The civet cats are gone from their cages at the market, replaced by ducks and rabbits. The snakes are missing too, as are the bats, badgers and anteater-like pangolins.
For years, the hundreds of stalls at the Chatou Wild Animal Food Market in China's southern city of Guangzhou were a snapping, hissing zoo of exotic, sometimes endangered wildlife destined for the plates of the nation's most adventurous diners.
Then came SARS and the discovery that civets and some other small animals carry the virus that has killed more than 600 people in China and Hong Kong.
Authorities in Guangdong province, which includes Guangzhou, ordered an end to the wildlife trade this week and told farms raising exotic species to quarantine their animals. Some traders have been detained, and violators are threatened with fines of up to 100,000 yuan (US$12,000).
"These are the rules. What can we do?" said vendor He Dawei, who had already removed the Chinese characters for "wildlife" from the sign on his stall. "They say they'll arrest you if you don't comply."
Diners in southern China have long prized exotic meats killed on the spot -- a practice criticized by doctors as unhygienic and by animal activists as encouraging more poaching of endangered species.
"We all like to eat this stuff -- the more exotic or endangered the better," said a bus company employee in Guangzhou who would give only his surname, Lin. "There will always be places to get this stuff, because people love to eat it so much."
Chinese claim wildlife dishes boost virility and strengthen immunity to disease. Chinese are also keen consumers of endangered species for traditional cures. Rhino horn, tiger bone and bear gall are all highly sought after.
Even in urban Hong Kong, conservationists say 30 percent of the population have eaten wildlife.
The offbeat cuisine includes dishes such as "dragon and tiger head" -- actually a snake and house cat casserole.
Fox, boar, raccoon dog -- name it and it might be on the menu. Many are listed as endangered species by China, meaning it should be illegal to catch them, but enforcement is lax.
And diners in prosperous Guangzhou, at the heart of the export-oriented manufacturing region of the Pearl River Delta north of Hong Kong, can afford to indulge.
Civet, which is related to the mongoose, can fetch 90 yuan (US$22) per kilogram -- a princely sum in China.
Demand is so strong that civets are close to being wiped out in the Tailing nature area in the northern province of Shanxi, a key source for exotic species.
At those prices, conservationists wonder how long China can enforce the ban.
"If anything good is coming out of SARS, it's that these markets are being closed down," said Jill Robinson of the Hong Kong-based group Animals Asia. However, she said, "It's too early to tell whether it will be sustained."
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
For two decades, researchers observed members of the Ngogo chimpanzee group of Kibale National Park in Uganda spend their days eating fruits and leaves, resting, traveling and grooming in their tropical rainforest abode, but this stable community then fractured and descended into years of deadly violence. The researchers are now describing the first clearly documented example of a group of wild chimpanzees splitting into two separate factions, with one launching a series of coordinated attacks against the other. Adult males and infants were targeted, with 28 deaths. “Biting, pounding the victim with their hands, dragging them, kicking them — mostly adult males,
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
SUPERFAN: The Japanese PM played keyboard in a Deep Purple tribute band in middle school and then switched to drums at university, she told the British rock band Legendary British rock band Deep Purple yesterday made Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s day with a brief visit to their high-profile superfan as they returned to the nation they first toured more than half a century ago. Takaichi’s reputation as an amateur drummer, and a fan of hard rock and heavy metal has been well documented, and she has referred to Deep Purple as one of her favorite bands along with the likes of Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. “You are my god,” a giddy Takaichi said in English to Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice, presenting him with a set of made-in-Japan
RSS