Petition: Markets in Vietnam are Still Selling Wild Animals

Similar to Indonesia, a market in Vietnam is reportedly still selling rats and reptiles, spiking concerns about coronavirus. Scientists believe the coronavirus pandemic started when the virus was transmitted from an animal at an exotic animal market in China to a human.

According to the Mirror, Thanh Hoa Bird Market outside Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam is selling animals including reptiles, otters, rodents, and herons. The animals are slaughtered on site and cooked alive for customers.

A visitor told the Mirror of the conditions at the markets, “Birds are displayed from morning to night. Products were kept for long enough to attract flies and looked very unhygienic.The waste is sprayed down into the drain.

Buyers find it unbreathable due to the stink of bird droppings and food.Live birds are locked in cages and in some cases legs are tied into bunches. Sellers also sew their eyes, tape beaks, break wings, pluck feathers and use a mini gas cylinder to quickly cook them alive.

Dead ones are processed and stored.Besides birds, it is easy to find turtles, snakes, otters, rabbits, rats and poultry. One trader said he provides about 70kg of bird every morning and sold about 80,000 birds – equal to 16 tons – every year.”

Mai Nguyen, of Humane Society International, called for an end to the wildlife trade and markets, “The existence of markets like Thanh Hoa is a both an animal cruelty and public safety concern. All manner of animals and birds are crammed together in often filthy, unsanitary conditions. This could result in a health disaster.”

Vietnam’s prime minister, Nguyen Xuan Phuc, has asked Vietnam’s agriculture ministry to draft legislation to stop illegal trading and wildlife consumption.

Conservation organizations have called for an end to the wildlife trade to help prevent pandemics like the coronavirus.

See footage of the Thanh Hoa Bird Market, below:

Scientists believe that the spread of COVID-19, or coronavirus, started at an exotic animal market in Wuhan, China. You can help stop the incidence of viruses like these by signing this petition to ban the wildlife trade.

Lead Image Source: al clark/ Shutterstock.com

This article was first published by OneGreenPlanet on 6 May 2020.

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