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Poisoned swans sold to eateries in NE China

By Zuo Likun (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-04-09 12:45

Migratory birds, including swans and wild geese, have been poisoned near a reservoir in Northeast China’s Liaoning province, and then sold to restaurants for food, the Shenyang Evening News reported Friday.

The poison, a tasteless colorless cyanide coated in soaked bean or corn as bait, was so potent that “even a grown-up wild goose couldn’t fly 50 meters if it took two or three such beans,” said a man surnamed Li at Liuhegou village in Xinmin city, near the Liaohe River, where the crime took place.

Liaohe River, the third largest in Northeast China, swerves its course near Li’s village, giving birth to a plain that harbors migratory birds. The swans, wild geese and ducks, lingering around until late spring, has become a tempting money maker coveted by “local idlers”, Li said.

The poisoned wild birds, immediately plunked and eviscerated, were then sold to local restaurants for special cuisines, the newspaper said.

“As long as it is eviscerated, it’s ok, or else the restaurants will be in trouble if customers died,” said another villager.

A wild life protection station in Shenyang, capital of Liaoning province, is now looking into the matter, the newspaper said.

Some regions in the country have been notorious for its fondness for wildlife dishes. Earlier this year, a health research center in Guangdong found evidence that widespread meat consumption of masked civet, a wild mammal in Southeast Asia, was behind the fatal respiratory disease SARS in 2002 that claimed at least 300 lives on the Chinese mainland. The research was jointly produced with a university in Hong Kong, where the disease has killed 300.