Toronto got hit by SARS in 2003 and I am afraid the coronavirus is next.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/01/21/asia-pacific/coronavirus-china-food-markets/#.XikDr2hKjIU
why would anyone eat a bat??
https://torontosun.com/news/world/caught-on-camera-eating-bats-amid-coronavirus-epidemic
Inside the horrific, inhumane animal markets behind pandemics like coronavirus
https://nypost.com/2020/01/25/inside-the-horrific-inhumane-animal-markets-behind-pandemics-like-coronavirus/
Speaking of inhumane, how 'bout them factory farms here in North America? As a meat eater, I try my best to avoid conventional meat, otherwise I'd be a hypocrite in criticizing China.
shareSo it looks like eating pangolins is what cause the coronavirus. Thanks China.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/opinion/coronavirus-china-pangolins.html
Dr. Fauci says it’s ‘mind-boggling’ that any of China’s wet markets are still operating
https://nypost.com/2020/04/03/dr-fauci-says-its-mind-boggling-that-any-of-chinas-wet-markets-are-still-operating/
I just watched an interesting CNN report overlapping that story. Apparently there's now renewed worldwide pressure to shut that underground market down once and for all. It's much larger than I was aware of and looks like an incredibly daunting task.
shareThe Chinese communists are great at shutting things down when they want to.
shareI know exactly what you mean. It was mentioned in that report that they've been unsuccessful in their many attempts to ban it. It was one of those "huh?" moments for me.
shareIt's easy to shut things meant for poor people. The real reason why underground wildlife meat market can't be easily shut is some of the wildlife meat are very expensive thus they're for the rich, shark fins for example, or bear paws and monkey brains.
The bats and other cheap wildlife are there so that the market wouldn't be seen as shark fins market, which is illegal. That's why it's really hard to shut them down. They are basically drug markets.
When they say exotic you would think that means animals not from that country. In these markets are animals brought in from outside of China?
Either way something has got to change no doubt.
Yes I said this to someone, and they said you have to realize these people are starving. It was a policy put in place to let them cultivate and eat wild animals , so they wouldn't starve. It puts us all at risk, but none of us here in the western world have ever truly been starving. We use that term so loosely here. So who knows what you would do in that situation, die or eat a monkey/bat.
shareExcept that many of these animals are considered delicacies. People that are starving don't have the palates of gourmets.
shareI could be wrong on this but the story I heard was that it started in a place where they were starving.
shareIt's true that China's wet markets aren't really much different from open air markets throughout the rest of the world and are the only source of fresh vegetables, seafood and meat for many of its poor. That's undoubtedly what you're referring to. What we're talking about here is an underground version of those where many of these exotic, even bizarre animals are harvested.
I watched a documentary recently which claimed the pangolin, which has been mentioned in this thread, is the most poached animal in the world and endangered. Then there's shark fin soup, which has brought some species of that animal near extinction. And from what I've learned of this current situation, it's a certain species of bat that's at the root of it. These animals are all considered to be delicacies in certain parts of the Asian world.