China has started its crackdown on illegal hunting and exploitation of wildlife. All localities should close and quarantine all breeding facilities of wild animals and stop all activities such as listing, trading and transportation of wild animals, according to National Forestry and Grassland Administration (NFGA).

Police across China have investigated 776 criminal cases and 1,804 administrative cases and punished 2,556 people for illegal wildlife activities during the coronavirus outbreak, said an official on Thursday.

Why is wildlife trade hard to curb? 

The NFGA, together with relevant departments like public security and market supervision have carried out various forms of special law enforcement actions in recent years, and achieved many good results. However, illegal wildlife trade has not been fundamentally curbed. The main reasons are as follows: 

Firstly, there are still people who falsely believe that wild animals are more nutritious and others who are proud of hunting wild animals. The lack of animal protection awareness and exorbitant price tags for these animals have contributed to a high demand for the market. 

Secondly, some groups can make huge profits from the illegal hunting and management of wild animals.  

Thirdly, before the final decision of the Standing Committee of National People's Congress (NPC) was implemented, many wild animals were still out there and were not managed.  

Fourth, law enforcement in some county-level areas is severely insufficient. Some areas with complex terrain cannot completely achieve good prevention and control. In addition, with market law enforcement, there are many technological difficulties like identification of wild animals or high cost of evidence collection, which restrict the efficiency of law enforcement.

Civets, which are not considered rare animals, are thought to be hosts of the virus that caused severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). Questions regarding regulations on sales of common wild animals were raised by the press. 

"We have been focusing on the protection of rare and endangered wild animals," said Liang Aifu, director of the Network Transaction Supervision and Administration Department of the State Administration of Market Regulation. 

Liang explained that although civets are not enlisted as protected species in China, the NPC Standing Committee has banned the consumption of terrestrial wild animals that are not listed in the catalog of the genetic resources of livestock lately whether or not they belong to the wildlife under the State's key protection. 

The catalog classifies livestock as terrestrial wild animals. 

"The catalog will be further improved," Liang said.

'Stringent control measures'

In the decision that has been adopted by the Standing Committee of NPC, the regulations on hunting, trading and transporting wild animals for consuming purpose, establish a clear policy of completely ban on wildlife consumption, which, according to the Ministry of Public Security, enable greater law enforcement on defeating crimes of trading wild animals.

The decision became the latest legislative measure in response to the growing demand of a wildlife ban amid the novel coronavirus outbreak which was possibly transmitted from wild animals to human.

Since the outbreak, the NFGA has proposed the "toughest measures" regarding the control of wild animals.

Wang Weisheng, deputy director of Animal and Plant Department of NFGA, told the press that they have adopted "stringent control measures" regarding the control of wild animals.

As of Thursday, forestry and grassland administrations throughout the country have dispatched more than 866,000 law personnel, more than 97,800 vehicles, cleaned up more than 350,000 market hotel restaurant management places, checked more than 153,000 artificial breeding places. They have also handled 690 cases of wildlife violations, seized 2,919 illegal tools, more than 39,000 wild animals and more than 1,080 kilograms of sealed wildlife products.

The police department have worked with other relevant offices on a special campaign to crack down on illegal activities related to wildlife, recovering 88,000 wild animals, said Liu Xuejun with the Ministry of Public Security at a press conference.

"We have inspected 293,000 markets, restaurants and other venues during the epidemic," Liu said.

The police will step up law enforcement, crackdown on illegal activities related to wildlife in accordance with the law and safeguard people's security and health, said Liu.

(Top image via VCG)