The police of Guangzhou confiscated some nationally protected wild animals, including oriental rat snake and Gallinula chloropus, from a farm produce market in Jiangcun village, Baiyun district on Friday. 

Two people from Hunan province were caught at a market for selling wild animals such as rats, pheasants and snakes, according to New Express on Friday. 

They could not provide legal documents for their animal selling business, and police are counting and classifying the wild animals they confiscated.

China has put a ban on all forms of wildlife trade and implemented strict control on activities related to wild animals to curb the novel coronavirus.

Although disease experts in China and abroad have not identified the origin of the novel coronavirus, virologists highly suspect it comes from a wild animal.