Another Chinese city has officially banned its residents from eating cat and dog meat following new legislation in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Zhuhai, a city just north of Macau, issued the order in tandem with a government proposal which lists dogs as 'companion animals', according to state media.
Shenzhen, also located in China's southern Guangdong Province, became the first city to prohibit the consumption of pets. It announced the ban on April 1 after passing a drafted law on March 31.
The prohibition of eating cat and dog meat will be effective in both cities from May 1.
State-run media outlet China News reported that Zhuhai officials announced the decision during a press conference on Tuesday (NZ time).
Yong Ling, the supervisor of the legal affairs committee of the Standing Committee of People's Congress of Zhuhai Municipality, said legislators must adhere to China's Directory of Genetic Resources of Livestock and Poultry when deciding what meat can be legally traded and consumed, as reported by the Daily Mail UK.
Zhuhai authorities decided to ban the consumption of dogs and cats as the animals were omitted from a drafted version of the directory, Yong added.
Offenders will be fined up to 20 times the value of the meat, according to a report from Xinhua.
The move accompanies a wider ban on the trading of wild animals in Zhuhai in response to global concerns regarding the safety of food sold in China's notorious wet markets.
While the exact origin of COVID-19 remains unclear, it has been frequently linked back to a seafood market in Wuhan, the city considered as the epicentre of the virus. Both experts and Chinese officials have claimed humans contracted the virus from market wildlife, kept in unsanitary conditions. Close contact with wild animals, such as bats and pangolins, has therefore been largely blamed for the pandemic.
China's ruling body banned markets from selling wildlife for consumption in late February, following the controversial evidence that suggested COVID-19 originated from the Wuhan wet market. Initial reports indicate that the ban is temporary.
China's last significant health crisis, the SARS epidemic in 2002 and 2003, was also linked to the consumption of wild animals.
As reported by the Daily Mail UK, Zhuhai will also prohibit all restaurants, hotels and farms from selling exotic meat from May 1.
Wendy Higgins, a spokesperson of Humane Society International, told the outlet she hoped Zhuhai's ban would trigger "a domino effect of progressive legislation across China".
"Coming so soon after Shenzhen's ban and the government's historic statement classifying dogs as pets, we hope this is the start of a domino effect... with other cities following suit."
It was recently revealed that Wuhan's wet markets have been slowly stirring back to life as the city emerges from an 11-week lockdown imposed to fight its rampant COVID-19 outbreak. One of the city's largest wet markets, Baishazhou, is said to be back in business - but according to reports, organisers are warning vendors that "slaughtering and selling live animals" is no longer permitted, in cooperation with the ban.
As of Thursday (NZ time), there have been more than 83,390 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in China. Official figures claim the death toll stands at 3346, although this has been widely disputed as inaccurate and a significant underestimate.
