The first domino has fallen! Since the beginning of the pandemic, PETA’s allies have pressured the World Health Organization (WHO) to call for the closure of live animal markets worldwide. Well, it’s happening now: The WHO is urging countries to suspend the sale of live wild mammals in food markets as an emergency measure, saying wild animals are a major cause of emerging infectious diseases like COVID-19. We told you this a year ago!

That’s a good start, but nothing has been done to stop frogs, snakes, chickens and other animals from being sold, even though confining and killing them in unsanitary live animal markets also contributes to the spread of disease. As long as live animal markets remain open and any animal is sold, intelligent and sentient creatures will continue to suffer and humans will be at great risk.

Thanks to everyone who took action below – please keep up: Share this alert with your friends and family and anyone else you know until WHO calls for all live animal markets to close.

Regarding the current pandemic, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says, “The first infection was linked to a live animal market in China”. The new coronavirus is believed to have crossed the species barrier to humans from wildlife used for meat. SARS is believed to have first infected humans at one such live-animal market (also known as a “wet market”) in China.

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, avian flu, swine flu, HIV, Ebola and other diseases in humans have been linked to animal meat production or consumption. But not all of these come from live-animal markets — for example, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a form of mad cow disease, can infect a person who has eaten parts of an infected cow’s body — but such markets, where stressed, injured and sick animals are typically kept in cages in public areas, provide the perfect opportunity for animal diseases to infect humans. In this video, Peter Lee, associate professor at the University of Houston-Downtown, says that in wet markets, “the cages are stacked one on top of the other. The animals underneath are often soaked with all kinds of liquid. Animal feces, pus, blood.” Such conditions allow viruses to spread from one animal to another, as well as to humans who come into contact with them.

Although the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China, where the coronavirus is believed to have first infected humans, was closed and that country banned the consumption and keeping of “wild” animals, there are reports that wet markets in China are reopening. It is important to note that diseases do not only affect “wild” animals. In 1997, an outbreak of H5N1 bird flu was observed in chickens on farms and wet markets in Hong Kong, and the first human infection of H5N1 was observed in Hong Kong that same year. About 60% of humans who become infected with H5N1 bird flu die. Many wet markets also continue to operate in many countries across Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas. This includes India, where there are thousands of meat shops and unlicensed slaughterhouses that sell live animals.

Just as we don’t want to be infected or die from a disease, other animals don’t want to suffer or be killed for food either. For example, a hen simply wants to be left in peace so she can introduce her chicks to her voice before they hatch (just like a human mother talks to her baby in the womb) and teach them how to survive. And fish simply want to be left alone so they can protect their babies, build nests, and swim wherever they want.

Regardless of the species they sell, live animal markets pose a threat to human populations as well as push countless animals to miserable deaths.