Exotic Wild Animal Illegal Markets, China, Coronavirus

"[Networks of illegal wild animal smuggling  originate] from West African bushmeat markets in Cameroon and Nigeria to middlemen and traffickers in Nepal Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and Hong Kong, to mainland China, home to most of the demand spurring the global trade."
South China Morning Post

"If we want to do everything in our power to prevent deadly disease outbreaks such as coronavirus, then a permanent ban on wildlife trade, in China, and around the world, is the only solution."
Neil D'Cruze, global head, wildlife research, World Animal Protection

Pangolins are scaly creatures often used in traditional Chinese medicine.  Credit: Frans Lanting/National Geographic

Researchers around the world are working overtime in an effort to fully comprehend the global coronavirus outbreak, and a new arrival on the scene of possible contenders for having been involved in the transmission from animals to humans has appeared on the scene. An endangered species, no less. And seemingly just as likely to have been involved as infected bats and Chinese cobras, all sold illegally, but by popular demand among Chinese connoisseurs of rare and 'delicacy' foods, which have in the past been revealed to have been vectors of morbid viruses.

The pangolin is that creature, a small, scaly anteater, on the endangered species list. And how it made that list is its popularity as a perceived ingredient by way of its scales ground into a powder, as a powerful pharmaceutical to cure medical issues from arthritis to lactation problems; acne, asthma and liver cancer. Just as exotic and rare species like certain types of snakes, rhinocerus, tigers, donkeys, monkeys and so many other animal species are valued for their body parts in China in food preparation and traditional medicinals, so too are the pangolins.

A Chinese wet market.

Felix Wong/South China Morning Post/Getty

For their meat, in specialty dishes favoured by Africans and Asians, and for their scales, dried, pounded, and mixed with other ingredients to become medication in cultures whose belief in their restorative and curative powers appear unshakable, even when their governments enact laws prohibiting such cultural proclivities that hasten the decline and threatened state of existence of animal, bird and fish species.

The black market is thriving. And the pangolin has been acknowledged as the most trafficked animals on the globe as the demand for its meat and scales fail to be diminished despite laws, despite harm to their existence and the ecological balance disruption through 'cultural' practices. Above all, despite that scientists have tracked wild-animal trade at black marketed public animal stalls as the culprits in virus transmission to humans.

A man holds a pangolin at a wild-animal rescue center in Cuc Phuong, outside Hanoi, Vietnam, September 12, 2016.

Kham/Reuters

The over 800 people who have contracted novel coronavirus and have died of its effects in all likelihood were infected via an original transmission from bats, leaving scientists baffled over how the disease might have leaped from bats to humans. Xinhua news agency reported that scientists from South China Agricultural University have discovered that the genome sequence of the coronavirus strain in pangolins appeared 99 percent identical to that of infected patients.

Advocates of traditional Chinese medicine believe the hard scales of the pangolin, ground into powder form and mixed with other ingredients is a cure-all. Despite which, no evidence exists of any possible therapeutic or medical applications for pangolin scales, a type of keratin, similar to human fingernails. Under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), pangolin trade has been banned since 2017. Despite which, a huge quantity of pangolin products continue to be traded world-wide.

Hong Kong authorities last year seized a record eight tonnes of pangolin scales from a shipping container which had originated from Nigeria, bound for Vietnam. Officials in Hong Kong are attempting to put a stop to their city continuing to act as a hub for endangered species trafficking in Asia. The government increased the maximum prison term for trafficking and possession of endangered species from two to ten years in 2018, but it has failed to deter smugglers.