Tianjin markets sold migratory birds captured illegally to restaurants
Owners paid HK$76.6 per kilo after creatures had been fattened up for smothering, CCTV investigation found
Several bird markets in Tianjin were found to have sold migratory birds captured illegally, and on a daily basis hundreds of thousands of them, some endangered, are sold to restaurants, China Central Television reported today.
Traders kept the birds in cages and fed them a diet designed to make them grow fat in a short period. They would smother the birds, then freeze and sell them to restaurants, according to the report.
Traders said that the birds mostly went to restaurants in Guangdong, where the owners were willing to pay 60 yuan (HK$76.6) per kilo. CCTV undercover reporters revealed how hunters set up nets to capture the birds as they migrated south.
China’s wildlife protection laws have banned the killing of wild and endangered animals, including birds, since 1989.
In January police arrested two men in Shangdong for killing 175 birds, many of them considered endangered. They were found near Weishan lake, a natural habitat of migrant birds in winter.
