Already in 2021, PETA Asia investigators have visited live-animal markets in China, Indonesia, Laos, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam, and their new video footage<\/a> shows a virologist\u2019s nightmare: sick and stressed animals packed closely together in filthy cages\u2014conditions that created past pandemics and are predicted to start the next one.<\/p>\n Animals offered for sale include ferret-badgers and rabbits\u2014currently under investigation by the World Health Organization (WHO) as vectors of the virus that causes COVID-19\u2014as well as bats, monkeys, and civet cats, who can be hosts of coronaviruses. Cages are so small that the animals cannot spread their wings or turn around, and some are shown encrusted with fecal matter. Workers display carcasses on offal- and blood-streaked countertops and handle both live animals and raw flesh without gloves.<\/p>\n WHO is recommending a suspension of the trade in live mammalian wild animals but ignoring the plight of stressed chickens, ducks, fish, and frogs who live in packed cages and are slaughtered in filth<\/a>. In light of these findings, PETA is calling on WHO to demand the closure of all live-animal markets worldwide<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cA year and a half after the emergence of COVID-19, which brought the world to a standstill and has killed over 4 million humans, live-animal markets\u2014cesspools of filth and suffering that put the whole world at risk\u2014are still operating,\u201d says PETA Asia Senior Vice President Jason Baker. \u201cPETA Asia is calling on global leaders to shut down these markets before they create COVID-21.\u201d<\/p>\n PETA Asia\u2014which has urged public health officials across Asia to close the markets\u2014notes that outbreaks of swine flu, avian flu, HIV, hoof-and-mouth disease, mad cow disease, and other illnesses have also stemmed from capturing or farming animals for food.<\/p>\n PETA\u2014whose motto reads, in part, that \u201canimals are not ours to eat\u201d\u2014opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org<\/strong><\/a> or follow the group on Twitter<\/strong><\/a>, Facebook<\/strong><\/a>, or Instagram<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n The post Breaking: PETA Asia Investigation Exposes Live-Animal Markets After WHO Calls for Ending Sale of Some Live Animals<\/a> appeared first on PETA<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n This post was originally published on Blog \u2013 PETA<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Already in 2021, PETA Asia investigators have visited live-animal markets in China, Indonesia, Laos, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam, and their new video footage shows a virologist\u2019s nightmare: sick and stressed animals packed closely together in filthy cages\u2014conditions that created past pandemics and are predicted to start the next one. Animals offered for… Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n The post Breaking: PETA Asia Investigation Exposes Live-Animal Markets After WHO Calls for Ending Sale of Some Live Animals<\/a> appeared first on PETA<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":708,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2153],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248892"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/708"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248892"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248892\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":248893,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248892\/revisions\/248893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}