02-22)

~~~
yfzhou
[https://goo.gl/maps/9dzPVq8XBtChHRxJA](https://goo.gl/maps/9dzPVq8XBtChHRxJA)

~~~
PhantomGremlin
Interesting.

It is about 14 km by car between the Market and the Institute of Virology.

What do you think about the Daily Mail article which says that the Wuhan
Center for Disease Control and Prevention (WHCDC, not the Institute of
Virology, my mistake) is 278 meters away? They state that virus research is
being done there. From what I see on the map there are some Union Hospital
buildings, but nothing specifically identified as the WHCDC.

Edit: part of the problem seems to be in searching for the _exact_ names of
the facilities.

~~~
kyazawa
[https://map.baidu.com/dir/%E6%AD%A6%E6%B1%89%E5%B8%82%E7%96%...](https://map.baidu.com/dir/%E6%AD%A6%E6%B1%89%E5%B8%82%E7%96%BE%E7%97%85%E9%A2%84%E9%98%B2%E6%8E%A7%E5%88%B6%E4%B8%AD%E5%BF%83/%E5%8D%8E%E5%8D%97%E6%B5%B7%E9%B2%9C%E6%89%B9%E5%8F%91%E5%B8%82%E5%9C%BA/@12720355.59989023,3561792,18.79z?querytype=walk&c=218&sn=1$$$$12720468.15,3561529.56$$%E6%AD%A6%E6%B1%89%E5%B8%82%E7%96%BE%E7%97%85%E9%A2%84%E9%98%B2%E6%8E%A7%E5%88%B6%E4%B8%AD%E5%BF%83$$0$$$$&en=1$$$$12720425.96,3562036.29$$%E5%8D%8E%E5%8D%97%E6%B5%B7%E9%B2%9C%E6%89%B9%E5%8F%91%E5%B8%82%E5%9C%BA$$0$$$$&sc=218&ec=218&pn=0&rn=5&version=6&run=0&spath_type=1&da_src=shareurl)

I think Baidu Maps places WHCDC in the same complex identified in that Daily
Mail article, directly across the street from the Huanan Seafood Market. (I'm
a bit uncertain because I don't read Chinese, so please let me know if I've
made a mistake here.)

------
0xcafecafe
I hope it is enforced well. A lot of loss of wildlife (tigers, rhinos, etc) in
the neighboring countries is attributed to the consumption for traditional
Chinese medicine.

------
baybal2
Funnily, China has stopped issuing hunting licenses some 20 years ago, but it
was still legal to catch a wild animal without "hunting" it, and killing it on
the spot.

A great example of literal to the letter selective enforcement of law here.

------
ivanhoe
"prohibiting the illegal wildlife trade"

This site is in bad need for a proofreader...

~~~
cltsang
If what you mean is those words are lengthy and repeated, that's actually how
chinese officials talk and write.

~~~
adrianN
I believe they mean that prohibiting something that is illegal is unnecessary.

~~~
Joker_vD
On the contrary, you prohibit exactly "unlawful <sort of action>", e.g.
"unlawful consumption of narcotics". That means that what _exactly_
constitutes unlawfulness of such acts is a part of a different law, and
usually not even a law, but a by-law or a regulation.

For example, look at the German penal code, title 184f, "Ausübung der
verbotenen Prostitution" — it's literally "Practicing illegal prostitution",
and it's worded that way because there is also legal one.

------
mstwntd_g
China needs to go halal..

------
qiqitori
No more cannibalism, too bad.

~~~
kinleyd
Heh heh, title is indeed badly worded.

------
honestoHeminway
Again.. maybee its time to admit, that propaganda announcements out of china -
are simply not worth the time and effort.

They announce to go green, and produce a potemkin village of effort. They
announce to ban trade of wild animals (2012/ 2017) and it just never is fully
implemented or enforced.

China is actually even more chaotic then africa, because that nice facade of
that utopian well working, strong government many int he west secretly year
for, distracts from the actual chaos and routined subversion on the ground.

------
fredgrott
hmm does that mean they no longer eat politicians?

------
magwa101
JFC, finally. Eating domestic animals is bad enough, wild ones is a complete
non starter.

------
blackrock
There is a lot of stupid and non-sense talk about how the coronavirus was
created, because of Chinese people eating bats.

There is no scientific evidence to support this!

Instead, this exposes the deep-seated biases and prejudices, that Westerners
(white people) have of Easterners, and specifically, the Chinese, in this
case. It also didn’t help that the Trump Administration went on a negative
media assault for the past 3 years to demonize the Chinese, so they are now an
easy scapegoat for all troubles in the world. This really does not help the
situation.

Now, how about a different theory?

Animals normally develop immunity to their environment, and from the viruses
that exist in that area. This is the law of natural selection in play. Those
that survive, go on and reproduce, and carry the antibodies to protect their
offspring. Those that don’t, will die off, and their bodies will be eaten by
vultures.

I suspect that the coronavirus mutated and appeared, because of an animal from
one part of the world, was shipped to another part of the world, where it
didn’t have natural immunity to the diseases of that region. In this case, a
bat carrying the virus.

Maybe an animal from Africa, was transported to Asia, where it would have
never traveled there by itself. That animal got sick, and triggered a
mutation, which infected a human handling it, which mutated again, and
infected another human, and now, we have an outbreak.

The key to understanding this may be in how the MERS virus appeared. It’s
believed to come from bats, which infected a camel, which infected a human. Do
people in the Middle East eat camels? No, I don’t think so.

So why should SARS and this COVID-19 virus be any different?

Limiting the transport of live animals, to different areas of the world,
should help minimize future virus outbreaks. But, humans have been
transporting live animals all over the world, for hundreds or thousands of
years, ever since boats were first invented. So I suspect, that it is only a
matter of time before another novel coronavirus appears. And global warming
may also be playing a factor too, in triggering viruses and diseases in
nature, that had previously been dormant.

This is HN. Most people here are scientifically and technically educated. Do
your part. Analyze the situation scientifically. Change the narrative.
Otherwise, we risk devolving into our deep seated fears and prejudices. We
lose our humanity in the process.

~~~
Killes
Wherever it may come from, I think many people are happy to have an angle to
attack a certain category of Chinese for their perception and treatment of
animals.

The hunting and extinction of species due to these ridiculous primitive
beliefs is utterly repugnant in this day and age where we teeter on the brink
of environmental disaster and mass extinctions with climate and other causes.

Exchanging true fascinating living treasures of earth evolved over millions of
years all the way back to this planets creation for some baubles and to
satisfy their tummies or supposedly treat some fucking wart, or even save them
from a heart attack, really, those selfish beings are worth the torture and
extinctions ?

It also simply hurts and inspires rage to truly consider and witness the
absolutely mind boggling levels of cruelty shown in the hunting, keeping and
processing of these animals. How is one to like humans that think themselves
so superior and special over everything else that they may be allowed to do
anything? Its the worst of "humanity" and we can be well glad to loose that
aspect of it.

Unfortunately may these Chinese with disregard and 0 empathy for animals be a
minority or not of, the scale of the country make it too many by far.

------
biolurker1
Nice but it won't solve Biosafety 4 labs from leaking viruses and then
covering up the truth like chernobyl

~~~
onceUponADime
Try to see the good side- after this, no more bio labs, cause politicians like
that as much as they like militarys going rogue with nukes.

