Originally published 2020-04-20.
On 24 February 2020, China's top legislative body banned the eating of land-dwelling wild animals, including those bred on farms, and outlawed hunting, trading and transporting them for food. The decision took effect the same day. It followed the early link between COVID-19 and a market in Wuhan, and it was described from the start as a stopgap until China's wildlife laws could be rewritten. It was not a ban on all wildlife trade: fish and other aquatic animals were left out, and uses such as traditional medicine, research and display were not addressed by it.
Here is what the measure actually covered, why it was introduced, what came after it, and why scientists see the wildlife trade as a disease risk well beyond China.
Why China acted in early 2020
On 30 January 2020, the World Health Organization declared the new coronavirus outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. Many of the earliest known cases were connected to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, which despite its name also sold live and slaughtered wild animals.
For China this was a painful echo. The SARS outbreak of 2002 to 2004 had also raised alarms about wild animals sold for food, and campaigners argued that the lessons had not been fully learned. Within weeks of the Wuhan outbreak, authorities announced a temporary suspension of wildlife trading, and markets selling wild animals were closed. Animals commonly reported for sale before the crackdown included civets, badgers, turtles, peacocks, pangolins and deer.
What we know about the virus's origin
The question of where SARS-CoV-2 came from remains open, and it is worth being careful here. The scientific consensus is that the virus descends from bat coronaviruses and most likely reached people through an intermediate animal. A 2024 study of samples from the Huanan market found genetic material from several possible host species, with raccoon dogs the strongest candidate. In June 2025, the WHO's advisory group on the origins of new pathogens (SAGO) concluded that the weight of evidence favours a natural spillover from animals, while noting that the market's exact role and the timing are still unknown, and that a laboratory accident could be neither confirmed nor ruled out because key data have not been shared.
What the February 2020 decision covered
The decision of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress did several things at once:
- It banned eating terrestrial wild animals. This applied to nationally protected species and to all other land-dwelling wild animals, including those raised in captivity.
- It banned hunting, trading and transporting wild land animals for food. Before this, China's wildlife law restricted trade in protected species but did not prohibit eating wild animals as such.
- It ordered strict enforcement of existing bans, allowing heavier penalties than the old law provided.
- It promised help for rural households whose businesses were hit by the ban, with local governments told to compensate them.
What it left out
Several things fell outside the ban. Aquatic animals, including fish, were not covered. Animals listed in the national directory of livestock and poultry, such as rabbits and pigeons, stayed under the Animal Husbandry Law, partly because those industries support rural incomes. And the decision focused on food, leaving wildlife use in traditional medicine, scientific research and public display to other rules.
So when headlines spoke of China "banning the wildlife trade," they overstated it. It was a sweeping ban on wild animals as food, which was a major change, but not an end to every form of wildlife use.
From emergency rule to a rewritten law
The NPC Standing Committee said the decision was temporary and placed revisions of both the Wild Animals Protection Law and the Animal Epidemic Prevention Law on its 2020 legislative plan. The National Forestry and Grassland Administration, which oversees wildlife, issued a policy review and suggestions for managing wildlife and controlling disease.
Conservation groups hoped the rewrite would settle several hard questions: which species, if any, may be farmed and eaten; what health and safety checks animals must pass before they are sold; how to handle biosafety; how agencies should coordinate; how enforcement would be monitored; and how much information would be made public.
The revised Wildlife Protection Law was adopted on 30 December 2022 and took effect on 1 May 2023. It explicitly prohibits eating wild animals under special state protection and other important land wildlife on the national protection lists, and bans hunting, trading or transporting meat from naturally breeding terrestrial wild animals. It also strengthens habitat protection, asks major infrastructure projects to avoid nature reserves and key migration routes, raises penalties, and sets out how to manage species whose numbers have grown beyond what local environments can support, such as wild boar in some regions.
Because the new protections are tied to official lists, animals not on those lists may fall outside the eating ban. That is one reason some environmental groups have kept pressing for further tightening.
Wildlife and disease: a global problem
China is not alone in facing this risk. Diseases that jump from animals to humans, known as zoonoses, are a worldwide concern, although the routes vary and are not always about wildlife on the plate. Some examples that are often mixed up:
- SARS (2002 to 2004) was linked to wild animals sold in markets in southern China.
- MERS, first identified in 2012, is thought to originate in bats, but people usually catch it from dromedary camels, which are domesticated animals.
- Avian influenza circulates in wild birds and can spread to poultry flocks; human cases have generally involved close contact with infected birds, often domestic ones.
- BSE, or "mad cow disease," had nothing to do with wild animals. Cattle were infected through feed made from the remains of other animals, and people who developed the human form of the disease were exposed through contaminated beef.
The common thread is close, crowded contact between people and animals, whether wild, farmed or traded, which gives viruses more chances to cross over.
Why the ban matters for biodiversity
Disease was the trigger, but conservationists also saw the 2020 decision as a chance to reduce pressure on wild animals more broadly. In May 2019, the UN-backed Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) published a global assessment estimating that around one million of the world's roughly eight million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction. It ranked direct exploitation of organisms, including hunting and trade, as the second-largest driver of loss, after changes in how land and sea are used.
Laws alone rarely change long-held habits. Lasting change depends on enforcement, on alternative livelihoods for people who farmed or sold wildlife, and on shifting attitudes so that eating rare animals stops being a status symbol.
Key takeaways
- The February 2020 decision banned eating land-dwelling wild animals, including farmed ones, and trading them for food. It did not cover fish or end all wildlife use.
- It was a temporary measure that led to a revised Wildlife Protection Law, in force since 1 May 2023.
- The origin of COVID-19 is still debated, but a natural spillover from animals is the leading explanation among scientists.
- Diseases cross from animals to people through many routes, and reducing risky contact protects both public health and biodiversity.
The hope expressed by many conservationists in 2020 still stands: a planet with healthy wildlife populations and safer food systems is better for the animals and for us.
Sources: NPC Observer, 24 February 2020; China Development Brief: China's amended Wildlife Protection Law, a summary; China Daily: China revises law on wildlife protection; Wikipedia, Origin of SARS-CoV-2; IPBES Global Assessment Report; Middle East respiratory syndrome; Bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
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