Chinese rare bird poacher uses females as bait
Forest ranger finds man, 52, carrying a strange home-made cage and acting suspiciously
A middle-aged man in central China has been detained by police after he caught national protected wild birds by luring males with female birds, mainland media reports.
Four rangers found the man, identified only by his surname Wu, carrying a strange cage and acting suspiciously in the mountains in Queshan county, Henan province on December 9, the Dahe Daily reported.
Wu’s home-made cage consisted of three smaller cages – one was locked and contained a female bird and the other two were used for catching the males. When the males moved into a certain part of the cage, it would spring a trap.
Police said it was very unusual to see female birds being used to lure males.
A special net to trap birds, a sickle and a music player with downloaded bird sounds were also discovered in Wu’s bag, the report said.
Local police detained Wu after they found similar cages and 10 protected wild birds at his home, including thrushes, hawfinches and a rosefinch.
A policeman said Wu had used the net and cage to hunt birds while playing bird sounds at the same time.
Wu, 52, confessed to making the cages and said he could not remember how many birds he had caught in the past two years.
He sold the birds to breeders in town for between 30 yuan to 50 yuan (HK$33.50 to HK$56) each.
