People eating wild animals again in Guangdong , China

China: According to Guangming Daily, eating wild animals has surfaced again in Guangzhou and some other places in Guangdong. Animals like masked palm civets, pangolins, lizards, ants and snakes.

Chu Guozhong, chief expert of animal protection from Chinese Academy of Forestry (CAF), said eating wild animals has once again become common in these places. This phenomenon means that people have learned little from the SARS epidemic in 2003.

Qian Fawen, a researcher from CAF, said that scientific research finds that some 65-75% of illnesses are derived from animals. He stressed that as some wild animals are inedible, which people who eat them may easily be infected by virus existing on animals.

Recently several criminal suspects who had sold wild animals to restaurants illegally were arrested in Guangzhou. Local police reveals that since March 2006, more than 70 thousand national-protected animals have been captured, and now 304 criminals have been arrested.