This month, a group of Hong Kong businessmen was taken on a tour of a steel plant in Guangzhou and told it keeps a small zoo to promote environmental awareness.
The 'zoo' turned out to be a metal cage with a pair of sika deer, which factory managers said are good sensors of air pollution, and a few peacocks.
An outsider may mock the factory's slap-dash attempts to go green, but such budding environmental awareness might one day save many wild animals from cooking woks and salvage Guangdong residents' reputation of eating pretty much anything they can get on to the dinner table.
Markets in Guangdong supply a vast array of animals for eating, including owls, swans, civets, endangered pangolins and protected golden monkeys, snakes, turtles, toads, dogs, cats and pheasants. Then there are animals so exotic you cannot easily determine what they are.
The origin of this penchant for devouring the animal kingdom is rooted in the Chinese belief in the curative value of some foods. But over the years, wildlife cuisine has become a trendy and luxurious delicacy.
A pangolin that has been smuggled past wildlife protection officers during a long overland journey from Vietnam can be sliced thinly to dip into a hotpot, boiled for hours with Chinese medicine or braised in a brown sauce. A meal of pangolin has to be ordered in advance and is typically washed down with brandy or Chinese spirits in a well-appointed dining room.
