For immediate release:
Jul 22, 2021
Contact:
Moira Collie 202-483-7382
New York – As early as 2021, PETA Asia researchers visited live animal markets in China, Indonesia, Laos, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam, and their new videos show a virologist’s nightmare: sick and stressed animals packed tightly in dirty cages – the conditions that led to past pandemics and are predicted to begin next.
Animals offered for sale include badger ferrets and rabbits, which are currently being investigated by the World Health Organization (WHO) as carriers of the virus that causes COVID-19, as well as bats, monkeys and civets, which may host coronaviruses. … The cells are so small that animals cannot spread their wings or turn, and some of them are covered in feces. Workers display corpses on countertops with giblets and blood streaks, and handle both live animals and raw meat without gloves.
WHO recommends suspending trade in live wild mammals, but ignores the plight of stressed chickens, ducks, fish and frogs, which live in packed cages and are clogged in the mud. In light of these findings, PETA is calling on WHO to demand the closure of all live animal markets worldwide.
“A year and a half after the emergence of COVID-19, which brought the world to a standstill and killed more than 4 million people, live animal markets – cesspools of mud and suffering that put the world at risk – are still working. “Says Jason Baker, senior vice president of PETA Asia. “PETA Asia is urging global leaders to close these markets before they create COVID-21.”
PETA Asia, which has called on health officials across Asia to close markets, notes that outbreaks of swine flu, bird flu, HIV, hoof and mouth diseases, mad cow disease and other diseases have also been caused by trapping or raising animals. for food.
PETA, whose motto is in part that “the animals are not ours to eat” – opposes arrogance, a worldview focused on human superiority. For more information please visit PETA.org or subscribe to the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram…