Police nab poachers; electricity used in kills

Police in Shaanxi province have cracked a large group of poachers on Taibai Mountain in the northern Qinling Mountains. Wild animals were electrocuted and then illegally sold in seven provinces, police said.

The network was cracked in November, with 48 suspects detained and about 1,000 wildlife carcasses found, an official told The-Paper.cn on Monday. Among the animals, were State-level protected species - 12 musk deer and four black bears.

Wang Haike, head of a criminal division of the local police station, told China National Radio that animals were poached for high profit.

"For example, four bear paws can be sold for 20,000 yuan ($3,000)," Wang said. "In the gray markets, traffickers can push the price up to hundreds of thousands of yuan."

The meat of wild boars, rabbits and birds was packaged and frozen. Bears' paws were cut off. Musk deer were killed for musk, which has a high value in some medicinal practices. Some went to dining tables and some were used as bribes, he said.

A trafficker surnamed Bai told the radio station that he knew trading wildlife was against the law but took a chance because he wanted to make money.

The animals were all killed by electric wires the poaching teams had set up, and the work was clearly defined, Bai said.

One member, a local farmer surnamed Su, who grew up around Taibai Mountain and was familiar with the surroundings, was responsible for finding the best spots to set up the wires.

"We put electric wires in places where animals went frequently," Su said.

They bought condensers, voltage boosters and batteries online at about 3,000 yuan per set and then assembled them and connected them to wires.

"The wires contained tens of thousands of volts," said Wang, the police officer. "Any animal or human would die immediately if they touched it. That poses a big threat to public security."

"The poachers stayed near the generator and when an animal was shocked, they could find it by following the wire. The carcasses would be dissected immediately, with the most precious part like musk and bear paws removed," he added.

Investigators said there were four poaching teams on the mountain and that their boss, surnamed Lu, had been doing this for three decades. He collected and processed the animals, and then sold them in Shaanxi and other provinces, including Sichuan, Jiangxi, Guangdong, Shandong, Fujian and Yunnan. Lu was arrested in October.

"Hunting and trafficking wild animals damages the ecology. To prevent the crime from happening, public security organs will severely crack down on them once they find evidence, and protect the environment of Qinling," Wang said.