I don’t know what’s hidden in the batcaves, here or in China, but I do know pure bat guano when I hear it, and Republican congressman Mike Gallagher just dropped a load here. Before you listen to him, ask yourself this: Crime goes up in warm weather, right? People eat ice cream, also in warm weather. Did it ever occur to you that ice cream is the cause of crime? If you’re saying “Whut?” just listen to Gallagher’s argument here and tell me if it makes any more sense than the drivel I just spewed.

There are bat caves everywhere. They’re in Austin, Texas. They’re in Missouri. And bats don’t all live in caves, either. Ask Stephen King. They’re in the attic of his house in Bangor, Maine. And they are in Enshi, China, which is what Gallagher is ranting about. Washington Post:

A clampdown on Enshi’s wildlife trade at wet markets began on Dec. 23, 2019, according to state media, eight days before China publicly acknowledged the new virus. The head start in Enshi doesn’t mean officials found something amiss: It could have been preventive, as rumors emerged of market vendors falling mysteriously ill in Wuhan. But it means evidence regarding Enshi’s wildlife trade was erased before the world was aware of the existence of a novel coronavirus.

Since then, Beijing has rebuffed international calls for more details on supply chains of live wildlife leading to Wuhan markets, even as local officials shut down wildlife farms — possibly coming across some of the information the WHO seeks. U.S. intelligence agencies told President Biden in August that the virus was not a biological weapon, but that natural transmission and a lab-related accident were possible origins. […]

Scientists say SARS-CoV-2 probably originated in bats. How it got from a bat to a human is unclear, with debate over two prevailing theories.

According to the natural-transmission theory, the virus could have been passed directly to a human who wandered into a cave — perhaps a villager, a hunter or a scientist. It also could have been transmitted first to an intermediate host such as a civet, for instance, if the civet drank water contaminated with bat feces. […]

On Dec. 23, 2019 — eight days before Wuhan announced a mysterious pneumonia — the Enshi forestry bureau ordered a halt to live wildlife sales at wet markets in the prefecture, the state-run Hubei Daily reported in February 2020.

In January 2020, a month before China banned the trade and consumption of wild animals nationwide, the Enshi forestry bureau announced that a goal for the year was rectifying wildlife breeding and strengthening monitoring for wild animal epidemics.

At least six wet markets in Enshi city were closed by March 2020.

An Enshi forestry bureau report in September of this year recounted enforcement steps including wildlife farm shutdowns and cash rewards for tips on violations.

Some online notices about local wildlife farming became inaccessible after The Post approached Enshi authorities.

Humans have long encountered bats at Tenglong Cave, according to local residents and news reports. As early as 1988, the Belgian-Chinese Karst and Caves Association reported “intensive utilization” of the cave by local residents, including digging out bat dung for fertilizer.

Tourists and adventurers continue to visit. At the entrance to Tenglong’s lower cave, where the Qing River surges toward the Yangtze River, local spelunkers geared up on a recent day, fastening helmets, snaking ropes over their shoulders, packing waterproof bags.

A mile down the road sits Changyan Farm, a small operation with blue and silver corrugated metal roofs that had been licensed to raise civets, porcupines and wild boar. The deserted farm and dilapidated house across the road showed no signs of recent use. A restaurant and hotel behind the property was closed, and the caretaker declined to discuss the farm.

“The forestry officials came by early around the Lunar New Year” in 2020, said a neighbor, who would not give her name out of fear of official retribution. “They closed everything down on that farm. I’m not sure what animals they had at the time or what they did with them.”

Nobody knows and everybody’s scared, which is pretty normal in a communist country. Not a great environment in which to trace the origins of the pandemic, but people like this congressman with his hostile inferences and conspiracy theories are only muddying the water, not clarifying anything.

 

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2 COMMENTS

  1. There are a lot of caves in China – much of southern China (and the northern parts of Vietnam and Laos and….) are on limestone rock which makes for wonderful caves and lots of bat habitat.
    And has anyone ever told him about fruit bats? They’re amazingly cute.
    (There are bats in L.A. I used to watch them in Pasadena as it got dark.)

  2. Guess orange Dumbo shouldn’t have dismantled the group we had in those labs to keep up with batman & Robin. Or let in 40,000 travelers without any testing etc. No this whole thing is on the # 1 serial killer, who is still running loose. Frump. How many are there now??? 700,000 plus. AND HES STILL LOOSE & HE IS STILL KILLING. FACT. I guess when thousands of children die, maybe the rest of us will get pissed off enough to turn the tables, & have them go into hiding for fear of retribution. WE ARE THE GODDAMN MAJORITY.

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