The Guardian had a story over the weekend about a floating menagerie found on the south China coast. An abandoned boat was discovered with thousands of rare animals, the story reported, including 2,720 monitor lizards, 1,130 Brazilian turtles and 31 pangolins, a type of scaly anteater. The sheer numbers and the “Noah’s Ark” touch ensured the story is getting wide play, including a prominent mention on the Drudge Report. On a smaller scale this sort of thing seems to be happening regularly. The Chinese press had reports of wild animal busts this month in Fujian and Hainan. The cases are usually the result of China’s “wild flavor” cuisine–the consumption of rare beasts for their purported health benefits and the prestige of eating something very expensive. Its popularity has made China the largest consumer of exotic animals.
Environmentalists are rightly concerned about the threat this illegal trade poses to endangered animals. The blog Jottings from the Granite Studio vents about the discovery in the context of the poor treatment of animals in general in China. To me, the strongest case against all this is the danger it poses to all humans. South China’s animal markets were believed to be the source of the 2003 SARS outbreak. Sticking large numbers of wild animals together in close contact with humans is toying with the threat that another virus could jump the species boundary and begin a deadly outbreak. That should be an argument that even a diehard pangolin eater could appreciate.