PETA goes inside wet markets in Asia. Photo / PETA
PETA goes inside wet markets in Asia. Photo / PETA
WARNING: Graphic images
New footage captured across Asia as the coronavirus pandemic continues to ravage the world shows people wearing slippers as they walk across blood-soaked floors and handle raw pig flesh with their bare hands.
PETA has released the footage, captured in April, of live wet markets in fullswing in Indonesia, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines, and Thailand.
It's believed the deadly virus originated in a wet market in Wuhan in China, where the first outbreak started.
China reopened its wet markets in March after a two-month lockdown.
PETA goes inside wet markets in Asia. Photo / PETA
The Wuhan Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market was shut down in January and in February China declared an immediate and "comprehensive" ban on the trade and consumption of wild animals.
In the latest footage, live animals can be seen crammed into cages that are stacked on top of each other, with their waste covering the ground.
Blood and body parts cover the floors and countertops, buzzing flies swarm around the bodies of dogs and pigs, while chickens and ducks destined for slaughter can barely raise their heads inside cramped cages.
Mesh bags packed with live frogs can be seen next to dead frogs' cut-up bodies.
Frogs are piled up. Photo / PETA
Some animals are used for meat or traditional medicines, while others are sold for their skin or even as pets.
PETA is calling on the World Health Organisation to act now and close live-animal markets and PETA Asia has sent letters to top officials in each of the countries where the markets are still operating, urging them to do the same.
"Blood-soaked live-animal markets filled with sick and stressed animals are known to be ripe breeding grounds for pathogens that can cross the species barrier, so why are they still open?" PETA spokeswoman Emily Rice said.
Cats, birds and monkeys trapped in cages. Photo / PETA
"Another pandemic is inevitable if we fail to learn from this one, which is why PETA is calling on the WHO to take action against these cruel and dangerous operations."
Clive Phillips, Professor of Animal Welfare with the Centre for Animal Welfare and Ethics at the University of Queensland, wrote in The Conversation, "Poorly treated animals are stressed, and stressed animals are more likely to harbour new diseases because their immune systems are compromised.
"This means these wet markets, where there are stressed animals in close contact with humans, are the perfect breeding ground for new diseases."
