The Chinese have been eating wild animals as part of their
staple diet for many hundreds of years and there's always been a
perception it had health-enhancing qualities.
However, that tradition is changing today as the majority of
city dwellers interviewed in a survey on meat consumption said that
they have 'gone off' that part of their diet.
The survey involved 24,000 random interviews in 16 cities from
December to January which is the traditional period for high meat
consumption.
Co-sponsored by the China Wildlife Conservation Association
(CWCA) and its partner Wildaid, a US non-governmental organization,
the survey found that 54 percent of urban interviewees gave
"potential health risks" as the reason for avoiding such
dishes.
The survey covered eight cities with Chengdu, Shanghai and
Guangzhou ranking at the top of the list of those avoiding meat
products with 93, 71 and 70 percent of the locals respectively
viewing the eating habit as a potential health risk.
"Generally speaking, over the past five years, the number of
people consuming such foods has fallen,” a spokesman for the CWCA
said in Beijing yesterday. "This is explained by a rising public
awareness of animal protection issues and a growing knowledge about
health matters coupled with SARS in 2003," he added.
Zhao Shengli, CWCA's vice secretary general, said that over 74
percent of the respondents knew that eating some animals was
actually against the law in China. This relates especially to those
species not listed in the '54 Terrestrial Wildlife Species That May
Be Commercially Utilized' which has been updated since the SARS
epidemic in 2003.
"In this regard the public's awareness and attitudes have
changed," Zhao said. "This is due to the extensive media coverage
of SARS, avian flu and the publishing of the wildlife list. This
has encouraged consumers to reduce or even stop their consumption
of animal products," he added.
During the past year 71 percent of the interviewees hadn't eaten
animal products compared to 51 percent in 1999.
For those who still have meat products on their dining tables
more than 32 percent cited nutrition as a major reason, 31 percent
out of curiosity, 27 percent simply for the taste and 9.2 percent
as a status symbol.
"Recent endangered wildlife smuggling cases also indicate that
demand for wild animals remains a strong issue in some areas,"
CWCA's experts said. They hope the results of the survey can be
used by policy-makers to further assist in the protection of
animals.
Further results in the survey found that compared to 1999
animals have increasingly become commercially farmed and their
numbers rose from 23 percent to 37.5 percent this year.
Interestingly while the number of restaurants serving meat
dishes had dropped the number of grocery stores selling such
products had risen.
(China Daily April 19, 2006)