Fewer Chinese people are eating wild animals now that the deadly SARS and COVID-19 outbreaks have been traced back to live animal markets, a new study found.
The study, published in Human Ecology, shows that people’s attitudes about eating wildlife have changed significantly in the 17 years between the peak of the first SARS virus and now.
Each year at ‘wet’ markets, China’s cruel and dangerous wildlife trade sells millions of live or freshly slaughtered wild animals considered “exotics” — from bats and civets to monkeys and pangolins.
Studies have linked people’s consumption of several species of wild animals to deadly disease outbreaks, including severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and COVID-19.
The Chinese government temporarily shut down all wet markets after SARS peaked in China’s Guandong province in 2003. Scientists believe the virus — which infected more than 8,400 people and resulted in more than 800 deaths — first impacted people who worked in the markets or ate the wildlife sold at the markets.
The government also temporarily shut down wet markets this year after scientists traced the potential origin of the virus’s cousin, COVID-19, to the Huanan Seafood Market, where consumers’ choices included bats, marmots, hedgehogs, badgers, and snakes.
By the end of March, when confirmed cases had just started spreading throughout the United States, the Hubei Province had already logged 67,800 confirmed cases of COVID-19.
Researchers from the University of Nottingham’s School of Biosciences, the Department of Health and Environmental Sciences, Liverpool University, and Jinzhou Medical University wondered about Chinese people’s attitudes toward consuming wildlife, given the deadly impacts of the viruses.
In April, they surveyed 348 people, more than half of whom lived in the Hubei province. They found that while 27 percent of participants had chosen to eat wildlife before SARS, only 18 percent chose to consume wildlife pre-COVID.
The majority of those who continued to eat wildlife said they did so because they liked the experience of eating something new or liked the taste of the meat. Meanwhile, those who had changed their eating habits said they had stopped eating wildlife because the species were legally protected or they disliked eating meat in general.
The study also highlighted that less than 10 percent of participants ate meat from wildlife because they believed it had nutritional value.
“This seems to indicate that wildlife meat, rather than being a necessary source of protein for the Chinese population, is nowadays simply a matter of personal choice,” the researchers wrote.
The researchers hope the study will serve as a jumping off point for future studies about people’s habits and attitudes toward wildlife consumption so that more effective prevention and treatment strategies can be developed.
If you haven’t yet, sign Lady Freethinker’s petition to end the cruel wildlife trade in China for good, saving innocent animals from slaughter and protecting people from potential future zoonotic disease outbreaks.

PLEASE PEOPLE…STOP EATING ANIMALS…PLEASE GO VEGAN!
Oh yeah!!!!!!! The study is a hoax!!!!! Sounds like something the brilliant (like you’ve never seen before!!!!!!!) orange face would say!!!!!
EVOLVE CHINA . IT’S YOUR TIME !!
Total lie. just trying to make the way for the democrat party who want relations with China to return and the money this will bring them all. There is no study concerning this I have two friends who live in China, I met them years ago on a trip to Europe… they have to be careful even talking with me but the markets are all still as full of every kind of animal you can imagine and the larger market that kills so many of these animals and the large animals in Africa..is the ancient medicinal market anyway.
OMG! “just trying to make the way for the democrat party who want relations with China to return and the money this will bring”?????? Are you one of ……….them??? The democrat party is corrupted and Biden is a no good man. But hey, Trump is a wonderful man that care so much about the American people. Too bad the election was stolen from him…right?
The chinese are not humans they are evil stop trade with them unitl they stop this cruel act come MR BORIS JONHSON
Man up it you got any guts you sort out this china how they treat Animals.
China you not welcome to my country of uk
Animal Lives Matter
The chinese are in no way becoming more civilized.
There are conserved base pairs within their DNA that actually codes for their cultural barbarism.
It is fear that is causing the temporary down tick in their collective gluttony.
But….no where near the fear displayed by a family who once owned a dog farm back in April of 2017.
Fear and violence always influences Chinese behavior.
Such a sad sad sad excuse of a ‘people’
Hmmm. Propaganda
This is an article about Chinese fearing a sickness or because the specie is protected. Nowhere do I see pity, compassion or humanity. The Chinese government have classified dogs and cats as companion animals, as sentient beings and yet millions upon millions are tortured and slaughtered every year. So, excuse me if I don’t believe the Chinese will stop anytime soon eating everything that crawls, flies, walks or swim. Maybe in a million years from now.
Oooo..I agree with you totally, Helen. Very well stated. I believe some, not all, from these countries such as China, lack greatly in compassion and kindness towards life both animal and human. They have a witch doctor-like mentality that eating certain exotic animals will bring them good fortunes, great health, etc and all they have manage to do is bring some animals to the brink of extinction. Although I want to believe that China is tapering off on the consumption of these innocent animals, I can’t because countless numbers of dogs/cats still lose their lives to this horrible meat trade.