Help CLOSE Live Animal Markets in California

UPDATE:  Your spcaLA joined 37 other national and international animal and humane welfare organizations to urge California Governor Gavin Newsom and State Surgeon General Nadine Burke Harris to ban the sale and importation of wildlife and non-native species for human consumption in the state.

Last week, spcaLA joined 68 members of the United States Congress in calling on the Director Generals of the World Health Organization and other global organizations to take aggressive actions for a global shut down of live wildlife markets.  In California, industries exploiting and trafficking wildlife as commodities for live food markets pose just as much a threat to public health and safety as do other wildlife farms and markets around the world.

As a member of PawPAC, a statewide committee that advocates for all nonhumans and their environment, to encourage transparency in the California State Legislature, spcaLA has engaged with California policy makers since 1993 on live food market issues in the state regarding the humane treatment of animals and the basis of health. Among other things, selling wild animals for consumption, creates higher potential for zoonotic disease transmission. It is believed that the 2003 SARS outbreak originated in this manner and may be the source of COVID-19.

Members of the public are urged to contact their U.S. Representatives and Senators and demand that action be taken. These practices are not only inhumane but are a threat to the safety and well-being of the community.

It seems that behind every pandemic there is a live animal market origin story. I bet many of you didn't know these markets, popular in Asia and in the news now, are alive and well in California, and, yes, in New York.

These markets are places where animals, including but not limited to, poultry, livestock, bats, pangolins, turtles and frogs, are held alive, often in crowded conditions, slaughtered and sold to customers all in the same spaces. These spaces are virtual petri dishes of viruses which travel from species to species, (including humans), all around the world thereby exposing unsuspecting populations to new germs and diseases. So one theory of the origin of the corona virus was that it was pangolins that passed the virus from bats to humans. But, specifically, what is the origin story behind COVID-19, a kind of corona virus.

This short and to the point video on CNN, entitled "Virus Hunters", (about 7 minutes long) discusses this problem.

Your spcaLA is working with experts, legislators and others to try and shut these markets down in California and New York for the health of humankind. Of course there are animal cruelty issues involved, (your spcaLA was instrumental in securing legislation dealing with that a decade ago), and basic public health issues around slaughter and food chain concerns, but, today, as we are in the throes of a global pandemic, these markets need to finally close for the benefit of all of us.

The U.S. Congress is also working on a bipartisan bill to close these markets. But, there are also bills being introduced in California and New York which will probably resolve faster and spark a national trend.

Stay tuned for ways you can help.