Pangolins and Other African Wildlife Could be Among the Only Beneficiaries of This Crisis

Jekesai Njikizana / AFP

The outbreak of coronavirus is being traced back to one of Wuhan’s many live animal markets that sell a variety of wildlife including snakes, turtles, and cicadas, guinea pigs, bamboo rats, badgers, hedgehogs, otters, palm civets, even wolf cubs.

Now that this has happened a second time, following the SARS outbreak in 2003 that was sourced back to consumption civet cats, there are mounting calls in China for the government to fully ban the sale of live animals, particularly exotic wildlife that contain these kinds of dangerous pathogens that can spark deadly epidemics.

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