Not long ago,China will start to construct a nationwide wildlife quarantine watch system, in an attempt to spot wildlife epidemics and protect both human and animal security on a timely basis, announced the China State Forestry Bureau.

ZHAO Xuemin, Deputy Director of State Forestry Bureau told reporters that the bureau will establish a nationwide watch system to track down wildlife-carried pathogens, and to understand their transmissions. The daily watch system will make a prompt judgment of epidemic attack, identifying pathogens, and determining affected areas possible. The effort will also help to cut off the possible spread of animal epidemics to human. Once cross infection or mutation occurs, wild animals, due to their large differences in living habits, habitat environment, and pathogens carried, can result in extensive spread of epidemic diseases, threatening wild animal species, unbalancing the natural ecological equilibrium, and even wiping out an entire population of precious or endangered species.

The quarantine watch is designed with the following missions: organizing a benchmark survey for wild animal epidemic sources and diseases, collecting basic data on natural epidemic sources, wild animal hosts, and vulnerable wild animal species, and gathering basic information on types, attacks, spread and damages of wild animal epidemic diseases both at home and abroad. The State Forestry Bureau will in the first run establish some 100 land quarantine watch spots in major wild animal epidemic source areas, migration channels, and habitats. To guide monitoring efforts, a wild animal quarantine watch center will be physically established in the compound of the Forest Diseases and Pests Control Center, part of the State Forestry Bureau.