Public Back Closing Wildlife Markets, Says WWF

A study by the conservation organisation WWF suggests there is overwhelming public support for the idea of closing wildlife markets in order to help prevent pandemics like Covid-19 from erupting again in the future.

WWF said it surveyed nearly 5,000 people in Hong Kong, Japan, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Of the nearly 1,000 respondents from the SAR, 94 percent said they would support government efforts to close such markets.

"Hong Kong doesn't really have the kind of wet markets which we see in Wuhan and other places, in a sense that they're selling farmed wildlife or wildlife captured in the wild for consumption," said WWF-Hong Kong's director of conservation, David Olson.

"[However] there are exotic pet markets here which take species from all over the world and bring them together in close quarters. Reptiles, birds, primarily. But there are rodents and some other groups of animals that do harbour diseases," he added.

Olson said while animals which pose the biggest risk, such as bats, primates, rodents and civet cats, are not openly sold in Hong Kong for consumption, they can be bought online and on the black market.

He told RTHK's Richard Pyne that Hong Kong should look carefully at the exotic pet trade, go after illegal online sales and the black market, and reduce any risks of disease transmission from wildlife being transported via the SAR.