Wet Markets

Seems to be confusion as to what a wet market is. A wet market has water on the floor, that's why it's called "wet". Why water you might ask,,, because everything gets washed off often.
Dalat Nong Neeoaw 2-3-2007 5-17-12 PM 2816x2112.JPG Dalat Nongneoaw
In Laos everyone who cooks at home, ie all citizens, buy food at a wet market. The dry side sells rice, electronics, cookies, everything else. Meat is slaughtered daily and very very fresh. Slaughtering usually occurs somewhere else and meat is arranged on tables, fish are live in water. Veggies and fruit are also considered wet. Anything perishable is wet.

Thailand also has huge wet markets in their big cities, and what's offered is more varied and upscale. They also sell tons of cooked food sold in plastic bags to be taken home and served with rice out of the rice cooker. Durian, (I'd die for some right now). Thailand has a supermarket chain called Tesco.

When I lived in China there were no supermarkets in my province, it was 25 years ago. I suspect much of Asia has no supermarkets outside of big cities, no need and they don't have the infrastructure for wholesale selling of produce.

What I'm getting at is that "wet market" does not mean the selling of wildlife, though most wet markets do have some for sale, mostly wild caught fish. In season one also can buy various mushrooms, roots and herbs, bamboo roots, ant eggs, water beetles, crickets, dung beetles, etc. The sale of porcupine, muntjac, wild pig, civet, bamboo rat, song birds, is more rare, they cost more than pork/chicken/beef.

Wildlife is eaten mostly by people who grew up hunting for, and eating, wildlife as growing up, increasingly fewer and fewer people can relate to that. But what is going on in China and causing worry is rarely wild caught animals such as one might find in Laos, Cambodia, Burma, etc.

What is being sold all over China is farm raised wildlife. After sars, which was believed to have originated in bats or civets or something, the Chinese government eased up on the sale of wildlife, there was a big demand and people were making money on it. Raising wildlife such as civet, snakes, turtles, porcupine, or bats is quite an investment in food and care, but at the very high prices they bring, they were worth it. Raising wildlife supplies much much more than could ever be obtained from the wild.

In China, at the market itself wildlife is sold live if at all possible, it's not like meat where they sell all of it that day, it might be a week or two before someone comes by with enough money to buy a live civet or porcupine. They stack the animals in cages on top of each other, animals that are normally dispersed across the landscape live closely packed. They get sick, the animals on top infect those below, sometimes animals of a different species.

What we should be pushing for as policy for China if they want to continue to trade with us is...

1. to stop the raising and sale of wildlife. This would almost eliminate the variety of species sold in markets, as most of China has very little in the way of wild living wildlife from which to obtain species.
2. to stop the sale of all wildlife in all countries. Unregulated market hunting is a serious threat to the extinction of species.

Please note I'm not commenting on the large scale sale of "bushmeat" in Africa. I'm not familiar with Africa, but from what I understand bushmeat is less expensive than domestic meat, and is mostly of what is called "big game" over 60lbs in weight, herbivores of some sort or another, jerked to be sold, ie dried, and not a vector for virus, though maybe, what do I know.

Stay health and stay home.

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It's incredibly annoying when some new concept finds its way into the mainstream discourse, and then everybody starts tossing it around like we all know what it means, when we don't have a clue.

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

bat-woman, virologist Shi Zhengli, would absolutely agree with you on banning the sale of "wildlife" for meat -- or at least, under such conditions as you've described.

As far as bushmeat goes, the particularly disturbing aspect is that amongst the "herbivores" are great apes. Apart from being appalling from a straight-up ethical standpoint, one hypothesis (might no longer be current) was that one or more outbreaks of hemorrhagic fever (e.g. Ebola, Marburg) might have been species transfer from bushmeat apes.

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

CB's picture

China works to categorize livestock and poultry after new wildlife trade ban
01-Mar-2020

Chinese authorities are working to differentiate poultry and livestock from wildlife after the country's top legislature rolled out a decision on Monday to ban the consumption of wildlife, a senior agriculture official said on Thursday.

Han Xu, deputy director of the Bureau of Fisheries under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, said unlike wild animals, livestock and poultry have undergone captive breeding for a long time and have been widely accepted by the public.

Their physical appearance should be different from wild species. There should also be a stable disease prevention and control system, and raising them should be an internationally accepted practice, Han said at a news conference.
...
A decision made by the National People's Congress Standing Committee on Monday has made it clear that all wildlife listed under the existing Wild Animal Protection Law or other laws, as well as all terrestrial wildlife, including those artificially bred and farmed, are banned from consumption.

Common poultry and livestock like pigs, cattle and sheep are not on the prohibition list. Animals that have been farm-raised for a long time and form value chains helpful in local poverty alleviation, such as pigeons and rabbits, are also excluded, said Yang Heqing, deputy director of the Legislative Affairs Commission's economic law office.
...
More than 750,000 pieces of information about wildlife trade have been removed or blocked from major e-commerce platforms, and 17,000 online stores or accounts have been closed, he said at the news conference.

Liang said that some secret code words that people use to trade wildlife online are also being monitored and will be screened out whenever used.

"The market regulator has also urged online catering platforms to block information related to wildlife dishes and instructed mapping firms to remove location information on wildlife restaurants," he added.

Liu Xuejun, deputy director of the food and drug criminal investigation bureau under the Ministry of Public Security, said the police will step up law enforcement, crack down on illegal activities related to wildlife in accordance with the law and safeguard people's security and health.

I wonder if they will ban squirrel and alligator? Scratch one-s head
BTW, bats were not sold at the Wuhan market. Bat is not a popular Chinese dish.

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Roy Blakeley's picture

@CB Bats are a large repository of corona viruses of various sorts because they are not killed or even made very sick by them. The usual postulated chain is that a bat virus infects an animal (perhaps enabled by a mutation in the virus and the virus is transmitted through feces, SARS-COV2 is present in feces) and humans contract it from the intermediate animal (perhaps enabled by an additional mutation in the virus). With SARS there was considerable evidence that a civet was the intermediate. There was speculation that a pangolin was the intermediate with SARS-COV2, but I haven't seen any real evidence that this was the case.

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CB's picture

@Roy Blakeley
But it is an internet meme which still persists and is being spread and amplified as we speak.

Just from last few weeks:

WATCH: Lindsey Graham Tells China to 'Stop Eating Bats'

Maher: "We Should Blame China" For Coronavirus, "Not Racist To Point Out Eating Bats Is Batshit Crazy"

Ben Shapiro Chinese Stop Eating Bats

There is a tremendous amount of anti-Chinese propaganda in the US, UK, Australia and India that has been generated and amplified following the outbreak of the coronavirus. The anti-China war hawks are taking every advantage to smear China at this time. (Just as they did to Russia since 2000.)

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@CB I know that physiologically bats can carry a heavy and varied virus load, and are often thought to be the source of viral species jumps, and I'd heard it suggested about Wuhan. I know they are popular in SEAsia. I didn't take the suggestion as being racist, but rather just normal.

I've eaten lots of things but avoid most wildlife for ecological reasons. Hunting in Asia is not scientifically regulated. I've eaten some strong tasting insects and liked them so I can't say I wouldn't like something but some animals just by their appearance seem unappetizing.

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CB's picture

@ban nock
Private ownership of guns, even a pellet gun, is illegal. There is some poaching but the penalties, if caught, are much more severe than in the US.

Nature/wildlife tourism has become a very large draw and money maker for the Chinese who now have considerably more discretionary spending. The Chinese realize the value of these natural resources and have turned their attention to preserving and protecting them.

For contrast, in America it is a national birthright to kill wild animals if they are edible.

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@CB Thank you for posting. It's reassuring. Bats are popular in Laos. I wondered about doves and rabbits.

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CB's picture

@ban nock
pigeons and rabbits. If I killed it, I ate it. Many other kids just killed for sport - pissed me off.

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