Shenzhen has now become the first city in China to ban the sale of dog and cat meat.
After the novel coronavirus pandemic, the Chinese authorities finally put a restriction on the trade and consumption of these animals, including wild animals.
This law will take effect on the first of May.
According to the Humane Society International, at least 30 million of these dogs are killed in Asia for their meat.
On the other hand, this practice is not typical for the majority of the Chinese population, and most of them would instead choose not to eat them.
According to the Shenzhen China city government, “Dogs and cats as pets have established a much closer relationship with humans than all other animals and banning the consumption of dogs and cats and other pets is a common practice in developed countries and Hong Kong and Taiwan.”
They added, “This ban also responds to the demand and spirit of human civilization.”
An officer, Liu Jianping, from the Shenzhen Center for Disease Prevention and Control, said that the poultry, seafood, and livestock alone are sufficient for the market. He added, “There is no evidence showing that wildlife is more nutritious than poultry and livestock.”
The first rules in February were for the ban of turtles and frogs consumption, a typical dish in the south of China, but it became a controversy and clarified that those are allowed for eating. The city’s restriction from eating of wildlife gathered praise from different animal welfare groups including HIS.
“Shenzhen is the first city in the world to take the lessons learned from this pandemic seriously and make the changes needed to avoid another pandemic.
She added, Shenzhen’s bold steps to stop this trade and wildlife consumption is a model for governments around the world to emulate.”
Another specialist for HIS said, “This really could be a watershed moment in efforts to end this brutal trade that kills an estimated 10 million dogs and 4 million cats in China every year.”
However, the country also approved of using bear bile for treating coronavirus. This is the digestive fluid drained from the bears and is used in traditional Chinese medicine.
Its active ingredient is the ursodeoxycholic acid that is used for dissolving gallstones and treat other diseases like the liver. This process is painful for the captive animals and not evidence that this is effective on the coronavirus.
Animals Asia Foundation said, “We shouldn’t be relying on wildlife products like bear bile as the solution to combat a deadly virus that appears to have originated from wildlife.”
Scientists believed that the novel coronavirus passed to humans from animals. The earliest infected people were the ones who had been exposed to the wildlife market in Wuhan City. It is known for its exotic animals of different kinds being sold.
The infected people from the COVID-19 is almost nearing to a million and has a death rate of nearly 50,000. China has said to be slowing down its infection at this point.
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