(Yicai Global) Feb. 28 -- China will impose its strictest-ever wildlife control measures in the form of a blanket ban on wild animal consumption in response to the Covid-19 disease believed to have stemmed from it.

The country will severely crack down on the hunting, breeding and illegal trading of game, its National Forestry and Grassland Administration said in a notice it issued yesterday, adding it will also rectify wild animal artificial breeding operations and put an end to all use of terrestrial wildlife for food.

Nearly 80 percent of acute infectious diseases in the past decades have come from animals, Academician Zhong Nanshan, the leader of the high-level expert group of the National Health Commission and discoverer of the SARS coronavirus, said at a press conference in Guangzhou yesterday. [This happens] especially in some areas that consume wild animals, which can pass the viruses they carry to humans. A complete ban on the wildlife trade and elimination of the undesirable custom of eating bushmeat is therefore crucial, he added.

China had investigated and booked 776 criminal cases and 1,804 administrative cases involving bushmeat, seized 88,000 wild animals, and inspected 293,000 sites, including farmers' markets and restaurants, in coordination with other relevant agencies as of Feb. 26, the country's Ministry of Public Security said at a press conference in Beijing yesterday.

The forestry and grassland administration has investigated the worker health and animal epidemic disease status of more than 2,800 bamboo rat -- a large rodent eaten in South China -- and cricket breeding operations across the country, it said, and ordered the sealing and isolation of all artificial breeding sites and put a stop to the trading and transport of wild animals. It is also pushing the setup of a daily reporting system for abnormal deaths and illnesses among wildlife.

The State Administration of Market Regulation provides complaint reporting services via its nationwide 12315 platform, which had verified a total of 341 reports of wildlife trading as of Feb. 26.

Editor: Ben Armour