Calls for Indonesian wet market to ban bat trade

Infectious diseases experts say a ban on dog and cat meat at Indonesia's most notorious wet market should be extended to bats.

Transcript

00:00 This vendor is preparing bat here at this wet market in northern Sulawesi.

00:07 Pretty popular here, a lot of people buy it, they take it home, eat it with rice or turn it into a soup.

00:14 It might seem to us like a strange thing to eat, but it's long been a custom in this part of Indonesia.

00:21 We burn them first, then we chop them up, then we boil them.

00:26 We cook them with coconut milk so they'll be delicious in a thick sweet broth.

00:31 When COVID broke out, we heard that bats might have caused it,

00:37 but the authorities came and took some samples and they didn't find any evidence of viruses.

00:42 It's not just bat meat that has made this market in northern Sulawesi famous.

00:48 Pythons are on sale, as is rat meat, but one thing that you don't see here anymore are dogs and cats on sale.

00:55 That's because the local government has moved to outlaw the dog and cat meat trade at this market.

01:02 However, in this part of Indonesia, at other markets nearby, we've still seen dogs and cats on sale.

01:09 Now, one of the reasons they've outlawed it is because of the threat of rabies,

01:13 but public health experts point out that so long as the bat meat trade continues,

01:18 there will always be that risk of the next pandemic beginning in a market like this one.

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