In Asia, the term “wet market” refers to open air or enclosed food markets where fresh vegetables, fruit, tofu, meat and seafood are sold in an open environment – similar to farmers markets and Sunday markets in the Western world. International media outlets are now using the term wet market interchangeably with wildlife markets, in headlines linking the latter with the Covid-19 pandemic. This practice is ignorant, xenophobic, and quite frankly, not factual.
Wuhan’s Huanan wholesale seafood market, which has been associated with the outbreak of Covid-19 (some people suggest it is the pandemic’s point of origin though doubt has been shed about this too), is a “grey-area” market that showcases an entire section dedicated to selling exotic meats and wild animals in an open setting where illegal and cruel wildlife trading is allowed to thrive – think live civet cats and wolf pups.
This article is a bit disingenuous - in many areas, the 'meat' sold is live animals, including wildlife, which is the problem people are talking about. The sale of exotic animals is not limited to a specific 'wildlife markets' as the second paragraph you quote illustrates.
This is also true my three closest supermarkets in Massachusetts. OK, so it's lobsters, which aren't exactly a likely source of a zoonotic respiratory disease. But still technically true.
This article is a bit disingenuous - in many areas, the 'meat' sold is live animals, including wildlife, which is the problem people are talking about. The sale of exotic animals is not limited to a specific 'wildlife markets' as the second paragraph you quote illustrates.
This is also true my three closest supermarkets in Massachusetts. OK, so it's lobsters, which aren't exactly a likely source of a zoonotic respiratory disease. But still technically true.
Yes, fair enough. The big zoonosis risk is from mammals as far as I understand it.
We have the right to a clean, healthy, sustainable environment.
