China has belatedly closed down more than 19,000 wildlife farms that, until recently, were being strongly encouraged as a fast way for rural communities to become richer (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/25/coronavirus-closures-reveal-vast-scale-of-chinas-secretive-wildlife-farm-industry). The farmed animals were designed to produce animals for consumption or for generating material for traditional medicine. The trouble is that some experts now feel that the recent coronavirus outbreak is linked to this activity. In deed, one of the animals that people were being encouraged to breed on these farms is the Civet cat that has been linked to the not wholly dissimilar Mers viral outbreak.
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