Petition from global conservation organization highlights connection between wildlife trade and COVID-19

The Orangutan Project is calling for an immediate end to the wildlife trade and the closure of wild animal markets to safeguard biodiversity and protect us from future pandemics

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The Orangutan Project

Apr 10, 2020, 07:00 ET

NEW YORK, April 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Orangutan Project, an organization focused on securing the survival of critically endangered species including orangutans, is calling for an immediate end to the wildlife trade to protect us from future pandemics like COVID-19.

The Orangutan Project has released a petition highlighting the connection between wild animal markets and COVID-19 and calling for an immediate end to the trade in wildlife.

The organization has launched a petition explaining that wildlife markets (sometimes called "wet markets"), where the victims of the wildlife trade often end up, have been incubators for a growing number of deadly viruses including SARS, Ebola and now COVID-19. The petition has been signed by more than 6,100 people from across the world who support the ban.

While wild animals do not transmit COVID-19 to humans when in their natural environment, it is believed that the disease emerged in a wildlife market, where wild species that would not naturally come into contact with each other are traded and killed in cramped, unhygienic conditions. These species would be stressed, immunosuppressed and excreting pathogens onto the caged animals below them, which are then consumed by humans. It is at that point that a new disease may have emerged.

"The Global Wildlife trade is a multibillion dollar industry and has been an ecological disaster for many years," said Leif Cocks, OAM, the president and founder of The Orangutan Project. "Closely aligned to the illegal drug and weapons trade, it is causing the rapid extinction of many vulnerable species and it has now caused a humanitarian crisis.

"We are calling on governments across the world to introduce and enforce legislation to close wildlife markets and reduce the commercial demand for live animals. We also call for them to introduce community education and awareness campaigns to warn of the dangers of trading and consuming species including bats and demonstrably reduce demand for live wild animals and the products derived from them."

Cocks, who was awarded an Order of Australia medal this year for his work in conservation, also stressed that there is no evidence to suggest that, outside the deplorable conditions of these markets, the virus could be transmitted or spread from other animals to humans.

"You will not catch this virus from your pets," Cocks said. "For example, humans have evolved over thousands of years to live closely with our dogs in a symbiotic relationship. This is very different to wild animals and domesticated food animals. Bird flu (chickens), swine flu (pigs) and now COVID-19 (bats) are all a result of the unnatural treatment of these sentient beings that humans have not had time, since the evolutionary recent Agricultural Revolution, to evolve to live safely together with."

The Orangutan Project's petition calls on the World Health Organization, United Nations Environment Programme and International Epizoologie to use their authority to encourage governments across the world to introduce and enforce legislation to close wildlife markets and to introduce mechanisms to significantly and demonstrably reduce demand for live wild animals and the products derived from them.

You can access the petition and letter to the above by clicking here:
https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/stop-the-wildlife-trade-to-prevent-the-next-covid-19.

For additional information on TOP, visit https://www.theorangutanproject.org/.

About The Orangutan Project
The Orangutan Project is a non-partisan organization that collaborates with several orangutan conservation projects on the ground in Indonesia to support the conservation and rehabilitation of orangutans and the preservation of their forest habitat. Founded by world-renowned orangutan expert Leif Cocks, The Orangutan Project's goal is to ensure the survival of the orangutan species in their natural habitat. For more information, visit https://www.theorangutanproject.org/.

MEDIA CONTACT:
Heather Ripley
Orange Orchard
(865) 977-1973
[email protected]

SOURCE The Orangutan Project