Since the hotbed of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Wuhan in China, was closed down, the people in the small slangeopdrætningsby Zisiqiao has had to adapt to a life without hoses. It has otherwise been their livelihood for decades.
Now opdrætningshusene empty. Where before there was lots of life, and people had to breed over three million snakes every year.
Even the chinese word for ‘snake’ has been removed from the wall of a restaurant, which is otherwise specialized in slangemåltider in the city.
Zisiqiao has been the center of China’s slangeindustri in almost four decades. Its slangemuseum is a tourist attraction.
the Snakes have also been a part of the village economy, when families kept them in the backyard in order to sell them to restaurants or as traditional medicine. Writes Reuters.
The global coronavus pandemic started in an open market in Wuhan. But most agree that the hoses were not the source of the infection. It was either bats or skældyr (pangoliner), who brought the infection with him, believe many.
China introduced a temporary ban on the trading and eating of wild animals 23. January. They have since promised to make the ban permanent.
In Zisiqiao, 200 km from Shanghai, starts slangeavlen first in earnest in april or may, so the economic result of the ban is not so big yet.
“When the pandemic is over, so is it still not legal,” says Lu Jinliang, who is deputy head of the local communist party. “They will have to change profession.”
In China are sold 7.000-9.000 tonnes of tubing per year.
