Marketed for its fur and meat, the raccoon dog is the new suspect in the search for the origin of the Covid pandemic, which started from Wuhan in China at the start of 2020.
After the theories of the pangolin and the bat, which have monopolized researchers and the media for months, it would seem that this small canine, close to the raccoon, is the new suspect in this hunt for the animal reviled for having upset the planet.
This discovery was made by a consortium of several researchers at the end of March. In a study on the wild fauna sold regularly on the famous “fish market” of Wuhan, different species, including the raccoon dog (literally “raccoon dog”, or “raccoon dog” in French).
“Farms in deplorable conditions”
“I was looking for information on another sequence from the Wuhan market in January 2020” explains CNRS researcher Florence Débarre to Release. She then discovered the presence of raccoon dog DNA in samples positive for Covid-19 from the market.
An omnivorous species that hibernates in winter, the raccoon dog looks like a raccoon, with short legs, and measures 50 to 80 centimeters long in adulthood. Its thick coat is grey/black, with brown spots. Its mouth has a black mask over its eyes. It is a species that lives mainly in eastern Asia, hidden in forests.
Known indirectly as “tanuki” in Japanese mythology, he is credited with magical powers in the Land of the Rising Sun. But in China, its exploitation to collect the fur is intensive, “with 12 million raccoon dogs kept in farms in deplorable conditions”, according to 30 million friends.
Scientists remain cautious, however: the animals from which the samples were taken “might have been contaminated by people who were already positive for Covid-19”, they say. This limits, once once more, the strength of the trail of formal proof of transmission of the virus from animals to humans.
