This year was supposed to be a good year for selling bamboo rats to eat. Prices had been rising steadily as had their popularity as a delicacy when grilled.
Then the coronavirus hit.
“People nowadays are always talking about poverty alleviation. But now, I’m close to being in extreme poverty,” said Liu Ping, a breeder of bamboo rats — plump rodents known for their sharp, bamboo-gnawing incisors and ample flesh.
Days after a mysterious pneumonia-like illness in Wuhan was linked to a local wet market known for selling exotic animals, authorities suspended the transportation and sales of terrestrial wild animals, including bamboo rats and badgers.
Chinese researchers have since theorized that wildlife species such as bamboo rats, pangolins and civet cats may have been intermediate hosts for the novel coronavirus before it infected humans.
On paper, China moved fast to close off wild animal consumption. On February 24, China’s national legislature suspended illegal wildlife trade to “uproot the pernicious habit of eating wild animals.” Cities such as Shenzhen rolled out their own, more far-reaching policies that also suspended the consumption of certain domesticated animals, notably dogs, a move animal activists have been lobbying for for years.
The general consensus is that the ban is a good step but needs to be made permanent – and to be more sweeping.
For example, the open-ended suspension still contains significant loopholes for animal breeders who supply zoos and makers of traditional medicines that incorporate animal parts. The impact falls most heavily on rural communities, exacerbating historic resentments between China’s more prosperous urban centers and its impoverished rural tracts.
Since the early 2000s, rural development policies explicitly encouraged the breeding of captive animals such as rat snakes and pangolins, scaly mammals prized in traditional Chinese medicine. Local officials trumpeted the wildlife trade as a way to close the rural-urban divide and to meet ambitious national targets to alleviate poverty.
Bamboo rats have been particularly popular among breeders. The rats are a delicacy eaten in parts of southern China, popularized in part by internet celebrities like the Huanong brothers, whose earthy videos depicting them breeding and grilling the rats have attracted millions of views on social media. Since the coronavirus pandemic, the brothers have quietly pivoted toward videos featuring them grilling vegetables.
Liu, a bamboo rat breeder from a small Guangdong village, took notice of the government support for raising rats. Late last year, he took out 100,000 yuan ($14,150) in loans to expand his bamboo rat operations. Thanks to a local poverty alleviation program, his loan was interest-free for the first two years.
Bamboo rats are prized for their ample flesh. This year was looking to be a good year for rat breeders like Liu Ping — consumption of the grilled delicacy was increasingly popular and prices were going up — until the coronavirus struck.
Liu Ping
But less than two months after his investment, the coronavirus pandemic struck. “I have not earned a penny since the Chinese New Year in January, but I have elderly parents and young children to feed,” Liu said.
Liu is especially infuriated by the seemingly arbitrary designations of which species are banned while others are permitted for consumption.
For example, China’s definition of what is a wild animal continues to change. Last month, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs released an updated list of species permitted for breeding in captivity. Bamboo rats did not make the cut. China’s top scientist, Zhong Nanshan, has said bamboo rats may be a vector for COVID-19.
