Chinese government launches poster to stop residents eating wild animals on Lunar New Year

The Chinese government has issued a very clear warning to its residents on the cusp of the Lunar New Year as millions prepare to celebrate.

With less than 24 hours before China celebrates the Lunar New Year, the nation’s government has issued an illustrative poster imploring residents to steer clear of eating wild animals.

As is tradition, the celebrations to see in the Year of the Ox, will see huge groups of Chinese residents gather for family meals, or large banquet gatherings.

The government is clearly concerned that wild animals will be served at some of these banquets and has launched an online campaign telling people to avoid contact with the animals at all costs.

On Chinese social media sites, it is sharing posters that show the silhouette of animals including snakes, hedgehogs, pangolins and turtles.

“Do not illegally hunt, trade or eat wild animals,” it says. The campaign, which uses the hashtag #DontEatWildAnimalsDuringSpringFestival, has so far been seen by more than 10 million people. “Keep the boundaries of natural ecological safety, healthy and civilised New Year!”

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Millions have seen the poster on Chinese social media.

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The posters are reminiscent of ones that circulated around China last year, when the first coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan drew international attention.

The government and many Chinese residents were concerned about animal consumption being a possible reason for COVID-19.

As a result, Wuhan banned eating and hunting wild animals in May. Over the past year, other regions have stepped up regulations to ban the consumption of animals.

In recent weeks, Chinese officials have also been updating “China’s law on animal epidemic prevention” to limit contact between animals and humans.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation expert mission to China ended this week without finding the source of the virus that has killed over 2.3 million worldwide.

But the team of foreign experts did agree the virus likely jumped from bats to an unknown animal species, before being transmitted to humans.

It also concluded that it was “extremely unlikely” that the virus came from a high-security lab in the central city of Wuhan, appearing to quash a number of theories linking the city’s virology institute to the outbreak.

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Experts still believe the virus jumped from animals to humans. Picture: Noel Celis/AFP

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Experts said tests were done on tens of thousands of samples from wild, farmed and domestic animals across China – but none of them contained the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19.

However, Dutch virologist and WHO team member Marion Koopmans said that species more susceptible to the virus – including bamboo rats, badgers and rabbits – were sold at Wuhan’s Huanan market, the site of an early virus cluster, and could be an entry point for traceback investigations.

British zoologist Peter Daszak also said after the briefing that new bat viruses discovered in Thailand and Cambodia, “shifts our focus to Southeast Asia”.

“I think one day we’ll find that (reservoir), it might take some time … but it will be out there without a doubt,” he told reporters.

Concern has been expressed about the scientists’ access to data in China, amid accusations that Beijing downplayed the initial severity of the outbreak in Wuhan in late 2019.

COVID-19 has killed more than 2.3 million people since emerging in China in late 2019 and it has infected 107 million people.

– with AFP